(RAS and son (standing behind his father) at a Pidyon HaBen yesterday.)
CBT, the pillar of truth, commenting on Circus Tent Clickable Classics
First things first, and it must be clearly understood, there are two things that should never be confused because they are most definitely not synonymous, even though to many people, even within the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin - Kollel Gur Aryeh (CB for short) it may superficially seem so: And that is that Rav Yitzchok Hutner (RYH) and Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin are NOT the same subject and one cannot automatically interchange the name CB with RYH. Doing so could even backfire big time. So always remember that CB is a 100 year old institution in Brooklyn that hired RYH, he then headed and moulded it for some time, but CB preceded RYH and it goes on after his passing headed by others, now most notably by Rav Aron Shechter (RAS) its current Rosh Yeshiva and its president Reb Avrohom Fruchthandler (RAF) (AFAIK, RAF is not an ordained rabbi and does not claim to be one, even though, make no mistake about it, he is as quick and tough a talmid chochem as he is a businessman.) CB is not Lubavitch and RYH is not the Lubavitcher Rebbe so it's not the same style and way of thinking. RYH was an individualist and HIS talmdim were very different from each other, unlike Lubavitchers and all Chasidim who are most often mostly from one mold.
Now it is true that if one was accepted as a student into CB then one can claim to be a CBer but even that is not always fully true, usually not all CBers are equal, and in fact one can spend many years in CB and not become a CBer at all, and being a CBer has a variety of connotations. At any rate, RYH had his own life which he kept separate from CB the institution, and there were times, especially in the last part of his life, starting in the mid-1960s when he started his elongated trips to EY with the plans of leaving NY and building a new yeshiva in Yerushalayim which he eventually did. RYH passed away in 1980 and from the mid 1960s he started to spend most of his time in EY and commuting back to the US to spend Pesach and Yomim Noraim/Sukkos and say his famous ma'amorim. Don't forget that it was on one of those transcontinental commutes that he, his wife, daughter and son in law, who were also with him, that they were on a plane that was hijacked by the PLO's Black September in 1970 to Jordan.
The point of all this particular information so far, is that RYH having made a decision to spend most of his time in EY and at the same time keep on coming back to the CB yeshiva in Brooklyn for Pesach and RH and/or Sukkos, a practice that his son in law Rav Yonason David (RYD) and Rebbetzin Bruria (Hutner) David (RBD) still keep up at till the present (they come for all of Pesach and the first days of Sukkos only). So in effect RYH was a rosh yeshiva in America and EY simultaneously. At first, by the early 1970s, he built a yeshiva in Yerushalayim together with Rav Dov Schwartzman (son in law of Rav Aharon Kotler, who was divorced from Rav Kotler's daughter and remarried) at Bais HaTalmud but they had a serious falling out and RYH withdrew to just his small Kollel Ohr Eliyahu in Yerushalyim, and then launched plans to build Yeshivas Pachad Yitzchok which was only completed after his passing in Har Nof and which is headed by RYD only (RAS is restricted to Brooklyn but RYD is permitted to come and go as he please since he is the "chasne debei nesia.")
So now, while in EY, RYH attracted new people and talmidei chachomim to himself who had no connection at all to the CB in America. Some were attracted to his derech and some he worked in drawing closer. Evidently, Rav Shlomo Wolbe (RSW), already appreciated RYH from his writings, but there is no doubt that he was not only from the earliest big names to be mekabel RYH upon his return to EY in the 1960s (remember that RYH was originally a talmid of the Alter of Slabodka in Europe and in the original Chevron Yeshiva in the late 1920s and early 1930s). But evidently the old yishuv of the 1960s was not sure who the RYH of the 1960s was.
Why?
RYH, with his appreciation for secular knowledge and having headed a yeshiva (CB) that permits going to college and added to the known relationship he had with Rav Avrohom Yitzchok Kook, ad to that that the Briskers had their own grudges against RYH who they felt was not respectful to the Brisker Rov, Rav Velvel (RYH was in great awe of Rav Chaim MiBrisk, and was clooe to Rav Moshe Soloveitchik and his sons the American Rav Yoshe Ber of YU and his younger brother Rav Aron who RYH appointed as rosh yeshiva in CB before RAS), so that there were all sorts of suspicions and uncertainties floating around in the minds of Charedim in EY and it was RSW who came to RYH "rescue" and decalred that all is well and that RYH is kosher veyosher lemahdrin! This was something that RYH recognized and was deeply grateful to RSW for.
But a fascinating thing then happened, RYH and RSW had a great love and respect for each other, both being major ba'alei machshove and genuine Jewish philosophers who knew their stuff, but RYH was way ahead and had worked longer and harder and had established himself on a far deeper level, so that RSW was drawn into RYH's world and way of thinking and supposedly they established a chavruse in kabbala together with RYH as the senior mentor and that in turn resulted that supposedly RSW said on himself, it might even be written in one sefer that RSW wrote, that he was RYH's talmid peshuto kemashma'o without any preconditions.
That is is how it is understood and accepted in CB and noone who knows has disputed it. Indeed, after the passing of RYH, RSW supposedly kept up a chavruseshaft with RYD but it was never heard that he called RYD his "rebbe" unless others may have heard more. RSW is not alone in this regard, many others became talmidim of RYH in EY over the years without ever setting foot in CB in Brooklyn or even coming to RYH's yeshivas in EY. So don't be surprsied if you hear that they claim to be talmidim of RYH without ever being a day in CB in Brooklyn. Today there are many in the Litvishe oilem haTorah who are serious students of RYH's ten volume Pachod Yitzchok sefarim and among those there are no doubt people who will justifiably claim to be talmidim of RYH based on the fact that they have devoured and digested (the contents of) his seforim and have adopted and even adapted his derech from his sefarim. It is not far fetched.
So yes, it is true and valid to say that RSW and others were talmidim of RYH without ever having been in formal institutions that RYH ran. There is more to say on this topic but this is more than enough for now.
89 comments:
ayin the hakdama to r wolbes sefer on the mitzvos, where he writes that he was going to leave it for after his petirah but since reb yonasan pushed him to publish it, he is heeding him.
i witnessed rsw pouring wine for ryd before hundreds at the sukkos maamar.
Not quite sure why Tzig posted the photos of RAS and his son Noson Tzvi (named for the Alter of Slabodka) who is also a successful mohel and businessman with a truly choshuve and wonderful family, as are all of RAS's children, sons and daughters in law and all his einiklach kein ayin horah (of which he has many) and oer-einiklach (a growing number all the time, ken yirbu)!
But one thing needs to be stated very clearly, and it is evident in these photos very much, that first and foremost RAS is a great ba'al avoda and is machshiv and mechavev mitzvos far, far more than most people can fathom, and it has a great effect on anyone in his daled amos who sees it first hand, you can literally read it on his face and he deserves full credit for this, as indeed RYH recognized when he encouraged RAS to name his own sefer "Avodas Aharon" since as RYH says there in his haskoma that RAS is distinguished by his approach to things in the manner of avoda (like a cohen, which he is not) and especially to limud haTorah which he approaches as the ultimate avoda. As long as he can stick to this domain he is more than great, but when he gets involved in petty mili de'alma that is not really his field his gyro-system is not the same, as many have found out, and it gets frustrating to watch him try to deal with plain old human situations, foibles and failings as if it was the toughest tosfos, or a Faustian challenge, or the heaviest korban needing all the pitchufkes and kavanos that had to be applied and brought, but which are usually counter-productive in more mundane and plebian situations.
Lemoshol: If you need a plumber you don't call a physicist who will look into how gravity sucks water down drains maybe. If you need a roofer you don't call an astronuat who looks at things from way up high for a bird's eye view of your roof. And if you need a loaf of bread you don't go to the chemist or to the botanist.
Note, that Judaism is not Catholicism and we don't rely on Popes. Noone is perfect, not even the biggest ba'al avoda, and by the way, even the Lubavitcher Rebbe had his obvious human failings especially when you consider his treatment and richuk of Rabbi Barry Gurary his nephew (but that is quite another story for another day) but it is great to watch RAS do mitzvos, as it was a mechaye to watch RYH and the Lubavitcher Rebbe during their tefilos and in kiyum hamitvos ma'asiyos always lemehadrin, rather than think about when they went off on wild goose chases and cruel personal vendettas that harmed the victims and the perpetrators at the same.
CBT
not quite sure how the Rebbe gets dragged into the conversation here...
BG was the one with the vendetta, remember? not the Rebbe.
teig; it takes 2 to tangle...
CBT
Ranch 1, R S Carlebach plus LH about Belz
weights much More than your BG
satmartc,
Ranch1 had nothing to do with RAS. It allegedly had to do with RAF. But even that has been proven to be false. Even outside CB, practically everybody has come to the realization that Ranch1 was a bunch of baloney. If it was true why was a single charge never pressed against RAF? Why did nobody ever hear about this story again? Etc...
Either way, RAS has almost nothing to due with the finances of CB. Unlike many other yeshivos, where the Rosh Yeshiva is involved in day to day finances of the yeshiva, RAS has very minimal involvment in the finances of CB except for some fundraising, i.e. parlor meetings, etc...
RSC is a story that neither you nor anybody on this blog (including CBT) has the right to pass judgment on. It is a long and complicated story that you most probably do not know even a slight fraction about. Even people who do seem to know quite a bit of the story and who do have a very deep understanding of what went on, such as CBT, will not be too quick too pass judgment on RAS.
LH about Belz? You should thrilled about that in Satmar!
That is besides the fact that there was no LH about Belz from RAS.
Tzig said:
"BG was the one with the vendetta, remember? not the Rebbe."
I say:
Yes I do remember!
And you certainly do not!
You came to Chabad l'achar hamaseh. Of course by then all the shmutz had already been swept under the rug and all was made to loiok nice n' good.
But you are only getting the scraps of the story. You are claiming to remember something that you only heard second hand and never experienced yourself!
Go speak to a few of the remaining Chabadniks fun der alter heim, who's loyalty to the Rebbe did not run as deep as today's generation who view him as the Melech Hamoshiach amongst other things.
Then come back and tell us what you remember!
VN
Ranch 1 is not baloney, there are recorded tapes
if u r a little smart you realize that something happened
there were not charges against RAF.. this says very little
RSC , I am nor judging, I don't know details,I only know that some ppl were called to a BD and did not show up
ANd there is Lots of LH about Belz
Satmar? it is another unreltaed story that u might know very little
1. Re Rabbi YH - a very interesting and beautiful, exchange of letters between RYH and the Rebbe was published in Kfar Chabad Magazine recently, ayin shom.
2. Re: BG - acharei hakdomas that I'm not a Johnny come lately - (and many of those are quite knowledgeable, so I don't mean it in the racist tone that the detractor may have...), Barry was the one who wanted nothing to do with the Rebbe. Although, indeed ain kan mekomo,since there was chiru vegiduf I can't let it go.
In the 40s the Rebbe was his best friend, helped him with his college (sic!) work, spoke to him, respected him, didn't laugh at him, didn't consider him an untouchable etc. as many big chassidim did. They didn't get along with him because they didn't "get him" (as in "get it"). He was a thinker, a scientist etc. and the Rebbe was the only one who understood him and respected him for what he was. He didn't even learn in TT. He learned in TV.
Just that after tuf shin yud Barry totally couldn't bring himself to fargin the nessee'us to the Rebbe. I'm not judging him - and therefore I don't blame him. He wouldn't let his uncle come to his chasuna.
But do NOT HAVE THE CHUTZPA AND HA'AZA to rewrite history, say the Rebbe was merachek him and add charachter assesment that is not shayach to tzadikim.
Now, you may not believe in the derech hachasidus and that's your prerogative, yehi lecha asher lach, but don't invent things! And if you are an adherent to the derech hamusar, you can certainly find a mareh makom which will confirm that you are out of line...
Yom Tov Sheini
satmartc,
1- Those recording do not contain anything said by RAF. They contain his name being mentioned by a goy, that’s all.
The fact that there were no charges says a lot. If a story makes headlines and there is any truth to it, the authorities will try to make something of it.
Most of all, you seem to be missing the point. I might have gone off on a bit of a tangent and confused you. My main point was that RAS had nothing to do with the Ranch1 story l'chol hadeyos. So even if the entire thing was true and RAF got a life sentence without parole for it, RAS had nothing to do with it and his name never ever came up in the story, ever!
2- Very brave of you to admit that you do not know much about the RSC saga aside from the fact that a hazmanah l'din was ignored.
3- I am sure that there is a lot of LH about Belz. Maybe even some that came from the mouth of a CBer or two due to the issue of the land which Belz is built on. But none of that LH has come from RAS.
Hayotzeh midvareinu: It would than seem that your statement of:
"CBT
Ranch 1, R S Carlebach plus LH about Belz
weights much More than your BG"
is completely baseless. Since (a) RAS had nothing to do with Ranch1. (b) You are maskim that you are clueless about the RSC incident. (c) RAS has never spoken any LH about Belz.
You seem to be making the big mistake of making RAS and CB one and the same. They are not. Just ask CBT, he can tell you all about it. CB was around long before RAS was born, and will iy"h be around long after he passes on achar meiah v'esrim.
RAS's BG weighs more than you can immagine!
One part of this post that's definitely bogus is that RSW's endorsement overcame skepticism of RYH by Briskers. RSW himself had no credibility with Briskers.
On another note, I mentioned to someone who learned in and had connections to CB in the 50s and 60s the theory - put forth by someone on this blog - that RSC's troubles stemmed from a power struggle with RAS (& RYD) for control of CB. He skoffed at this. He said there was never the slightest possibility that anyone could have ever thought of RSC as a rival to RAS, who was always very solidly entrenched as The Man.
Satmartc
Are you satmars finished with your own Zaly/Aroiny fights that you can show your 'mevines' about some silly babbeh mayseh that has zero basis in fact?
I was talking about the image that reflects CB in gral
not about any particuLar Rabbi
AFAIK, RAS has never said any LH about Belz. Farkert he stops people from saying anything if it comes to his attention. Too much at stake for CB because there are major CBers with "dual citizenship" of CB and Belz like the Golds and the Biegeleisens many of whom learned in CB and were/are talmidim of RYH and of RAS and at the same time are ANASH of Belz and the current Belzer rebbe.
It is RYD who holds that "gantz Belz is treif" (oh, and I do not agree with him !!!) -- that is the way RAF put it to me in very clear blunt words, no ifs and or buts, and it is understandable because as RAF states Belz caused CB a "hefsed merubah" after RYH had personally approved of and chosen the site for the original Pachad Yitzchok Yeshiva in Yerushalayim, and RAF helped put down a big deposit assuming he had it in the bag, along came the agents of and RYD.
By that time RYH had already passed away, so RYD and RAF were left with the job of looking for new karka and they took the gamble of choosing a location in Har Nof/Givat Shaul about 28 years ago (about a year or two after RYH passed away) when noone had heard of the place, so they pioneered a new neighborhood in Yerushalyim that in turn has become the main center for Charedi Anglos in EY.
And by the way, while the Yeshiva Pachad Yitzchok has not become a "second CB" but RYD's personal popularity for saying over RYD-style ma'amorim has really caught on big time. They already have to put in bleechers to accomodate the over-flwo crowds. Likewise when he speaks in CB in Brooklyn there are always bigger crowds, and interestingly always growing numbers of SPODIKS in the crowd, not worn by CBers, but from genuine Gerrer Chasidim who love RYD's Torah, and he really says it over with an astounding depth and similarity to his heilige shver RYD the ba'al Pachad Yitzchok zy"a.
Now, to "Fotheringay-Phipps" who says:
"One part of this post that's definitely bogus is that RSW's endorsement overcame skepticism of RYH by Briskers. RSW himself had no credibility with Briskers."
You miss the point, you did not read carefully, noone said that the Briskers came to terms with RYH and that they made sholom, they have their own hang-ups, but what happened was that RSW helped to overcome doubts from all sorts of quarters who may have heard one thing from the Briskers about RYH, so that RSW helped to influence the public perception among the OLD YISHUV, and that includes more than just Briskers, there are many other elements such as Chevroners, Mirrers, Chasidim like Ger (although in the Ger dept RYH won over the Rebbes himself because they viewed him as an eiginer -- RYH' mother was a Wiedenfeld a mishpoche of Gerrer chasidim and RYH was from Varsha in Poland), so all in all RSW did indeed help RYH while the Briskers may have remained sceptical.
Note, that unlike RYH, RAS has the strongest and best relations with the Briskers and they are machshiv him ad me'od. Many top CB bochurim have been going to Brisk under RAS's reign unlike in the days of RYH who never ceased to make jokes about Brisk and preferred to send his talmidim in the old days to Chevron or to Mir in Yerushalayim. Not so RAS who send them EVERYWHERE including to Rav Dovid Soloveitchik and RAS's letters of intro are regarded as make or break classics by the Briskers and for the bochurim from CB they accept on that basis. Yet RAS has the strongest love and bonds with Rav Noson Finkel of the Mir and many CB talmidm are there over the years. They love the CB bochurim in return.
"On another note, I mentioned to someone who learned in and had connections to CB in the 50s and 60s the theory - put forth by someone on this blog - that RSC's troubles stemmed from a power struggle with RAS (& RYD) for control of CB. He skoffed at this. He said there was never the slightest possibility that anyone could have ever thought of RSC as a rival to RAS, who was always very solidly entrenched as The Man."
Again you miss the point, you were not being delicate enough. It was NOT a case of a prostte power struggle between RAS and RSC as such, in fact RSC supported and acknowledged RAS as the rosh yeshiva he was. The problem was a few steps before that, that RYH had promised RSC when he appointed him as mashgiach ruchani of CB (a very powerful and influential post in CB as in any major yeshiva) that he (RSC) would have an equal vote with RYD and RAS in a three-man ruling hanhala, and indeed to gain entry into the yeshiva, any new bochur would need to get permission from all three. If RYD was away in Israel at any one time then it did not apply and it was then just RSC and RAS who did the interviews, with RAS getting the last say usually.
The problem was that RYD and RAS poshut ganged up on and bullied because THEY decided he would not submit to them fully once RYH would be in EY permanantly which he (RYH) planned to do, so RSC then appealed his case to RYH who sided with RAS and RYD and at which point RSC cried foul reminding RYH of his words that he (RSC) would have EQUAL votes with the others, but they paid no attention, and pushed him out uncermonsiously with full bizyones.
RSC took them to dinei Torah because they refused to come to a financial settlement. RAF had pulled shtik on RSC and got him to sign a phony "release" with the understanding that RSC would get a settlemet -- but RAF did not keep his end of the "bargain" (for lack of abtter word) either, Rav Weiss of Washinton Heights condemned RAF for that act in writing at the time, and in turn RSC got a pesak and SEMICHA from Rav Moshe Feinstein that until such time that CB comes to a financial settelemet with him (they still have not to this day) then Rav Moshe Feinstein paskened that RSC remains the official mashgiach of CB and that it is forbidden for them to appaoint anyone else to his shettele (they did, one, Rav Shimon Groner passed away after 25 tears on the job, and the other is now RAS's eldest son Moredecia Zelig).
To his credit RSC has NEVER taken this to agoyishe secular court and he has put up a purely halachic fight, albeit not successful in the face of CB might and stonewalling, because you cannot push out someone who is a choshuve mashgiach of a yeshiva as if he was a shmatte.
With RSC it goes even deeper because he is probably the only one, BESIDES RYD and RBD, who has the power to create and express the derech hamachshove of the ma'amarim like RYD did.
Just get copies of RSC's Maskil LiShlomo in four of five volumes, or hear him speak and you will see for yourself. RSC was also the official hilchos dei'os (of RYH's thought system) for RYH and his name was always used in RYH's sefarim in the introduction "beshem hava'ad".
This matter goes literally to the very deepest part and heart of the real CB that was unique to RYH and why it caused such a deep rift and why so much bitterness and TRAGEDY still hovers in the air over it.
Like the figurative stench of a long time and long suffering aguna case who has not received the proper get, settlement and closure from the ba'al whom she had loved deeply but who threw her out onto the street. AS RSC has put it: "CB left me, I did not leave CB"!
CBT
U ow Ranch 1
Gidel
what do u want?
We r talking about more than $ 1 Billion
CBT,
I learned in CB at the time of the rift at the end of 77. I remember clearly how almost every Bachur in yeshiva sided with RSC and we were all broken hearted for him.
hutner is nit gut, un shechter is nit hutner.
nuff said.
back to the telzerrrrrrrrrs
Typos due to rush, I was on the way to a chasune, maybe Tzig should pay for a copy-writer for me, anyhow, if you have been reading carefully above, it should say:
"... along came the agents of the Belzer Rebbe and tricked RAF and RYD."
and
"...but RYD's personal popularity for saying over RYH-style ma'amorim has really caught on big time."
and
"...and he really says it over with an astounding depth and similarity to his heilige shver RYH the ba'al Pachad Yitzchok zy"a."
and
"...The problem was that RYD and RAS poshut ganged up on and bullied RSC..."
and
"...Rav Shimon Groner passed away after 25 years on the job, and the other is now RAS's eldest son Mordechai Zelig."
Oh and to SatmarTC who asks above:
"CBT
U ow Ranch 1"
Actually I owe nothing. I honestly do not know anything about this matter except for the links that come up when you do a Google search for that topic and from what I can tell it is gurnisht mit gurnisht, and if people are interested in that they are just barking up the wrong tree because RAF (and RAS too) never has and never will be so dumb as to be caught with his pants down doing such stupid things. Financial empires and people come and go, but RAF is the teflon king immune to scandals. He is just too smart and too many steps ahead of people as you would expect from a successful self-made billionare (yes, billionare in real estate assets). So go ahead, do your own research, since in CB, noone I know has gone into this. My interests, it should be obvious, are from the "Torah-dikke" side, like the history of RYH, RAS, RSC, RYD, RBD and a few others and not what the balebatim do or don't do and what goes on in the offices of any yeshiva or mosad.
To anonymous who says:
"hutner is nit gut, un shechter is nit hutner.
nuff said.
back to the telzerrrrrrrrrs"
The subject of Telz has been depleted here. What more can possibly said? And the topic of CB is also pretty saturated by now and most of what has been of interest has been said, but people like Tzig are still curious, maybe because he has Telzer connections but not CB so it still has some interest for him, and Telz is a small shadow of its former self while CB is still a major institution in Flatbush, Brooklyn with close to 3,000 students from kindergarten to kollel.
RYH was an amazing person, a blazing star, he overwhelmed and intoxicated people with his persona, he knew things in depth in the secular world that most people just hear in passing and in Torah he was master of all areas of nigleh and nistae with a near-perfect photographic memory for most of his life, a natural born Torah leader and thinker, an unusual illui who always shteiged and that is just a tiny reason why he became so great, beyond what almost anyone can fathom, and yes RAS is nit RYH, and he would be the first one to affirm that, and by now, almost 28 years after RYH's petirah it should be very clear that RAS has his own style and leaves his own shtempel on CB, on its/his talmidim and those who seek his counsel, although 5768 was his worst year since the days of the RSC fiasco, with: (a) the sheitel macher store gezeirah and boycott; (b) signing on to the LIPA concert ban; and (c) the worst case, letting Michael Hersh lead him by the nose into the swamp of selling Isaac Hersh down the river all the way to Jamaica and the fallout that that abomination pilegesh begiva-like episode caused. All cases of mili de'alma where RAS has gone horribly awry even though he definitely had the most lomdish and avod-dikke intentions.
Otherwise, RAS has been a great success personally and as a rosh yeshiva for CB. His family has flourished and CB talmidim have become a more homogenized lot, if somewhat boring compared to RYH's days, yet very lomdish and definitely more yeshivish. Unlike RYH who allowed mass atendance at college at night on a mass scale (mostly Brooklyn College, Touro was not big in his lifetime altho when it started a few years before his passing he supported the idea unlike others who wanted to ban it -- a story in itself), now only a handful go after a long wait and with RAS's permission (to Touro ONLY because RAS likes the Touro idea and is friendly with its ruling Lander family) and the informal dressing as in RYH's days of any color shirt or jacket is long gone.
RAS has turned all of CB into a place where everyone must wear white shirts and dark pants and jackets in conformity with the general drift of Flatbush in a more serious Charedi direction. More CB bochurim and yungeliet grow beards and look very ehrnst and focused, just see the two photos that Tzig has posted here as good examples and look at the young men in it, including the ba'al simcha and you will see for yourself a small sample of this more serious yeshivish CB. While RYH used to attract a variety of personality types from all walks of life, including those he appointed as hanhala and magidei shiur, and many were brilliant individualists, sometimes even a little crazy to a degree (as in "there is no genius without a touch of madness") but RYH loved to discover new people with hidden qualities that who knows, maybe they could benefit a cause for Klal Yisroel one day, but RAS, while having a TINY amount of that approach in him, mainly prefers the steady as she goes predictable monolithic and monochrome quiet submissive and temimusdikke brainy types. RYH often liked heavy set, very tall and loud people, the louder, taller and heavier the better, just think of Rav Shlomo Freifeld as an example, RAS likes quieter, thinner, more eidel people, like his three choshuve eidims, Yormark, Haliwa, and Senderowitz who are now all top magidei shiur in the CB Bais Medrash with their own mini-followings.
CBT,
You've not changed anything WRT to the RSC/RAS issue. I used the term "power struggle", and you merely described some details of the power struggle. Doesn't change anything.
Again, my source emphatically denied that there was any possibility that RSC could have possibly been viewed as a rival or even credible opposition in any form to RAS.
That's not to say my source is Torah from Sinai. You seem pretty knowledgable about the situation yourself and you clearly disagree. But my source knows the situation (not the dispute itself, but the situation as it was at the time) and vehemently disagrees with you.
So that should at least give pause to the lay readers.
Not a word.
The Tzig Baachi will not say a word about Rubashkingate.
Wonder why?
the morons are back.
I've said all I have to say about Rubashkin.
now go away.
Not many posts about Chabad at all in Thay Shnas sameach tes
all in due time, Fred.
"Again, my source emphatically denied that there was any possibility that RSC could have possibly been viewed as a rival or even credible opposition in any form to RAS."
Exactly! That’s why RAS won with such ease!
To many in CB it barely seemed as if there was any dispute all.
RAS was already acting Rosh Yeshiva while RYH was still alive, and RAS was the clear-cut successor to RYH.
Still, RSC felt that he was promised an equal share of the action along with RAS and RYD.
As far as RSC was concerned, there was to be a three way shutfus between himself RAS and RYD. And he held that RYH had promised that to him.
The reason why RSC never stood a chance in the first place was because most people in CB did not see any "possibility that RSC could have possibly been viewed as a rival or even credible opposition in any form to RAS".
CBT writes
"Yormark, Haliwa, and Senderowitz who are now all top magidei shiur in the CB Bais Medrash with their own mini-followings"
RAS also put in his son Reb Mordechai (Moty) as Mashgiach.
He has apparently turned CB into a private family run enterprise. With parnoso, kovod, and power for all of them for years to come and then to be morish to their children (just as he himself is doing).
My questions
Is this what RYH had in mind?
Is CB his Bubbes Yerusha?
How does powerful RAF let this go on?
Are all the other 25 year plus
magidei shiur swallowing this quietly?
If yes, do they have to keep quiet?
Please don't answer me that this goes on in all places.
haven't read the whole thread. Haven't the time. Would like to comment on one thing though.
So don't be surprsied if you hear that they claim to be talmidim of RYH without ever being a day in CB in Brooklyn. Today there are many in the Litvishe oilem haTorah who are serious students of RYH's ten volume Pachod Yitzchok sefarim and among those there are no doubt people who will justifiably claim to be talmidim of RYH based on the fact that they have devoured and digested (the contents of) his seforim
...Is kind of like saying that one can become a Brisker by merely studying Chidusehi Rav Chaim ahl HaRambam.
RYH was very big on torah she'ba'al peh, being hooked into a mesorah, the PERSONAL relationship btween Rebbe and talmid, godol shimusho etc. and while wanting to leave his Torah for posterity would probably have recoiled from the thought of gaining talmidim exclusively through book learning. At least not for the average would-be talmid. Heck, plenty of fellas who DID spend years in Yeshiva never really rose above the status of "props" for the "emmeseh" talmidim.
Remember that RYH's Torah was called Maamorim = "spoken things" and that the original kuntresim that eventually became the sifrei Pachad Yitzchok were all printed with the caveat at the bottom:
פנימ נועד לאלו ששמעו בעל פה
IOW the whole sefer was meant initially as a chazorah aid for those who heard the mamaorim directly from RYH. Recording was officially frowned upon.
Still the notion may, I repeat may, apply to limited יחידי סגולה ובני עליה המועטים. After all this extremely complex man raissed k'riyah and said kaddish for the Chazon Ish considering him his Rabo Muvhak, although per urban Yeshivisha legend, he knew him only from his seforim and never met in person.
Note that there are far more Avrom Yeshaya's in CB families than Avrom Yitzchoks and Nuta Herschs combined. And that ahd hayom RAS and RAF say kaddish on the Chazon Ish's Yuhrzeit.
what whas the pilegesh maase?
To Anon @ 8:00PM,
Your questions are all good ones.
There is however one underlying problem with them. They are based on what CBT said, and a lot of what he says is incorrect. CBT is a good source of info (albeit a bit biased due his personal drama with RAS) on past happenings in CB. He is generally a bit off the mark on current CB events though. Even though he still gets all their mailings and he still keeps up with some CB insiders, his understanding of today’s CB is a bit off.
I will explain his mistake over here.
To quote CBT:
"Yormark, Haliwa, and Senderowitz who are now all top magidei shiur in the CB Bais Medrash with their own mini-followings"
The problems with his statement are:
R' Shlomo Halioua is the only one of RAS sons in law who is a top maggid shiur. R' Shlomo does indeed give the highest shiur in CB.
R' Elya Yormark is a Rosh Chaburah and a Shoel U'meishiv second seder for the 12th grade bachurim who finish their limudai chol in January and then learn second seder for the rest of the year, and for the 1st year bachurim. That is not a “top” position”
R' Yitchok Meir Senderovitz does the same as R' Elya for the next few years of bachurim; also not a “top” position.
(While R' Menachem Kahn takes on the oldest group of bachurim.)
REY and RYMS do not have their own mini-followings any more than any of the other maggidei shiur in CB beis medrash such as R' Yosef Fruchthandler, R' Chaim Kitovitz, R' Pinchas Kahn, Etc...
CBT himself can explain to you how much of an anav, illuy and a metch (amongst many other admirable traits) RSH is. Not too many people had any issues with him being given his shteller as the top maggid shiur in CB.
As for CBT's absolutely ludicrous assumption that "RYH often liked heavy set, very tall and loud people" and that "RAS likes quieter, thinner, more eidel people" there is not much to say other than it is utter nonsense!
Perhaps you can argue about the loud vs. eidel issue, but the size issue is obviously CBT’s madness shining through.
So he gave RSF as an example of a large RYH talmid muvak, hurray! I can name you another 10 of RYH top talmidim who were skinny.
I do not want to embarrass anybody in a public forum, but I can also name you a good few RAS talmidim who are not too small, both from his earlier years and currently!
So, Anon @ 8, all of your questions should now be answered.
- No, it’s not what RYH had in mind, but that’s not the way that it is.
- No, it’s not his bubbe’s yerusha, but nothing (true) that has been brought up here should make one think that RAS thinks that it is.
- The maggidei shiur have not been presented with anything hard to swallow.
- If they were indeed presented with such, they would not have to keep quiet, but they might choose not to.
To anonymous who asks: "what whas the pilegesh maase?" you seem to be bamboozled. Let me explain what I mean. If you are familiar with tTanach, then in Shoftim perakim 19 - 21 describe an event in those days, how it came to be, the brutalization and death of a certain pilegesh, and how the husband called upon all the shevatim to avenge the abomination and cruelty and callousness shown by the people of shevet Binyamin, and the huge civil war that broke out over it. This is just an analogy that I have used to draw attention and to serve as a metaphor for the seriousness of the case whereby recently a 16 year old boy whose parents are CBers and close "disciples" of RAS brutally and cynically arranged for the kidnapping and exile of their own son, Isaac Hersh, by goons and sent by force and against his will and begging for his life to be incarcerated, locked up and abused by the gaurds in "Tranquility Bay" on Jamaic for many months. A human rights violation by anyone's standards. And that's why a human rights orgnization got involved to sue the US government for Isaac Hersh's realease as well in a complicated set of moves that RAS tried, but failed, to block at every turn. It's a place where some kids are driven to suicide and often-times noone is too sad to hear that kids there drowned in their own vomit and other such cruelties or suffered from beatings and being forced to sit or stand or lie in one position for hours as they were humiliated.
That is where a Jewish father, from the CB community sent his son, with the haskoma of RAS until a number of asknim and rabbonim NOT from CB, with Rav Shmuel Kamentsky at their head, launched a rescure mission and saved Isaac Hersh against the will and the machinations of his father and RAS.
Not ONE person, asside from myself, from within the CB community or associated with it, spoke out and dared to confront RAS on this because they are all scared stiff of RAS and his Stalinist reign and methods. On this blog, I even called on CBers to force RAS to resign for his acts of cruelty. Something is sorely wrong if a person like Michael Hersh can lead RAS merrily down the garden path and RAS will fight to the hilt to defend such an abomination!
My chosen forum was right here on this blog because it was a public issue that the whole world was following but in CB they all took RAS's side in an "us vs them' "batten down the hatches" siege mentality as if RAS is as infallible as the Pope, lehavdil, which he is not.
RAS is human and he makes mistakes, sometimes very big ones. Not just mistakes, but he often fights long, devious, complicated and destructive wars against those who he deems to be his enemies. Sad but true.
RAS is very subtle about that and it is not easy to catch him playing his wily games, but having been a victim of his machinations myself over the years, and I have never complained about it to him or anyone, just expressed my pain and suffered emotiallly from all the back-stabbing and cruelty, when the Isaac Hersh story broke out and since I know the parties invoilved, a great shock came to me, I absorbed the scope and meaning of the Isaac Hersh story I saw my own life mirrored in his and for once, all the grobkeit and cruelty of RAS was finally out in the open for all to see. Not a pretty sight indeed.
The above horrendous episode brings to mind the ma'aseh of pilegesh BeGiva'ah in how a relatively defenseless victim, unwillingly dragged off to destructive and potentially near death situations. The pilegesh in sefer Shoftim succumbed to the rape, abuse and torture she was subjected to at the hands of the Bnai Binyomin, and Isaac Hersh nearly did as well and may have landed up dead as a doornail if not for the interventions by askonim and rabbonim who dragged him out from the jaws of hell, and in his case, fortunately, he survived, but with no thanks to his abusers, captors, and those who DELIBERATELY sent him there and gave their blessings for the abomination.
Hope the above clarifation helps to put the TRAGEDY in context.
wow
this one of Hersh is very heavy
Vus Nisht,
Thanks for responding. But sorry, my main question remains.
RAS has given 4 of his children shtelles. 2 in top positions and 2 in not such top ones. I agree with you R' Shlomo is supposed to be a top magid shiur and a special person. But please, RAS passed over the lions of almost 40 years of Harbotzas Torah like R' Chaim, R' Yoseph and R' Pinchus (who came later). To pass them over for one of his own, I feel was disgraceful. I'm sure they had the feeling of "Vayichad Yisro" (see Rashi). Then to top it off, He puts in his son R' Mordechai as Masgiach, (who as I heard, many feel is not tsugepast).
Bottom line he put in 4 of his own in the Bais Medrash! How many Shteles are there? How many tremendous Talmidai Chachomim who were Chalishing for something - anything! and were passed over because of ANI UMISHPACHTI??
Is this the example to set for his Talmidim? For Klal Yisroel? Are we supposed to follow in his footsteps? Once more, is this what RYH wanted? Don't forget it was given to him to head and not to his family to inherit.
Anon @ 8,
RAS has given only one of his sons a shteller in yeshiva. The other three are his son’s in law.
There is a very big difference.
His son’s chose the path they wanted to follow. His sons in law were handpicked by him, and as the top gun in CB he got to choose the cream of the crop.
So yes, he did give his sons in law shtellers, but they are each very chashuve talmidei chachamim in their own right and very well deserving of their positions, hence he chose them to be his sons in law.
Now I don’t know what yeshiva you went to, but I cannot think of any yeshiva that moves up the lower ranking rabbeim to higher positions when the higher position opens.
If a 12th grade rebbe were to leave a yeshiva, does that mean that the 9th grade rebbe goes to 10th, the 10th goes to 11th and the 11th grade rebbe is the new 12th grade rebbe and then they go hire a new 9th grade rebbe?!
Certainly not!
RAS gave RSH his old position as the highest ranking maggid shiur while he (RAS) began giving shiur klali.
Before this, RSH was the Rosh Kollel.
Nobody in yeshiva felt that it was at all disgraceful when RSH got the top maggid shiur slot. On the contrary, practically everybody, rabbeim and bachurim alike, felt that it was a very well deserved shteller.
As for:
“How many Shteles are there? How many tremendous Talmidai Chachomim who were Chalishing for something - anything! and were passed over because of ANI UMISHPACHTI??”…
Shtellers at the level of REY and RYMS, there are a good few.
No talmidei chachmim who are on their level who were chalishing for something were looked over.
(In no particular order)
Doiv Fink
Dovid Thau
Chaim Yitzchok Kaplan
Gershon Ribner
Yankel Drillman
Yossi Ehrenreich
Yossi Eichenstein
Nochum Aryeh Feuer
Meir?? Greenberg
Itche Mayer Fishman
Mordecha Mitnik
Pinchos Schwartz
Boruch Reiss
Donny Deutsch
Yehoshua Weiss
Ahron Kaufman
Yehuda Sheinkopf
Yisroel Chaim Praeger a"h
Shmuel Eidelman
Sholom Weiss
To name a few. Alternative historians are free to wonder how many of these men rather than the current occupants might be employed in top shtelles within the yeshiva had
A. It been interested in decentralizing and making out-of-town branches like Lakewood or Chofetz Chaim?
B. had the current Rosh yeshiva had only one SIL to farzorg rather than 3 plus a son
C. How the yeshiva's and the yeshivasha velts history may have differed had this been the case.
There you are CBT!
The oisvurf in you has reemerged!
Now please stop lecturing us on Pilegesh B’givah.
The only pilegesh you know is your wife/mistress.
Why is it so hard for you to accept the fact that RAS was misled?
As you said, RAS is only human. He had no way of understanding IH plight without being notified.
The moment RAS was aware of the situation, HE ended it!
Why did you leave out the fact that RAS was the one who ultimately had MH sign the release forms to have his son freed?
Why does RSK still speak to RAS and hold him in very high esteem?
After all RSK was a lot closer to this ordeal than you were. If it is so hard for you to stomach the actions of RAS, why is it so simple for RSK?
This story has blown over and you keep bringing it up to try to wage your own personal war with RAS.
First it was the RSC ordeal and now this.
Get a life!
Anon @ Thursday, October 30, 2008 11:57:00 PM (Anon @ 8 ?),
Is this list a joke?
No elite yeshiva that is constantly producing true talmidei chachomim yirei shamayim has room for all of them as rabbeim.
There many Lakewooders, Briskers, Mirrers, Telzers, Ponevizers, etc, that leave their alma maters to get jobs elsewhere simply because there is no room in their yeshiva.
CB has bred many many big men over the years; do you really expect them to have room for all of them?
Not to mention that practically none of the people mentioned on your list belong on it!
Some of the people on your list are currently employed by CB.
I.e. R’ Dov Fink – 11th grade rebbe. R’ CY Kaplan – top maggid shiur in Pachad Yitzchok (CB of EY).
Others left CB when they were still Bachurim.
I.e. R’ YM Fishman - he went on to Brisk and then Lakewood when still a bachur.
Others simply had to leave CB.
I.e. R’ Gershon Ribner - married the daughter of R’ Schneur Kotler. Don’t you think Lakewood made more sense for him? (Agav, now that he has his own place, RGR keeps very close to his rebbe, RAS, and confers with him on big issues.)
Others had no reason to stay, as they were offered nice shtellers elsewhere.
I.e. R’ Ahron Kaufman – went to YFR and now has his own place in Waterbury. R’ Yankel Drillman – Was in CB until a few years ago when he went out on his own.
There are many others on your list who would never have gotten shtellers in CB for various other reasonable reasons.
Next time do your homework, then blog!
Vus nisht, remember the ditty "sticks and stones"? Go chazer it over. From your comments it's clear to see who is the low life oisvurf in this discussion.
I don't have a pilegesh, do you?, and RAS was my mesader kiddushin with the choshuvste CBers as eidim. As for the "mistress" comment, only a son of a bitch would say something like that, so I will not dwell on it. My choshuve wife produced two sons who are still learning in CB and CB pays one to be in its Kollel Gur Aryeh, so how bad could the fruits of my kiddushin be? And Reb Motty Shechter had wanted my oldest son for his son in law, so my wife must have passed RAS's and Motty's approval while evidently you feel you can launch yet another smear on an innocent party. But that is YOUR DESPICABLE KIND of CBer for you. I caution you from bringing women into these discussions because otherwise I will have lots to say, and back it up, about many CB ladies right here and it will not be a pretty sight.
While you know my identity it seems, I am not sure of yours, so while you hide behind your cowardly mask in your one-on-one verbal jousts with me, I await the time when I find out who you really are and THEN I will surely deal with YOU on a level playing field, that is if you are even worth it, you shmendrik.
You make me laugh with your addiction to, and defense of, totalitarianism in the guise of the know-it-all.
I did not bring anything up, and I did not create anything. Someone on this blog asked a question and I gave an answer, but of course, you as a RAS attack dog reveal your pathetic vampire fangs dripping with venom ready to destroy "enemies of the (fake) state" as usual.
Guess it must be the Halloween spirit because it sure ain't Yiddishkeit. Neither is kidnapping a Jewish kid and sending him off to Jamaica with all your far-fetched excuses and self-defenses that people know is false, nor ruining people's lives because they don't see it your way.
"And Reb Motty Shechter had wanted my oldest son for his son in law"
I would compliment you, and say lucky you, but I'd rather call your for what you are. You are nothing more than a filthy liar. I know every bachur that RMS "looked into" vihamavin yavin.
Many Gedolim wanted to convince RAS to retract his position about Tranquility Bay, and he did not listen
so
VN
lets go back to your "Hayotzeh midvareinu"
Hersch plus
Ranch 1 plus
RSC plus
Belz plus
you as a RAS attack dog reveal your pathetic vampire fangs dripping with venom ready to destroy "enemies of the (fake) state" as usual
u r not a third party opinion
wow, too heavy against RBG
To anonymous who says: "I would compliment you, and say lucky you, but I'd rather call your for what you are. You are nothing more than a filthy liar. I know every bachur that RMS "looked into" vihamavin yavin."
Firstly, there is no way to know if you even know who you are talking to. But obviously you are not as well informed as you claim to be unless your are Motty himself and you are telling some pretty big fibs now, because not only was the offer VERY clear, and came with preconditions (along the lines of accepting the Shcehter 100% in "my way or the highway" style) and my son had to go and discuss it with a number of the top magidei shiur, he spent time seriously thinking about the offer, and in fact we encouraged him to at least give it a shot, but after he thought about it some more and even spent a shabbos away from home discussing it with one of his Fruchtandler rebbeim with whom he remains very close, his final decision was that he was not ready to start the parsha of shidduchim even if that was such a choshuve offer, but that he wanted to go learn in EY first.
And to show you how uninformed you are, when I personally called the Shechter (Motty's) household at that time to invite them to another simchah, I was greeted by his wife on the phone who made it very clear and confirmed that they were very interested in my oldest son, and that going to EY was not an impediment and she has repeated that to me even after both my son and that particular daughter of their's have already married by now to other gantz choshuve mishpoches.
At any rate, this just shows me who I am dealing with here when I am a personal witness and could swear to it but come here and set themselves up as defenders of things to score points and distort the truth.
By the way, I would not even have brought up this topic if not for the outrageous insertion of discussions about spouses of bloggers who have nothing to do with what is being said here. Quiting, as I did, a ma'aseh from Tanach and sefer Shoftim, about the episode of pilegesh beGiv'ah (and by the way some meforshim say she was the man's wife and not just a simple pilegesh) as a MOSHUL and SYMBOL of innocents sacrificed, grabbed and abused, should not become an excuse to drag in the subject of people's wives and women who have nothing to do with these discussions and throw them in the face of an opponent because that kind of thing can cut both ways, as any idiot would know but not poster "vus nisht" it seems hellbent as he is on defending the indefensible.
So It was in this vein that in response to that, rather than starting hateful attacks, I mentioned something more romantic and loving that indeed RMS and affirmed by his wife, had made concrete offers via certain rebbeim in the CB bais medrash to my son, which we actually encouraged (imagine I could be a mechutan with the Shechters, what an ironic thought and situation that would be!) but that he felt was premature for him in the stage of life he was in as he wanted to go learn as a bochur in EY first, which he then did and then returned to CB and with the help of my wife, was introduced to and married someone else from a very choshuve mishpoche who as it turned out was also an einikel of one of the most illuishe CBers ever. But I do not wish to dwell on all these personal details.
It is very sad that after all this time, as the Isaac Hersh fiasco recedes into the past, that, from trying to get a sense of the CB oilem to what happened, so far, from what I can read, not one of them has expressed any sympathy or remorse for IH, while adopting a knee-jerk defense of RAS and not thinking and realizing the enormity of the misdeed and TRAGEDY of it all, while still allowing Michael Hersh to sit right behind RAS and keep his dignity, when he should have been thrown out on his head onto the street in disgrace. Does not "lo signov" in the aseres hadibros refer to "gonev nefashos"= kidnapping? There is more to why RAS holds MH so close to himself, and I have expressed some of my theories about it in earlier posts, but over the months I have heard different stories that are not flattering to RAS nor to CB, but let us not add too much fuel to the flames because at this stage it will benefit noone, least of all me, as can be seen from thse personal attacks with no basis in truth, just hoping to maul me for speaking some uncomfortable truths (since you dare not say them in CB, that's for sure.)
I really cannot believe that RAS is so close to MH.
This unfortunate Maise was a great HIllul H, and by continuing this close relationship in CB,is like saying " this is the proper way to do"
WOW, ppl in CB, are so brainwashed, that they take proud of being assciated with this Hillul H?
CBT
there was no need to provide all those personal details about shidduchim etc. here. You just about gave yourself away, and judging from what you said about CB et. al. already that CAN'T be a good thing!
vus nisht
I think that you missed my points (11:57 PM) so I'll try to clarify:
Talk to the old-timers from Stone Avenue and almost without exception they speak about how they felt cutting -edge and part of a great revolution. Part of this was a function of the times, the destruction of the great European Yeshivas and the relative midbar that was 40-60s America.
But part of it was the sense that there was no glass ceiling and that the Yeshiva was a true meritocracy. Your last name didn't matter. Your net financial worth didn't matter. Your yichus didn't matter. All that mattered was your kishron and willingness to learn b'hasmodah. The byword d was וְאִם-תּוֹצִיא יָקָר מִזּוֹלֵל, כְּפִי תִהְיֶה;
Bochurim from very poshuta and sometimes frei homes grew to be great Talmidei Chachomim.
Part of this, no doubt, had to do with the fact that the Roshashiva had but one daughter and no sons.
The point of my list was not that these men are unemployed but that they were NOT (for the most part)employed in MRCB and that the few who are/were perhaps ought to occupy higher positions. It is davka because they have been so succesful on their own starting from scratch that makes the alternative history of them stepping into a 70-90 year old Yeshiva with infrastructure intact so tantalizing to contemplate.
It is also amazing that despite MRCB styling itself as "the Yeshiva of a thousand classrooms" the policy was never to branch out with Mesivtos, Batei Medrash and Kollelim ah lah Lakewood or Chofetz Chaim. How different would the American landscape look today if MRCB had 20 such institutions stretching from coast to coast as the above mentioned Yeshivas do?
Look I'm not totally naive. nepotism is the way of the world and animates the shtellahs of almost all yeshivas. I just retain this odd idea that as MRCB was a "fresh" original institution unlike European transplants like Mir and Telshe, that we would've seen more pure meritocracy hires over the years.
Again, nice long story about your son, and your usual nice touch of very detailed lies, but as someone who knows the Schechters very well, knows this is all a very nice FANTASY, and your mental state of is a TRAGEDY, get yourself some help, really before you hurt your eshes chayil, or anyone else in your family. Or do they exist, or are they only in your DREAMS.
Hirshel Tzig said...
CBT
there was no need to provide all those personal details about shidduchim etc. here. You just about gave yourself away, and judging from what you said about CB et. al. already that CAN'T be a good thing!
He didn't because it's all LIES, very clever, to the outsider he looks like a real CBer, to someone who knows, he's like the guy in the mikva who shut up with his bobo mayses. Hirshel, it's time you send him to another mikva.
Tragedy. Hope you dont need a security detail after the revelations.
You write beautifully and compellingly- and I dare say, the truth. Thank you for the thoughts that you consistently bring to this blog.
He didn't because it's all LIES, very clever, to the outsider he looks like a real CBer, to someone who knows,
were you here for the first round of CB discussion last year? He's very much an insider. stop kidding yourself.
Tzig,
I don't think that CBT is a real 'insider'.He learned there evidently and is nursing some wound since than .I picked it up when he claimed that R'Ahron Schechters sons in law have the top shtelles and followings.Even I, a non Chaim Berliner with an interest in The Yeshiva and Jewish World know this to be untrue.R'Pinchas Kahn, Rabbi Kitowitz and his 30'ish son who is Rosh Hakolel for example and quite a few others.
For what it's worth I don't think you should allow personal details about shidduchim, kids, wives etc.If not we''ll have a similar story to UOJ who's blogging brings busheh on the kids.
Hirshel Tzig and others, don't worry, one can just see that the more truth that is revealed the more they call it "lies"as one can see when some of them will resort to calling a wife a "mistress" while another will call her an "aishes chayil" and it's just foolishness by cruel people.
After what some in CB have done to me, and I never complained mind you because I took it on the chin like a good soldier, it can't get much worse.
To most people, CB included, what is said and goes on on this blog means nothing, and the few RAS watch dogs and attack dogs are such pathetic creatures that unless you say over what they want to hear they will simply block it out and twist it.
Like in all totalitarian societies, any dissenter will be classed as crazy as if no CBers are cholei hanefesh themselves. They don't see how sick they are themselves. How sad. Anyhow, that they have driven some people to fits of exasperation is nothing new. They count on people shutting up, cowing them and intimidating them, usual RAS bullying tactics writ large, but some people, like myself are so sick of the underhanded brutality, as the world saw for itself with the Isaac Hersh tragedy which I had nothing to do with.
The personal stuff about shidduchim needed to be said, and I can easily add much more because until now noone has heard my side of the story and my experiences, because "vus nisht" was opening up an even dirtier front of personal insults about wives, so I needed to remind him of RAS's role in my life from the day I stepped into CB over 30 years ago including his siddur kiddushin of my marriage and worked hard in it. I am from the ketanei me'od mitalmidei RYH but even a talmid koton me'od of such a person is also somebody. Otherwise what constitues a "real cber" has no meaning. As I said in an earlier post, the very notion of a "talmid of RYH" and "talmid" of CVB" is not clear cut and defined, it never was and it never will be because different people have different ways of defining it and there was never one "official" defintion published or even expected or who is or isn't a Cb or RYH or RAs or RYD talmid.
To those who think I am a liar, dream on, and say all the pathetic nonsense you want. Reb Motty Shechter has known my son from the day he was born, knows him supremely-well, and never needed anyone to tell him and guide him about that and di not discuss with the so-called self-declared experts here, so all the busybodies and pseudo-experts on the life of the Shechters are a bunch of losers and bullies who get high from that but fail to realize that the sun does not rise and set with RAS. As I learned the hard way, he is one of the toughest and trickiest people to deal with and one does so at one's own peril because he plays for all or nothing.
At this point, as America awaits its own Yom HaDin this coming Tuesday, people should be focused on their own lives and what will happen to them if the wrong people win on Election Day and not about what a bunch of crybabies from CB think about me or anything else for that matter. It is they who should get lives instead of justifying the kidnapping of 16 year old boys and saying it is a great deed because their boss said so. Acting like monkey see-monkey do is not the way to follow da'as Torah.
CBT
kindly deign to respond to my comments (10.30 11:67 PM and 10.30 10:12 AM)of they were not personal and respectfully posed.
Allow me to set the record straight on a few issues in response to "Flatbush dude", who says:
"Tzig,
I don't think that CBT is a real 'insider'."
Could you define what you mean by "insider" please? Someone who works in the CB office or sits on its boards? Someone who donates lots of money? Someone who sits in the kollel for a few years? Magidei shiur? Rosh yeshivas only? There is no real definition, and you are just speaking hot air assuming there is some kind of invisble "rule" that people should know about when there absolutely isn't.
"He learned there evidently and is nursing some wound since than."
True and false. I learned there for exactly ten years as a bochur and yunge man, starting in RYH last years and getting to know everyone well, it was a smallihs place back then, with about 25 guys in the kollel and about 150 in the bais medrash. The "wound" you speak of is not from that period, it emanated directly from ONE man -- RAS, and it came slowly but surely in the years I left CB and worked in avodas haklal that made some CBers, especially RAF, nervous even though they had a revach from it, although like most things nothing was perfect, but the ten years in the koslei beis hamedrash before going out into the "real world" were so good that RAS voluntarily even gave me a "Rav-Moreh" semicha and other documents when I went out to work in avodas haklal. So that over-all they were very happy and productive and mutually satisfying years.
The main troubling thing that I observed that bothered the hell out of me was the way RSC was booted out of CB because, like for many talmidim, he was my mashgiach for almost two years and it was painful to watch every detail of the machlokes between RSC vs RYH & RAS & RYD from the outside.
Like all the talmidim, it was like watching the Titanic sink. We felt helpless to do anything about the situation because it was a real-life drama out of our hands. But that passed and most of the years were very good years. As a newcomer who became an insider I was happy to be "low man on the totem pole" in CB and to be in such an exciting place in those years fulfiling my dreams and ambitions beyond my greatest expectations.
"I picked it up when he claimed that R'Ahron Schechters sons in law have the top shtelles and followings."
They do. They are very modest people and deserve their success. They would never push themselves to be machers, and they don't act like machers given their inherent eidelkeit, were it not for the Shechters propelling them to the top. But that does not bother me and I do not compalin about that. RAS is no different to any rosh yeshiva or Chasidishe Rebbe in that regard, since dynasties need succession and by now the Shechters are a rabbinic dynasty, and I wish RAS well with his choices. That is not the issue here, although some of the other bloggers have dwelt on the point of nepotism I have not. RAS's family are good people and they should be allowed to move even further ahead. Rav Motty Shechter will be running the entire place soon and I wish him well too. I hope though that he will accept input from people and not act like a fake demi-God that is so universally off-putting. One North Korea is quite enough.
"Even I, a non Chaim Berliner with an interest in The Yeshiva and Jewish World know this to be untrue. R'Pinchas Kahn, Rabbi Kitowitz and his 30'ish son who is Rosh Hakolel for example and quite a few others."
I am not sure why you think I am arguing with you or why you are inserting yourself if you have no connection here, and you are not even making the right connections. Indeed a few other very notable people in CB are also giving top shiurim and I wish them well as well. You seem to be grabbing on one or two details and extrapolating wrong conclusions.
These others are good people but they are not tied to "the executive branch" of CB and at the end of the day they are employees who serve at the whim of the leadership class. That too is not radical either, so quit pointing out things that are obvious and that are not in dispute by anyone.
"For what it's worth I don't think you should allow personal details about shidduchim, kids, wives etc.If not we''ll have a similar story to UOJ who's blogging brings busheh on the kids."
Note, I was not the one who started down this slippery slope. Funnily, at one time a few months ago, "vus nisht" and others dared me to out myself, and they brazenly tried to do it, as if to scare me, but the owner of this blog had the good secehel to stop them then. I have still not done that, and they feel that they can call me all sorts of false and misleading and ridiculous names (as they call me a liar at the same time, neat trick!) so that in order to retain my credibility I state that I have as much of a real connection with CB as any other person connected to it to prove my bona fides.
I can take the abuse they throw at me, even in the days I was in yeshiva I had to sustain some abuse, and why should anyone think that this will bring "busheh" to the kids, the bushah is not coming from me and I did not create it, but I have chosen to add my voice in PROTEST against what I see is wrong.
And as for your comparison to the "UOJ" blogger how illogical and crazy is that? I am not the owner of this blog like UOJ owns his own blog. I allow the owner of this blog to censor me and he has the last word and if he thinks something is wrong he stops it as he has with some things in the past. This way my words are filtered and I am not acting on my own as does UOJ who is a law unto himself not edited by anyone.
Maybe one day, you will see that my entire life has been devoted to mesirus nefesh for Torah and Yiddishkeit and for the Klal, but I never speak of that. Kindly note that for every bit of twisting of the truth against me, I can point to many, many of my own solid accomplishments if need be, but I haven't yet on this blog, because ultimately it's not about me as some would like to spin it now, and if the current crop of sicko CB enforcers force me to say more then I will little by little. Maybe they will like it or maybe they won't (for sure readers of this blog will and Tzig's stats will jump through the roof because in the past my words attracted a big audience) but for every provocation I will respond with real life responses and not with the allleged "bubba meises" like in a useless and puerile CB newsletter. I do not like to praie myself but I can if I have to.
CBT sounds very familiar with all the CBs staff
VN and the other guys they do not go straight to the point, they try to intimidate CBT
They don't say if they agree with RAS about sending kids to Jamaica
To anonymous who says:
"CBT
kindly deign to respond to my comments (10.30 11:67 PM and 10.30 10:12 AM)of they were not personal and respectfully posed."
It's not clear which points you want me to focus on. Could you state it again briefly. Thanks.
CBT
I'm not a Chaim Berliner.My only minor connection is that my kids attended elementary school there.So please don't accuse me of any Chaim Berlin conspiracy theories,k?
Now, since I have an interest in the Yeshiva world I know about the yeshiva and since I live in Flatbush I know who the people are.
Therefore:I just wanted to point out that your claiming that R'Shechters sons in law have top positions and followings is simply not true.Not yet at least, besides for R'Haliwa.
I'm no fan of Chaim Berlin because it's way to 'chasidic' for my liking, even under R'Shechters mellowing leadership (i.e he is much less of a Rebbe style leader than R'Hutner)
I respect them, though and my kids did well in the elementary school which is a good, well run institution.
Btw you claimed that they have 3000 students.They don't.Maybe half.
As to who I'd consider an "insider":Someone who currently learns or works for them OR davens there regularly and is an alumnus.
I also don't get your claim about the other posters starting the 'slippery slope".All I told you is not to involve your family and out them.Who cares who started?You claim you have kids there.Why put them through this nonsense?
Also, why in heaven have you chosen a Lubavitch site to air your grievances? Rest assured that they don't have your good in mind.It's all used to steer away the focus from Lubavitch which unfortunately today (and maybe for a long time actually)is a movement which has gone crazy.
I ask that you don't involve me in this machloikes as I am not at all a side here.
Lastly,I wish you well and a great shabbos
Thank you Flatbush dude, your words are greatly appreciated.
The ways of peace are always better than machlokes and you are obviously a person of peace.
Be well and have a good Shabbos too!
*From what I know the elementary including kindergarten is no more than 800 the yeshiva and mesivta and kolel is about 400, how did you come up with 3000?
explaining my earlier comment that Chaim Berlin is maybe half the number CBT claimed
Than you for the good wishes.
In my opinion kids come first, before us, before rebbes certainly before machloikes.Thats why I mentioned that you don't want to get your grievances out on their cheshbon.
Also, please realize that if I said something critical it's not meant personally.That applies to my comment about Lubavitch to.I don't have a personal animus towards them but I honestly think they have lost their way and now erev shabbos is surely not the time time to get into this.
So good shabbos and peace to all!
Flatbush dude, as I am not the CB registrar so I don't have every last figure. The figures have fluctuated over the years. Maybe 3000 is too high. I was thinking in terms of the entire CB-PY complex with all staff and students in Brooklyn and EY combined (PY in EY is supported by the CB office in Brooklyn), and it may be closer to the + - 2000 range. My point was that whatever the actual numbers they are impressive, and that this is not a small institution. If you can find out the exact figures to satisfy yourself we would all be grateful for that too. Yidden do not give exact numbers because of the ayin hora in any case. Nisht eins, nisht tzvei, etc.
First and foremost:
Satmartc,
You really need to learn how to read write and spell. And how desperate are you that you need to steal CBT’s attack dog-vampire fang shtickel? You need to stop these desperate attempts at getting involved in something which you are clueless about. Most of your knowledge is based on the silliness of this blog; that leaves you with a lot of false and misconstrued information. Why can’t you just sit at the sidelines and observe instead of dropping in your useless and childish posts? You are like a drunken retard in the street yelling at people, you have no business here and you are making no sense. CBT is doing just fine on his own and you are certainly not helping him. There is much more than enough fighting going on in your own circles, maybe you’ll be better off over there. You should also be aware that both R’ Ahron and R’ Zalman Leib came to be menachem aval RAS two years ago, and both seemingly hold him in very high regard. From this point on I will no longer respond to your moronic posts. No, not because I’m scared, CBT is a lot more powerful than you on this blog and I will continue with him, you are just a waste of time.
Next:
Tzig,
You said:
“were you here for the first round of CB discussion last year? He's very much an insider. stop kidding yourself.”
As CBT has pointed out, there is no definition of a “CB insider” so I will not argue that point. But it’s simple to see that CBT is not up to date on a lot of CB’s current affairs.
Next:
Anon,
You said:
“The point of my list was not that these men are unemployed but that they were NOT (for the most part) employed in MRCB and that the few who are/were perhaps ought to occupy higher positions.”
I never said anybody on the list was unemployed.
The point of my post was: (a) there is not enough room for everybody. (b) Many of these men have been/are employed by CB. (c) Many of these men have other very good reasons for not being employed by CB.
As for occupying higher positions, RCYK gives the top shiur in Pachad, he can’t go any higher! RDF was a talmid of most of the rabbeim higher than him, how exactly should he have gotten their positions?!
Stop trying to make something out of nothing.
Achron achron chaviv:
CBT,
You said:
“Note, I was not the one who started down this slippery slope. Funnily, at one time a few months ago, "vus nisht" and others dared me to out myself, and they brazenly tried to do it, as if to scare me”
False! I never dared you to out yourself, nor did I ever attempt to out you. I knew who you were almost right away and I kept it to myself.
You said:
“...from trying to get a sense of the CB oilem to what happened, so far, from what I can read, not one of them has expressed any sympathy or remorse for IH”
You need to read more carefully. I personally stated my feelings of sympathy for IH. Additionally, everybody else in the CB camp that I have spoken with feels terrible about the IH tragedy.
Just because we don’t see eye to eye with you on your twisted views of RAS, that does not mean that we dont feel terrible for IH.
Just because we don't agree with your wacky claims that RAS was responsible for IH's suffering, it does not mean that we deny IH's suffering or that we don't feel terrible for him.
It is indeed very sad that you are using this poor child’s misery to wage your own personal battle against RAS.
VN
thank you for your comments
you choose the way of loosers, just to insult peopple when you don't have an answer to a simple question
this way of answering says a lot about your support to M Hersh about sending his son to send kids to a reported abusive Jamaican camp
Now posters know what kind of person is posting under VUS NISCHT
VN
you said
"You should also be aware that both R’ Ahron and R’ Zalman Leib came to be menachem aval RAS two years ago, and both seemingly hold him in very high regard. "
I don't have anything against RAS, only against his action (Approuval in this particular Maise)
VN,
Is there any reason why you did not mention at all in your explanations to the questions I posed in my 2 posts, the appointment of R'Motty as Mashgiach?(the post with the names wasn't me) Really, give me your honest opinion on that, and how did the people in CB accept that appointment? To all the people I spoke to, es shmekt nisht gut.
CBT,
I'm very surprised at you. Your posts are indeed powerful. So much self confidence. Smart, and written with Taam. Then because of one stupid comment which was directed your way, you lose it completely and with 0 self confidence choose to share with everyone private details of your life (which people almost always keep to themselves). Vos is pshat? I really wish you the best and enjoy your posts.
Vus nisht calls me "Achron achron chaviv" -- well then, I must be moving up in the world if he now finds me "chaviv" after hurling everything including the kitchen sink at me, besides the obvious condescension and disdain he drips with every letter. But thanks all the same.
I doubt you are ready to kiss and make up quite yet. I can just see you breathing figurative fire from your enraged nostrils. Just take it easy and try to be a little less confrontational (less CB macho, try being like a humble Lakewooder who are growing their yeshiva without all the CB bravura and mystique) and that way I will have to respond to you with less force and thus less damage will result from these free-wheeling blog discussions.
I have also had a sense of who you might really be in real life and so far I am down to three possible people, one in particular fancies himself a great "writer" and mechaber, wordsmith, literary genius and is savvy with the Internet and writes away a storm all over the place (well at least CB has chosen a top hired gun attack dog to deal with me, and I will take it as a very sorry backhanded compliment for now -- until I find out who you are 100% for sure, and I will then hand you your literary head on a metaphoric cyber-platter), and judging from your lack of knowledge about my current life as per your past posts recalling "our" old days together in CB (note there were not too many people in CB in our old days, one reason was that RAS forced out, kicked out and then some left in the times of the last year of RSC as mashgiach), and you do not seem to know that I am not interested in playing games, I am already a grandfather, even though I write in a young person's style, I am past being young, and you know not that my growth and success in Torah life has continued greatly, like where my sons are holding in layas haTorah, and that while true oisvurfs like MH get to be honored and sit right behind RAS in full view of the oilem while his sons have become victims of a horrible upbringing to say the least, my sons are LEARNING in CB and shteiging, are close to CB and RAS and one was even offered a shidduch REPEATEDLY by a few Shechter family members, and they are close with RAS's family and all the rebbeim and I don't need newsletters or their boring dumb Emails and mailings, I can just look at my sons' faces and hear a devar Torah from them and I know where they are holding and if CB and its rebbeim, I am up to date with who all of them are and how they are doing and I proud that my sons have such excllent Torah teachers, and if the rebbeim in CB are fulfiling their mandate and doing their job of being mechanech the talmidim al pi derech haTorah and al pi taharas hakodesh, which Baruch Hashem they are, so I speak, as I have said a few times, as a concerned parent of children in CB, as an alumnus of CB, and friend of CB (I can prove it in many ways) and not as you insult me falsely as someone who is "twisted" (your words) with an agenda against RAS.
Is RAS so fragile that he can't take a good shtoch? He knows how to dish it, so I KNOW he can take it! It's just the kleinkeppelkdikke people like you who run around screaming fire and brimsone against "enemies of the state" because they think "daddy" can't take care of himself when daddy is as strong as a relative Aron and a Moshe and knows how to "shecht" gantz fine!
Every person must live with themselves, and while I suffered in silence when RAS did certain things to harm me, or did NOT do things to help me, yet as I have said a few times, the last year was a turning point, and RAS's worst year yet in along time. I have RAS on my radar all the time (isn't that the way it should be if a rabbi is important to you?) and what he did last year in increasingly bad judgment shocked me to the point where I had to speak up, albeit through this blog, but it was slow going at first.
Anyhow, back to MH, just ask yourself is it normal that someone who is merachek his sons and has one kidnapped to go to Jamaica into jail, it's not a "school" it's a torture chamber fit for Torquamada and the Inquistion, should get get kibud melachim. Or the one like me who is willing to say a word or two that does not follow the CB party line (which basically means saying only what is approved by RAS) yet has built up his sons and family to support CB and RAS so much so that they are beloved by RAS and CB, unlike the insults you directed my way about how I got what was coming to me and the hogwash about my "downfall" unless you consider raising a Torah mishpoche, sending your kids to CB, with one even in Kolle there, as being "failures" while the one failing as a parent, destroying the lives of his own family and children, hoodwinking a major rosh yeshiva and taking advantage of his love of BTs and sincere individuals and in a large measure "buying him off" and in the process causing one of the biggest chillul Hashems known for a long time and if that is not the mark of a super oisvurf (your chosen terminology) while powerless little me, who does not run after every little wagging of the finger by RAS or anyone in CB yet has brought only true glory, his own family, talmidim and even monetary help to the the yeshiva, if that is upsetting to you (if you even know what's going on that is, which I doubt), then you are suffering from a really bad case of distorted vision.
Should I let my own sons daven under the same roof as MH?
I have given up being there, it makes me sick to my stomach to see what goes on, with all the theater of the absurd, while my sons, like most of the young people there, don't have an accurate nor an accute vision to see and be troubled by the notorious CB shtik.
As for your claims that: "that does not mean that we dont feel terrible for IH. I personally stated my feelings of sympathy for IH. Additionally, everybody else in the CB camp that I have spoken with feels terrible about the IH tragedy."
What?
You make it sound like a case of vicarious "nichim aveilim" minus an actual body or "shiva" house. If you all felt so bad for IH why didn't they grab his father by the collar and throw him out of CB like he deserves instead of letting him literally still sit by the CB mizrach vant right behind RAS, which sends a different kind of signal than fake feelings and tears for IH that didn't help him in Tranqquility Bay.
That must be the joke of the year, because if you really such ba'alei rachmonus you would not be shedding your crocodile tears now but would have spoken up and done something about it THEN.
Stop talking about vaibishe "tears" and "feelings" for heaven's sake man, what ACTION or WORDS or DEEDS did you or anyone in CB take or do to stop it besides "feelin" bad for yourselves that finally the world gets to see the cruelty that is at work in the guise of fake "kindness" -- so get real and you are folling noone but yourslef and those of your ilk buddy.
Finally your comments and attitude to posters here like "Satmartc" are very troubling, annoying a outright revolting. Don't be so snotty. He is obviously immune to your CB-style bullying. Stop attacking innocent people on this blog and stifling their freedom to speak. You know full well that most non-Lubavitch chasidim do not have a good chinuch in English and that while their spoken and written English may sound and is broken, their minds, brains, logic and ideas are 100% perfect. You wouldn't dare say to a chosid to his face that you won't talk to him because he doesn't speak a perfect English, in fact many even in America speak mostly Yiddish almost all the time and they try to avoid speaking anything to goyim if they can. You are obviously not familiar with this kind of linguistic courtesy that is extended to Chasidim by all frum Jews in the NYC area and even the rest of NY, which only helps zero in on who you really are (added that you once mentioned that you live hundreds of miles from CB, and if that is true, how do you claim to know so much?) but it only makes it more obvious to me who YOU really are, and if I will be able to confirm your identity 100% sometime soon, maybe we can focus on some of the less than commendable things you have done in yor life, that quite honestly I would rather not do.
CBT-
I was referring to my list of great CB alumni over the past 20-30 years who IMO deserve the top shtellehs based purely on merit and how different it was in RYH era.
While your at it what about a response to Bray of Fundie about becoming a talmid of RYH exclusively through book study?
To anon@8 who syays and asks:
"CBT,
I'm very surprised at you."
What? Only now your are surprised at me? Good line. Persoannly, I am always surprised at me. Maybe that is why others can be too? Tocho kebaro I guess. Who knows. Not every question has an exact answer.
"Your posts are indeed powerful. So much self confidence. Smart, and written with Taam."
Thank you, than you, but why have you not interjected when "vush nisht" throws his personal insults my way, Since, after all, he is representing the tzad of the "tzadikim"? So when you will also throw in a word about his erroneous mehalech so that I can feel assured of your true neutrality? I am sure you mean well though.
"Then because of one stupid comment which was directed your way,"
Nope, it was not a mere innocent "stupid comment" but rather it was a well-aimed intentional direct shot, by a very experienced and careful writer I may add, since by now it's clear that "vus nisht" as is "Twistelton" is an author of some sort (if either of THEIR names became public it would be VERY embarrassing to them!) as well as serving as a RAS attack dog online here, and we fired his "wife/mistress" EXPLETIVE, until that point I was following standard protocol of NOT dragging wives or children into this discussion just like they are almost never drawn into real life machlokesen. But "vus nisht" decided to take it to the next level of verbal warfare and so I could either ignore it, or just say hiffy words of protest against it, or I could take it a quatum step/leap further and PROVE from real life what a a miserable MISINFORMED and UNINFORMED manipulative liar and below the belt bully (the kind of things he throws at me) but that "vus nisht" himself really is. I am sure that he has not been a happy camper in his onw personal life judging from that comment alone, and if he is who I think he has he has long ugly story of his own. Maybe that is why he is having so much fun at my expense and is "buying back" his good name at CB at my expense with his wild posts here. Vehamevin yavin.
"you lose it completely"
Nope, sorry, I disagree. I have been thinking for a long time how I would respond to various challenges for a long time starting from a few months ago when vush nisht and twistelton made threats against me with others and threatened they would out me. That having been the case, I gave the matter serious and deep thought and decided that I would continue even stronger if my true life identity came out (and so far it hasn't, and what would it prove in any case, that I am just a human being with a regular family, or what, I don't have "horns") and that I had nothing to hide and everything to be proud of and then some.
So that inching closer to who I am in real life, is a total digressiona dn tangebnt ande curve ball for the real readers because it will not solve anything, it will not lessen the lingering Chillul Hashem of the MH/IH case, it will also not frighten nor silence me and I was prepared to prove it.
Also, from the nature of the attack, it was BEDAVKE from the domain of my kiddushin and sons that I could and MUST prove my case to stop any possible smears dead in its tracks. I think vus nisht got the point.
"and with 0 self confidence choose to share with everyone private details of your life"
So, do you think this is a game? This is real life we are dealing with, don't fool yourself, even if we have to from time to time take on anonymous IDs online. Even the Chofetz Chaim and the Chazon Ish (no, I am not like them in their Torah gadlus at all, just masholim here) who were anonymous and known only by their seforim and were only "discovered" in real life by the public when they were middle aged and old men already. So there are precedents and nothing to worry about.
And in any case, what I said is simple enough and gor poshut, that I have sons who still learn in CB and Kollel Gur Aryeh and that one was invited to marry Rav Motty Shechter's daughter. They love it there and I am very proud of them and I encourage them all the time. If anyone has been a good advocate for CB for decades it is me (just go back and read how I tried to explain RAS's and RYH's side in the RSC controversy on this blog when Tzig started posting material from the RSC side, which lots of posters hated and disliked but I tried to be as accurate, clear and objective as possible), I am a walking ad of how good CB can be, but that does NOT mean that everyone gets a free pass if they screw up big time, and that goes for RAS as well.
Why should I keep some very simple genral family facts a secret when some anonymous coward who claims to know my true ID in any case wishes to attack me at the core? Let him choke on the bone I threw back in his face.
"(which people almost always keep to themselves)."
You obviously do not know me. I never have, nor do I know, follow what regular people do. If I did I would never have achieved nor have gotten to the great TORAH life successes in my life. I take my lead from AVROHOM OVINU who stood against the world, starting with smashing the idols IN HIS OWN FATHER'S HOUSE something that they teach kids in yeshiva but that noone ever practices because they become so brainwashed, conformist of corrupt power elites, and emotionally numb and misdireced that they are more like actors in an Orwellian 1984 scenario than the true questiong minds that Hashem had tried to teach them through the Chumash. (I can just hear "vus nisht" seeting and yelling at me not to darshen, but tough noogies vus nisht, this is the blogosphere coming to you on the Interent on the World Wide Web, and if you can't take the cyber-heat then get out of the cyber-kitchen and besides you should be following the dictates of the Gedolim who assur the Internet. I have a heter to educate ignorant people, what's yours?)
"Vos is pshat?"
Pshat I have explained, however there is also derush, remez and sod.
"I really wish you the best and enjoy your posts"
Thanks a lot. Don't give "vus nisht der gornisht" heartburn with all your compliments.
To anonymous who asks:
"CBT-
I was referring to my list of great CB alumni over the past 20-30 years who IMO deserve the top shtellehs based purely on merit and how different it was in RYH era."
You are a little bit off here. The times, the matzav and the people are different.
There is no "Law" that says that anything and everything RYH did had to be continued "exactly" as he said it. Farkert, he knew full well that by handing over the yeshiva to RAS as rosh yeshiva and to RAF is its chairman, that they would put their own successful shtempel on it their way, it could not be otherwise.
Now while RYH had only one daughter with her husband RYD and they have no children, the question of what would RYH have done had he had more children or had RYD and his wife RBD had children would have provided the answer you REALLY seek. But since he and they ddidn't, the question is entirely academic and moot.
RYH knew full well who RAS was and he had a special place in his heart for him and his children.
RYH knew the koiches of rav Motty Shechter (RMS) in particular as well and he too is a disciple of RYH believe me, and not a blind follower either at that! RMS is an astounding thinker with genuine intellectual curiosity and dhe is unafraid. Not well known is that he is also a true gaonishe mekubel (as it should be with true mekubalim, they are hidden) and profound ba'al machshove and logician, and he knows and loves chasidus. He also happens to be a great abdnd caring ba'al chesed with an affinity for the underdog. He is well-read in inyonei de'alma and he understands people well. I know first hand from speaking with him for many long hours over many long years, and I have also heard it from reliable sources.
RYH also knew of the choices of Yormark and Haliwa for RAS's daughters and of their learning prowess and kishrones. RYH had amazing praise for Yormark that he had the gadlus of a gadol from the heim yet, those were RYH's assessments. So as much as Haliwa and Yormark and Motty are RAS's family, they are worthy of shtelles, yet obviously if not for their father it would not, but there is no other choice.
The names you mention are all worthy and many of them do have choshuve positions but they have all accepted their fate one way or another. To talk on this point is to ignore tha fact that RYH is gone since 1980, almost three decades and in that time RAS has put his mark on the place. This should come as no surprise.
"While your at it what about a response to Bray of Fundie about becoming a talmid of RYH exclusively through book study?"
Well one of them did admit that yechidei segulah could become talmidim of RYH through book study. If "book study" is no criterian, then many of today's crop of talmidim of CB who never met or saw or experienced RYH live (they just hear mostly edited ma'ases second or third hand or through hear-say) would therefore also be excused from being called RYH's "talmidim" even if some of them know RYH's Pachad Yitzchok seforim backwards and forwards, so obviously it would not be true either, since many of them do consider themselves RYH's disciples and true chasidim (followers of a "toitte rebbe" if you will) and there is nothing wrong with that because RYH's pesrsona and personality, charisma, superlative and supreme koiches hanefesh, aura and life is still extremely close enough to us and there are many still around who were real life talmidim of shape or sort or another to convey this to others.
But lately, I have been thinking that true talmidim of RYH are literally a dying breed and that as they pass one there are no replacement for those highly excpetional people who RYH atttracted since neither RAS nor RYD atttract or shape those kind of people. RYH loved the challanage of "Personalities" and people with giant egos and charisma (it's what RAS and RYD have in great abundance in fact) but in turn intrigueingly and ironically FRIGHTEN and repulse RAS and RYD while to RYH they were grist for the mill.
One thing you can say for RYH, he fought plenty, but he chose opponenents basically his own size in way or another, if not intellectually or spiritually then physically. Verbal jousting with Brisk and Chabad and YU was his way, and he never let you forget it. That's why the fight against IH was such a spectacle of bullying. In all probability, and almost certainly, RYH would have had no time for such things. He usually protected and tried to be mekarev, mashpiah, mechanech and influence troubled teens quite a few of whom eventaully saw the errors of their mischevious ways and cahnneled their rebellions into a better cause and often became from the top crop of rosh yeshivas and rabbis that counted RYH as there Rebbe and rosh yeshiva.
Do you think that Rav Shlomo Freifeld and Yaakov and Noach Weinberg were such goody-goodies when they were in CB? Not quite. RAS tries to work with some characters that pop up at CB at times but it backfires more often than not and he just sticks with his own chasidim, the mostly thin brainy types who are yes men and they can all feel good about themselves without rocking anyone's boat. Not so RYH who loved all sorts of people even if they were very weird sometimes but they all usually had a mark of genius in them somewhere that he tried to identify, evoke, develop and turn into something useful.
I think you may be living in the past and you need to upodate your perspective. But your heart is in the right place!
CBT,
“but why have you not interjected when "vush nisht" throws his personal insults my way,”
Are you trying to enlist their help? Is it that you don’t feel like you can fight this one on your own?
“by a very experienced and careful writer I may add, since by now it's clear that "vus nisht" as is "Twistelton" is an author of some sort”
Thank you!
“and if he is who I think…”
Oh no! It looks like you are on to me! Oh no!
“when vush nisht and twistelton made threats against me with others and threatened they would out me”
As I have previously made clear, I never threatened you, nor did I ever attempt to out you, ever!
I pointed this blatant lie out in my last post. Of course you chose to ignore it just like you choose to ignore any question you can’t answer; a respectable and commendable tactic indeed.
The first time you said that I have attempted to out you it could have been a mistake. But now, after I pointed out that it is an erroneous claim, you come right back with the same false claim!
So I challenge you to bring proof that I ever threatened to out you.
Of course you will not be able to bring forth any proof, because there is no proof to be brought.
You are a liar, and you intentionally lied simply to undermine my credibility and make it seem that I am trying to hurt you, thereby portraying me as a bad man with vicious intentions.
The truth is that I am not out to get you, and could not care less of the rest if the oilam knows who you are.
I just think it’s sad that you come here spewing all sorts of hate and lies under the guise of a warrior of truth and justice. And more than anything it is sad that you are using the IH tragedy to wage your own personal was with RAS.
Like I said, I knew who you were almost right away, and I never tried to out you.
It never happened, period.
It’s just another delusion of your delusional mind.
You know vus nisht, I will grant that you personally may not have said that you will out me. What I am referring to is a flurry of posts that came out against a few months ago, at a time when you were part of that rabid chorus, and among them were those who not only tried to out me and the owner of this blog had to edit their attempts and tell them off.
Now you may not have been the specific one who was part of *that" outcry to out, and from your protests here I see it is a sore point with you, and I take back that it was you since you are so adamant, but when a pack of wolves comes howling at you all at once, it's hard to go back and untangle which wolf barked out what growl, and I am not in the mood right now to read over and review hundreds of old posts by so many posters that's like looking for a needle in haystack when it's not a monumental issue. So sorry for that, but my issues with you specifically are not about "outings" or not, but by your own hateful comments, such as the "wife/mistrees" comment you show yourself to be worse than an outer and it is you that brazenly lies and manipulates to convey your view, all while you scream liar, liar etc at me.
I want to say one thing to you, that you don't seem to grasp. No two people experience the world in the same way. And obviously we have experinced RAS in different ways. You may love him unconditionally as you would your grandfther, but I cannot. I tried but I cannot, given that he inflicted to much pain and suffering on me in various ways over the uears, even though he wass also my sponsor at many times, but that only made the double-crossing and back-stabbing worse when it came to my attention over time. This is factual, it is not a myth. I wish it was. If all this is merely "delusional" as you claim, a vey poor argument indeed because so far the readership here has not bought into your sorry attempts at caharcter destruction, we could then dismiss this entire debate and go home and fake friendship yet again I suppose.
You are in no position to judge or rule or denigrate on MY reactions to RAS because you do NOT know, nor do you seem to care at all, what it is based on. But I assure you and all readers here, my case has so far not been stated and I have avoided putting my own personal story up for review and judgment by the world because that is nisht tzum zach so far, so that it is very obvious that you did NOT experience what I experinced with RAS over more than 30 years and why I chose and choose to act in the way that I do now. I am not prepared to hold my silence unto the grave, and I thank Hashem that I have been abale to utter a few words that may be of help and insight to others.
It's a tough call for me you see, will I be held accountable for my silence amd then I will be asked why did you not say anything when all this stuff was going on around ytou and you had the power to say something, even anything, or why did you dare confront RAS in some ways. Obviously if I have chosen the path that I have it is for VERY good reasons based on MY experieneces and NOT yours and it's not just petty delusional lies as you keep on mocking me and I doubt that most readers believe a word you say against me.
You are entitled to your views and experiences and I do not question your history. Kindly do not cast asperion on other people merely because they have not experienced RAS the way that you have.
Hmmmm very interesting
I keep on pressing about the appointment of R' Motty, and about what the staff and oilam in CB think about this. VN is silent again.(louder then words).
It is davka CBT who writes raving compliments about RMS.
Sorry to disagree with you on some of your compliments, and in general on this important issue, which has so many ramifications and consequences for the next CB generation.
I will say that it is done in most Litvish Yeshivos and Chasidic Dynasties, much to my disgust.
To anon@8 who said...
"Hmmmm very interesting"
Ok, your're welcome. Thank you.
"I keep on pressing about the appointment of R' Motty, and about what the staff and oilam in CB think about this."
Which is to be appreciated. You are not alone. As RYH used to say, "od chazon lamo'ed" we shall yet see how this egg hatches over time. The appointment of RMS is a complex move on his father's (RAS's) part for many, many reasons a few of which I will mention here, not in order of priority. Firstly, RMS has no interest in the shtelle. He was pressed into the job just as RSC was pressed into it and later RSG. The last HAPPY and unconflicted mashgiach in CB was Rav Avigdor Miller (RAM) who served in that post for over 20 years till he and RYH had a parting of the ways, after which RYH brough in one of his closest disciples RSC by twisting his arm to do it and making promises to RSC that came back to haunt them all big time, as we now know. This should come as no surprise. RMS would much rather be in rav Motty Freifeld's shoes running a small Kollel in Yerushalayim and learning chasidus and talking with all sorts of unusual people. RMS has indeed been spending his summers lately in EY. In fact he was already settled in ET after his chasune, but RAS called him back to prepare for the future and at that time about 25 years ago noone knew exacly how the future would pan out, and now that the mashgiach slot opened with the premature passing of RSG, in fell to RMS to do his father's bidding, although as RSG got sicker in his last years they knew that they were going to do it. Secondly, it is never easy for great people to be accepted by the hamon am. RMS is a true gadol and it is not easy for the lilliputians in the CB bais medrash to relate to this new "Gulliver" towering over them (RMS is tall, in keeping with Hutnerian and not RAS types, even though he is RAS's son.) RMS is also going through a long and akward coming out of his shell process and it's not easy to be part of this kind of "birthing process" -- in our society people want magic performing show biz stars to appear from behind the curtain singing and dancing. Oh, and RMS does do a lot of singing in CB functions on Shabbos. He has an excellent and melodious voice that can hold complex niggunim, while RAS cannot utter a broken note as he is tone deaf, not his fault either. Thirdly, forget about the actual job of being mashgiach per se because it'ss being done de facto by Rav Chaim Kitevits, his son Avigdor, and a few others behind the scenes. RSG as mashgiach for 25 years was already not much of a true mashgiach and counselor either. The true role of RMS is to act as the rod and symbol of power and glue of authority that goes straight from RAS to him in CB and acts as protection for the three mild mannered eidims who are so eidel and totally incapable of confrontation and warring (they are genuine ba'alei middos), unlike RMS and his younger brother Noson the mohel who are true rough Shechters and will fight and bite to protect what they believe is their's by "divine right of kings." That is just the way it is. The Fruchthandlers have some family members as rebbeim in the yeshiva (Rav Yosef, Rav Shlomo, and RAF's sons: Binyomin and Eli) and RAF, with the help of his bro Zak, gets to be a big macher all over the Aguda and Charedi map whenever he chooses for whatever cause or mosad he wants to get involved with, like a kind of latter-day Sir Moses Montefiore (who was an eidim of Anshel Rothchild and was both scholar and magnate), but they are not made of the same mettel as RMS yet they have more than enough kovod and influence for people who also have a multi-billion real estate empire to run don't forget. Also the Fruchthandlers have the aura that rich people have that they don't let people get too close to them unlike the Shechters who try to drown and intoxicate and overpower you. Finally, there is the issue of Rav Moshe Feinstein's (RMF) written ruling that RSC is still to be considered the de jure mashgiach of CB until such time as CB comes to a mutually acceptable severance settlement with him (I wish they would, RAF has more than enough money to spare a million or two to shut down the open dinei Torah once and for all, and then the whole thing could finally be brough to closure and CB and the Torah world will have removed one of its biggest blights from its body.) While RSG was brave and it was ONLY because RYH ordered him to do the job. It was RAS who requested RSG for the job but it had to be via an explicit command from RYH, otherwise how else to be doche the pesak from RMF that is still applicable at this time. So now, if RAS, who has maintained by his actions that he is not answerable to RMF's pesak and that like RYH he is in a position to rule CB (in both the halachik and the executive senses) then by appointing his own son to the shtelle of mashgiach, as far as RAS and RMS are concerned there is nothing to be concerned about re:RMF's pesak because they are immune and not subject to it for all the reasons that I had originally written up when the RSC story first started appearing in this blog many months ago.
"VN is silent again.(louder then words)."
Oh, don't take it personally, he's only here to harras and lie about me. He's just a hired attack dog of RAS. You can be sure "vus nisht" is either lurking and reading or that someone else on his behalf is keeping an eye on what's written here by people associated with CB in true KGB style and if they feel it is necessary or that I step over certain lines, they call on him, or takes on the ID of "vus nisht" and while not saying anything useful or positive at all, uses his slash and burn verbal attacks against me by calling me all sorts of crazy names and lying as he goes along and calls me a "liar" -- cute. You see, he is arrogant (a sign of immaturity) and he has no interest in engaging anyone in these kinds of serious dicussions and he looks at bloggers and posters here as low-lifes (while he blogs and writes on the web plenty himself, because I am fairly sure by now I know who he is, and he is not a pleasnat person with a nice history.) But I do not wish to engage him, he is not worth it.
"It is davka CBT who writes raving compliments about RMS."
Thanks, that is because I do admire RMS. After all he wanted to be my mechutan! As for "vus nisht" he may know RMS well too but he is probably jealous of him and surely very out of touch and in no position to say anything about recent developments in CB the last few years about which he knows nothing.
"Sorry to disagree with you on some of your compliments, and in general on this important issue,"
That is your right and I respect it. BUT you have not elaborated nor given some solid reasons for your worries and concerns beyond one or two little lines like a kitten trapped in a box. Come out an roar so that I and the world can hear you and what you have to say.
"which has so many ramifications and consequences for the next CB generation."
Agreed! But what will be with CB, will be, and it will not be a result of appointing RMS to mashgiach or not. There are plenty of other good staff members in the bais medrash, like Rav Binyomin Cohen, Rav Avigdor Kitevits, a number of Kahns and Kirzners and excellent high school mesivta rebbeim who are giving the bochurim a great chinuch.
"I will say that it is done in most Litvish Yeshivos and Chasidic Dynasties, much to my disgust."
Ok, so after we can all agree on that we have to accept reality and live with it. It can work well or it can be abused. Lakewood has become very popular and despite family rule by the Kotler clan it is an essentially open place with lots of smaller magidei shiur and chaburas, same for the Mir in Yerushalayim that is run by the sons in law of the late Rav Beinish Finkel who took five American eidims and they transformed the Mir into a huge makom Torah that is also very open with various maggidei shiur and chabura leaders.
As for Chasidim and their Rebbes I am not getting involved in that question, but the system is working, sort of.
I guess just like the world at large became "corporate" -- likwise yeshivas and chasidus had to follow that business and leadership model and now the big yeshivas and major chasidic groups are LITERALLY like huge CORPORATIONS and run with business principles and boards with CEOs and CFOs and fundraisng pros and PR drives etc. Welcome to the 21st century.
The times have changed, but your heart is definitely in the right place.
Thanks CBT for your eloquent and elaborate response as usual.
CBT,
“calling me all sorts of crazy names and lying as he goes along and calls me a "liar" “
I did call you a liar, yes. I clearly pointed out that you had blatantly lied, and what was your response? Nothing! You could not come up with an excuse, and now you cry that I called you liar?!
“because I am fairly sure by now I know who he is, and he is not a pleasnat person with a nice history.”
Ha! Good one! You wish you knew who I was! Go ahead punk, out me! I dare you!
“As for "vus nisht" he may know RMS well too but he is probably jealous of him and surely very out of touch and in no position to say anything about recent developments in CB the last few years about which he knows nothing.”
Why on earth would I be jealous of RMS?
I love the man and am very proud of all his accomplishments.
And exactly how do you figure that I am out of touch with CB the last few years and that I am in no position to speak about recent developments?
I seemingly know a lot more than you about recent CB developments.
Remember six months ago when I had to remind you that R’ Shlomo Braunstein is running the Mesivta? Remember when I had to clarify the positions of all of RAS sons in law, something which you were clueless about?
Your memory seems to fail you. I am far more up to date with current CB developments than you, and you can be bochen me about any event or happening that occurred in CB over the last few years. Then we will see who is up to date on CB developments.
Anon @8,
You are right. I was silent about RMS for a reason.
I did not respond to your posts regarding RMS because I had no answer.
Unlike CBT, I do not like to bashmutz other people in public.
Only a coward like CBT who can not face any of his adversaries in real life comes onto this blog and rips people.
If you have not realized, in all my posts I have never degraded anybody (aside from that menuval CBT).
So when I answered your post I only defended the defendable persons and I specifically left out RMS.
Now that CBT has called me out and is spewing more filth and lies I will explain….
I am assuming that by now you understand good and well that the sons in law of RAS (RSH, REY and RYMS) are all very well deserving of their positions.
Now, let’s go back to your original question…
“RAS also put in his son Reb Mordechai (Moty) as Mashgiach.”
Yes, RAS did give his son R’ Mordcha Zelig the position/title of “Mashgiach”.
But RAS did not just move RMS into the Mashgiach slot in one day; rather he gently slid him in over time.
R’ Shimon Groner was Mashgiach since RSC. About ten years ago R’ Shimon Groner began felling shvach and RMS was moved in as Mashgiach for second seder while RSG maintained his position of Mashgiach for first seder only.
Until that point RMS held no official position in yeshiva at all, and had nothing to do with the bachurim. He spent his time quietly learning on his own.
There were many in yeshiva who felt that RMS was not at all suited for the position as he had no prior shaychus to the bachurim and never had a shteller of any sort. So to move him in to be Mashgiach out of the blue was just not fair. After all, he had no experience and was not familiar with the bachurim. While at the same time there were many in yeshiva who were seemingly far better suited for the position than RMS.
Needless to say many in yeshiva were not happy.
There was even one bachur who inferred that RMS was a Nazi right to RMS’ face; this was only RMS’ second day on the job! (RMS went straight to his father who in turn called this bachur up to his office and slapped him across the face!)
It took a good few years for everybody to accept the fact that RMS was there as second seder Mashgaich to stay.
And right after everybody finally got used to that notion, RSG passed away.
That was three years ago.
Everybody knew right away that RMS was going to be Mashgiach. That is not to say that everybody was fine with the idea. But at this point he already knew the bachurim and had been actively involved for about seven years, and it was simple to see that he was the new Mashgiach.
RSG passed away during winter z’man three years ago.
The following Ellul, RMS was given RSG’s seat at the back left pillar of the beis medrash and that was confirmation that he was indeed the Mashgiach and he was there to stay.
What CBT says about R’ Chaim Kitevts and his son R Avigdor acting as Mashgichim is erroneous on many accounts.
They do not act as Mashgichim any more than any other Rabbeim.
R’ Chaim worries about his shiur.
And R’ Avigdor worries about his Kollel (now his shiur).
(R’ Avigdor was Rosh Kollel along with R’ Binyamin Kohen until this year. Now R’ Avigdor was moved to be the first year maggid shiur alongside R’ Reuven Nierenberg, while R’ Meir Simcha Kahn stepped into R’ Avigdor’s old Rosh Kollel position.)
Although RCK keeps a close shaychus to the bachurim who move on from his shiur, and RAK keeps shaychus to many of the post first year bachurim for whom is a rosh chaburah in Camp Morris (CBs summer home), they are certainly not Mashgichim of any sort.
[Of course I do not know any of that since I am - in the words of CBT - “very out of touch and in no position to say anything about recent developments in CB the last few years about which he knows nothing”]
I like RMS very much and do not have anything bad to say about him.
But he is certainly a case of RAS showing favoritism to his family.
By now the oilam has accepted him as Mashgiach and although he still does not command as much respect as the other big guns in CB, he is no longer looked down upon as somebody who is where he is because of his father. (That is not to say that it was ever correct to look down on RMS, but the fact is that there were many who did when he became Mashgiach simply because they saw him a pasuter ba'al habus [which he was not] who only got the position because of his father.)
Anon @ 8, what you need to understand is that CBT is trying to gain credibility by pointing out that RMS wanted his son as an eidim. So obviously he wants RMS to seem like a tremendous gaon and tzaddik.
After all the more chashuv RMS is, the more chashuv CBT’s son is, so the more chashuv CBT is….
So CBT goes on another one of his twisted and dishonest rants, this time trying to make RMS seem like the velts greatest man.
RMS is a good man plain and simple, and he is the Mashgaich in CB because his is the son of RAS.
vos nisht,
Thank you very much. I have no more questions. You have answered my questions honestly and truthfully and I respect that.
While it is obviously tiring to have a conversation with an attack dog defending RAS like "vus nisht", who only talks in depth about affairs in CB AFTER I say anything and has no other role than to hang around here and talk as if he is the biggest authority on CB when many people have other things to say. I say mine and he can say his, and let people read and decide for themselves. But since he does come here with some weird words that require comment for what they reveal, I will respond.
"I did call you a liar, yes."
Funny, but the owner of this blog has called me a "pillar of truth" so which is it? Honestly, my view is to let the world decide. I will state my case as best I can. You can't make everybody happy and in my line of work, in order to be effective, I have learned that a long time ago.
"I clearly pointed out that you had blatantly lied, and what was your response? Nothing! You could not come up with an excuse, and now you cry that I called you liar?!"
What lie and what excuse? You said I was lying to say that you wanted to out me. I explained why I was suspicious but then that I believed your claim because I don't have time to check all the past discussions. Not an excuse. So fine you were not the specific one to want to out me, so that makes me liar, now that I let you off the hook on that one? Note how you have not apologized to the comments and insults you make about me when NONE of this conversation has anything to do with you, it's about much bigger issues and you have nothing to do with it, since you are so deliriously happy with CB and will defend all its ills even when the problems are so obvious they even make it into the newspapers already, as in the IH case and other CB-people connected fiascos that have happened in the past.
"Ha! Good one! You wish you knew who I was! Go ahead punk, out me! I dare you!"
Honestly, to tell you the truth, don't flatter yourself, I don't care who you are. I do not and have not outed anyone, nor do I want to, and just listen to yourself talk and it's easy to see who the punk really is here. And you're deploying the stupidist strategy by not being honest about the issues but creating digressions and expressing nonsense about me. Don't you see that it is YOU who is making me popular with the readers here! But what can one expect from an immature thinker.
"Why on earth would I be jealous of RMS? I love the man and am very proud of all his accomplishments."
Good to know. Keep it up!
"And exactly how do you figure that I am out of touch with CB the last few years and that I am in no position to speak about recent developments? I seemingly know a lot more than you about recent CB developments."
Who cares? This is getting to sound like that argument between two boys who were saying my Rebbe is bigger than your Rebbe, to which an old Chosid standing nearby who overheard them said, it's like arguing whose pisher pishes furthest. CB is a big place and lots of things go on there. You have your information like the KGB and I have mine like the CIA, that, and two dollars, will get you on the subway in NYC.
"Remember six months ago when I had to remind you that R’ Shlomo Braunstein is running the Mesivta?"
Oh yeah? He isn't. The mesivta is being running from top to bottom by his brother in law the Segan Menahel Rav Michel Guzik (groomed and trained by his mentor, the last mesivta principal, Rav Chaim Segal zt"l), with an assist from a few rebbeim, while Rav Shloime is more of a Rosh Yeshiva befitting the true adam gadol that he is who should rightly not be wasting his time with narishkeit.
"Remember when I had to clarify the positions of all of RAS sons in law, something which you were clueless about?"
Clueles? Very funny. I have watched them very closely and I know them well as people (in learning obviously they are giants and I am not in their league -- I am always happy that people are greater than me in learning, it gives me hope for the future of Torah and Klal Yisroel) and exactly how they have progressed. But this is too silly that you even think we need to be discussing it. What is there to dipute about them in any case? They are eidille mentschen caught in the middle of RAS's vast ambitions.
"Your memory seems to fail you."
While yours is perfect and unbiased and not selectively one sided?
"I am far more up to date with current CB developments than you,"
Ok, mazel tov, if it makes you feel good about yourself!
"and you can be bochen me about any event or happening that occurred in CB over the last few years. Then we will see who is up to date on CB developments."
What a silly notion, what is this? Purim Torah? That I should be "boichen" you about shtusim? I would rather be marbeh sedra and think of what I learned while I was in CB and all its great people rather that waste my time with your, by now, evident narishkeiten.
"You are right. I was silent about RMS for a reason."
Hmm, what made you come back? Kicked out by your wife? From what you write about RMS below it is not very complimentary as noone would hire such a person for a mashgiach job after the way you presented him and the whole deal. What's with you?
"I did not respond to your posts regarding RMS because I had no answer. Unlike CBT, I do not like to bashmutz other people in public. Only a coward like CBT who can not face any of his adversaries in real life comes onto this blog and rips people.
If you have not realized, in all my posts I have never degraded anybody (aside from that menuval CBT)."
Giving an answer is like "bashmutzing" people? Huh? What twisted non-logic is that? Anyhow, I have faced all my adversaries many times and even worse than them. Glad to see that you admit that they are my "adversaries" and not friends. Like the old saying goes, with friends like that, I don't need enemies. Yet you yourself are happy as a hidden termite that you remain anonymous, are you afraid that I know who you are, you sure look like you do. But who cares, really. Notice how in trying to deal with how you should have responded to the question about RMS (nothing to do with me) instead you create a smokescreen and get into a whole rant about my "bad ways" etc instead of coming up with some real information and insight that you see the public wants about a person who has just taken on a key job in a major yeshiva that impacts the lives of many people.
"So when I answered your post I only defended the defendable persons and I specifically left out RMS."
So noble of you I am shedding so many tears that my Kleenex is running out. Wanna buy me some more, send it to me since you know who I am. Oh, wait, let me get my violin music as you come up with the rest of your tale spinning.
"Now that CBT has called me out and is spewing more filth and lies I will explain…."
What filth and lies, yet again, with insults. Intelligent people know that in a debate, insulting the opponent is not an excuse for clear and rational thinking that you are showing a diminishing capacity for the more time drags on here. Called you out? No sir, I would be happy if you remained in your hole where you belong, but unlike you I welcome a good debate to air out the mysteries and bring things down to Earth.
"I am assuming that by now you understand good and well that the sons in law of RAS (RSH, REY and RYMS) are all very well deserving of their positions."
Talking like people need to know things "good and well" means that you are reading them the riot act and it impresses noone. Just makes you seem like paper-clip dictator. Some people like myself do get what you are trying to say about the 3 RAS aidims, but it seems that others, like Anon@8 don't, and it bothers them. So cut them some slack and ease up on them. Noone wants things rammed down their throats as "accomplished facts".
"Now, let’s go back to your original question…"
You sound so didactic and snotty, like Obama taking himself so seriously as he lectures the lowly masses. Only in this case, noone is screaming for you.
"Yes, RAS did give his son R’ Mordcha Zelig the position/title of “Mashgiach”. But RAS did not just move RMS into the Mashgiach slot in one day; rather he gently slid him in over time."
Ok, this is true. So what is the point? Noone claimed it was a sudden move. Stop padding your answers. Soon you will tell us what clothes they were wearing and what day of the week it was that it all happened.
"R’ Shimon Groner was Mashgiach since RSC."
Point of order. For one year there was NO mashgiach in CB, from the summer of 1978 to the summer of 1979 during which RAS acted as his own (non) mashgiach as the place started to fall apart in some areas where RSC had taken care of things, like in the the placement of people in the dorm and keeping track of daily attendance and the all crticla are of personal counseling in which RSC was a giant of psychology and human nature. During that time also the mashgiach slot was offered to Rav Shlomo Braunstein (who was the night seder mashgiach), but he refused to take it, and he was promptly told he was no longer needed in CB. It was a tough time for people while RSC was pounding the streets seeking justice and the air was filled with recriminations and simchas of people who had not taken sides in the RSC machlokes were forced to choose, often at the peak of a simcha when they all showed up and started walkouts to the humilation of a number of CB baalei simcha when RSC would show up and RAS and RYH would walk out. Don't gloss over important episodes and facts, ok?
"About ten years ago R’ Shimon Groner began felling shvach"
Why you want to mention this I do not know! You are not saying what made him so "shvach" that a shadow mashgiach was called for. I could say more on this point in detail, but I will not, out of my deep appreciation and derech eretz to RSG, yet you feel you can bring it up as if you were pouring yourself a warm cup of tea. You are too cold hearted.
"and RMS was moved in as Mashgiach for second seder while RSG maintained his position of Mashgiach for first seder only."
Ok, and it was not as clear-cut as you make it sound because RSG came into the bais medrash whenever he wanted and his seat was always muchan and mezuman for him since having been appointed and given his mandate by RYH, and being probably one of RYH's most temimusdikke and beloved disciples, he was untouchable, so RAS adopted a wait and see "death watch" that to many people looked like vultures circling asick prey about to drop. It was not a pretty sight for anyone, but here it is you that comes with cover-ups and lies. But why get into all that name calling. It does not help elicit clarity about anything.
"Until that point RMS held no official position in yeshiva at all,"
True, but he was THE undisputed crown prince and first in line to succession of RAS so why did he need to do anything accept to see and be seen in CB!
"and had nothing to do with the bachurim."
Wrong! He had many connections with many bochurim and yungeleit who often sought him out because he is a genuinely interesting person for those who can manage to connect with him.
"He spent his time quietly learning on his own."
please, he is not such a quiet person. His mere physical presence is very strong, so he does not need to say things. What are you trying to say in any case? That he was alittle shpselle grazing hay in the corner, when in truth he was ayoung lion waiting foir his day to take over the pride, that is pretty obvious. One alpha male always succeeds another alpha male, that is the way of the world!
"There were many in yeshiva who felt that RMS was not at all suited for the position as he had no prior shaychus to the bachurim and never had a shteller of any sort."
Ok, and many, perhaps most, still feel that way. It has not changed anything.
"So to move him in to be Mashgiach out of the blue was just not fair."
Whose thoughts are you giving body to here? That is not how it works. Are you privy to RAS's way of thinking? Since when does RAS worry about "fairness" of any sort? Almost never! If he was fair he would resolve the RSC tragedy. If he was fair he would not side with MH and agree to have IH sent to a concentration camp in Jamaica. RAS calculates things according to his OWN perceptions and realities and views of his needs and of hopefully da'as Torah, and the silly American notion of "fairness" does not come into play in that department in his world. Please get real, ok.
"After all, he had no experience and was not familiar with the bachurim."
Wrong again. RMS had been spending time with bochurim more than most people. RMS is a great and patient shmoozer and always invited bochurim over to his house for Shabbos (me among them long ago, so I know first-hand how he operates etc) and he hears them out very carefully. He has spent his whole life getting to know people, in CB and out, as a matter of fact he, more than most, was born into CB, so don't make him out to be a rube when he is not.
"While at the same time there were many in yeshiva who were seemingly far better suited for the position than RMS."
Yeah, like who? Name one. Basically noone wants that thankless job, and they are smart too. It does not take a genius to see what happned to RAM, RSC and RSG.
"Needless to say many in yeshiva were not happy."
Perhaps it's also a deflcted unhappines that they have not been able to express to RAS directly and then took it out and take it out on RMS as a redirection of their real frustration and anger that has nothing to do with RMS.
"There was even one bachur who inferred that RMS was a Nazi right to RMS’ face; this was only RMS’ second day on the job! (RMS went straight to his father who in turn called this bachur up to his office and slapped him across the face!)"
This is perhaps your best piece of testimony from all your words. It shows many things. That RAS likes to bully instead of talk. Who slaps talmidim nowadays, tell me? Throw the bochur out of yeshiva or give back the money his parents donated (if he was from a rich home) but why SLAP people around? This is JUST the kind of bullying tactcis that were behind picking on IH and why RAS supported MH's own slapping around of his own kids that produced no results. By all means give your OWN kids some discipline and give them a patch in tuches if they deserve it, but don't slap people around just because they have expressed an opinion you don't like. It seems that that also is the way of Obama, if the press cannot fawn over him, then they will be punished rather than brought into a rational discussion and airing of differing points of view. This is all so dictatorial, and it cannot be healthy. And yes, RMS is very tough and does talk down to many of the talmidim in CB, but he will hopefdully learn to overcome his airs and find a way to express the right words that will be devarim hayotzim min halev nichnasim el halev.
"It took a good few years for everybody to accept the fact that RMS was there as second seder Mashgaich to stay."
And, sadly most have still not accepted it, but like slaves in galley, they have learned coping mechanisms and seem to be working around him rather than with him, Very unfortunate and hopefully the lines of communication will improve by creating a more open environment that allows people to speak up and be taken seriously. That is one reason that Lakewood is more popular than CB because in Lakewood noone slaps talmidim and people have freedom of movement to choose the chaburos and rebbeim they like without being forced to like this or that mashgiach or rosh yeshiva.
"And right after everybody finally got used to that notion, RSG passed away."
What is this "chronology" you are making up here? One thing had nothing to do with the other. There were two separate tracks that mostly passed like ships (or trains) in the night. RSG was on his track and RMS on his. The hardly said two words to each other every day. The only time they intersected personally and in the eyes of the CB oilem was when RSG was niftar and RMS moved into his seat a little while later (not even one year later actually, which made some people understandably upset).
"That was three years ago. Everybody knew right away that RMS was going to be Mashgiach. That is not to say that everybody was fine with the idea. But at this point he already knew the bachurim and had been actively involved for about seven years, and it was simple to see that he was the new Mashgiach."
Mostly true, but you are being confusing. What is with this seven years deal when you said previoulsy he was sitting quietly and learning until he became mashgiach. Can you explain what this new "seven year" period is that has significance to you, when it is not really anything.
"RSG passed away during winter z’man three years ago."
Stop getting into these diversionary details that are just fluff. Yes, I know, I was at the levaya and hespedim. He got a royal funeral that he deserved. Too bad he was niftar, he was a true (Shimon Ha) tzadik who suffrred greatly in order to mekayeim the ratzon of HIS Rebbe RYH worthy of the greatest Chosid!
"The following Ellul, RMS was given RSG’s seat at the back left pillar of the beis medrash and that was confirmation that he was indeed the Mashgiach and he was there to stay."
All very nice, but useless details. The main point, was why they (meaning RAS) didn't wait a full year as should have been done. After all, even after the living RSC left (was expelled) from CB, RYH and RAS waited one shana temima, so why was RSG not given that koved posthumously, since RMS was in no rush to get that position in any case as it was going to be given to him on a golden platter in any way.
"What CBT says about R’ Chaim Kitevts and his son R Avigdor acting as Mashgichim is erroneous on many accounts."
What I said is 100% true, as any talmid in CB today knows, even though they are NOT *official* mashgichim (I never said they were officially that), but they do the DE FACTO, meaning lema'ase, work of true mashgichim, so if you want good eitzos and guidance, go directly to Rav Chaim Kitevits (RCK) or his son Rav Avigdor Kitevitz (RAK). They are warm wonderful and caring people and CB is very fortunate to have their devoted services and they know it. None of RAS''s sons in law nor RMS are able to give the type of humanized advise and guidance that emanates from the unbeatable Kitevitz father and son.
"They do not act as Mashgichim any more than any other Rabbeim."
False, because they carry lion's share and the main burden of the real mashgiach work, such as the critical work of advice about dating and shidduchim, in addition to being top maggidei shiur. This is not even in dispute. They have a double job on one salary each!
"R’ Chaim worries about his shiur.
And R’ Avigdor worries about his Kollel (now his shiur). (R’ Avigdor was Rosh Kollel along with R’ Binyamin Kohen until this year. Now R’ Avigdor was moved to be the first year maggid shiur alongside R’ Reuven Nierenberg, while R’ Meir Simcha Kahn stepped into R’ Avigdor’s old Rosh Kollel position.)"
More waste of time padding. Soon you will tell what they eat for breakfast what nusach they daven at home etc etc.
"Although RCK keeps a close shaychus to the bachurim who move on from his shiur, and RAK keeps shaychus to many of the post first year bachurim for whom is a rosh chaburah in Camp Morris (CBs summer home), they are certainly not Mashgichim of any sort."
Here there are some grains of truth about "shaychus" -- just what does that mean "vus nisht"? And more denials, like what I said must be true because he protesteth too much. Noone said that RCK or RAK were official mashgichim, on the contrary they are very careful not to tread on RMS and by extension RAS's toes, but nevertheless they do the needed heavy lifting of discussing personal life issues with bochurim because they have the gifts natural empathy and humanity that the slapping Shechters do not. Can you imagine a bochur talking to RAS and then worrying if he is now going to be slspped and shamed out of RAS's office because he did not use the right terminology when addressing RAS and RMS? I doubt that in the long history of RCK and now his on RAK, that anyone, ever thought of felt that they were "Nazis" like that bochur you said thought about RMS -- On the contrary everybody loves RCK and it's not a secret that RAK IS THE MOST POPULAR PERSON IN CB which must frighten the heck out of RAS and RMS. Let's get real here and face real life please.
"[Of course I do not know any of that since I am - in the words of CBT - “very out of touch and in no position to say anything about recent developments in CB the last few years about which he knows nothing”]"
You are very out of touch and very devious, more than you realize, just by your words anyone can see it for themselves. You are out of touch and denying realities. You are out of touch with people's real needs. You are out of touch with their emotions. You are living in a palace in the sky.
"I like RMS very much and do not have anything bad to say about him."
You haven't been saying anything bad about him and why do you assume that it's required to say only bad things and to be suspicious of other's praises?
"But he is certainly a case of RAS showing favoritism to his family."
Ok, you do not have to be a genius to figure that out. Say something original won't you, please.
"By now the oilam has accepted him as Mashgiach and although he still does not command as much respect as the other big guns in CB, he is no longer looked down upon as somebody who is where he is because of his father."
You are so full of contradictions here it is just not funny. You are describing the classic love-hate relationship, and it is not healthy to have such a situation anywher. Maybe RMS should find another job and maybe RAS should resign and let the board and the rebbeim decide on a new mashgiach and rosh yeshiva that will make everyone happy! Or is that too dangeroius an idea? One man rule forever hey? I am glad I don't have to be in the middle of that, but as a concerned outsider it looks like a ticking time bomb.
"(That is not to say that it was ever correct to look down on RMS, but the fact is that there were many who did when he became Mashgiach simply because they saw him a pasuter ba'al habus [which he was not] who only got the position because of his father.)"
Al nonsense. Who said anyone saw him a "pasuter ba'al habus"? Come on now. But I have said more than enough so far.
"Anon @ 8, what you need to understand is that CBT is trying to gain credibility by pointing out that RMS wanted his son as an eidim."
I don't "need" credibility. I have it. I had nothing to do with RMS's choice of my son or any oh his persoanl choices and wants. It came as much of a surprise to me as anything very surprisng in my life. I was INFORMED that they were interested. So what does that have to do with anyone's credibilty? Nothing! You are mixing up things you know nothing about.
"So obviously he wants RMS to seem like a tremendous gaon and tzaddik."
You mean RMS isn't???
"After all the more chashuv RMS is, the more chashuv CBT’s son is, so the more chashuv CBT is…."
Baloney. RMS's chashivus stands on its own merits. He does not need me or you. Same for anyone's son. And I do not need to be "chashuv" in fact I hate it because it's one of CB's worst afflictions, the need to be chashuv, and I have never espoused or adhrered to that falshe thinking about falshe kovud. You obvioulsy don't know me at all. But again, why make me into the issue when all I am doing is trying to understand and comment on this wide ranging situation that many people are appreciating (they tell me so), but not you of course. You are like the Obama people again, that only want praise about "the one" but when anyone's questions Obama or his history, then the tables are turned, the arguments are twisted and the issue becomes not Obama but those who question him who are then called "racist" -- this is EXACTLY what you are doing. Go work for Obama, having worked worked for RAS would have been good training how to smear critics and create smokescreens and red herrings and not deal with the real problems that people care about.
"So CBT goes on another one of his twisted and dishonest rants, this time trying to make RMS seem like the velts greatest man."
Rant? Is it a "rant" to compliment a person and to speak of someone's mailos? That must be an entirely new definition of "rant! Who said that REMS is the world's greatest man? I said he was *a* gadol not "the" gadol. Does that make him the world's greatest man? You sound silly when you reach for the smear button against me, so keep it up that people can see how you do it, and you don't talk or argue straight when you growl at me, my dear young man.
"RMS is a good man plain and simple,"
Wait, you just said above that he was NOT a "plain and simple man": "they saw him a pasuter ba'al habus [which he was not] -- your words, "WHICH HE WAS NOT"! But what can you expect from someone who is not really here to talk in depth about a subject just to be an attack dog against me. Go ahead, make my day!
"and he is the Mashgaich in CB because his is the son of RAS."
Duh !!!
Haha, I confirmed with RMS's son that CBT's eidim story is pure BULL----.
To anonymous who says that "Haha, I confirmed with RMS's son that CBT's eidim story is pure BULL----", get this straight, I know the truth and I don't care what a few people who don't know what's going on say. It came from RMS himself and not from me. Plenty of people were involved and knew about it at the time, but I do not wish to mention their names because it would be pointless at this time since both parties married other choices in the end.
Of course, in this context, on this blog, they will deny it. Quite a few people who were involved with it at the time know it's true, including one young Shechter family member who was in our home a few times visiting who tried to use personal persuasion, but it did not work either.
So it should come as no surprise that people who would rather deny even bigger things, should deny this too. But again, quite honestly, it just shows who one is dealing with here. The only reason I had mentioned the fact of the shidduch in any case was that "vus nisht" decided to throw some insults at my wife, so that I needed to remind him that he was barking up the wrong tree and frakert there were only shevachos vetishbachos in that department. I don't mind getting insulted, but not when it's lies about the home.
But glad to see that it's catching on and getting some attention. By the way, anonymous, have you read everything else I have said and is that "bull" too? Moo to you!
CBT,
Your attempts to criticize me are really getting sadder…
“the owner of this blog has called me a "pillar of truth" so which is it”
Of course you would rather be known by the name given to you by the owner of this blog.
Unfortunately in the street you are perceived to be liar. Most who I have spoken with about you seem to agree that you have a tendency to distort, omit and hide the truth, while often telling outright lies.
I am going to have to agree with them and reiterate my claim that you are a liar.
I will also point out that all the people I have spoken to know you a lot better than Tzig. They all know you first hand and have had real life experiences with you.
“Note how you have not apologized to the comments and insults you make about me”
And you have not apologized to me for your unfriendly remarks wither.
You wrote:
“As for "vus nisht" he may know RMS well too but he is probably jealous of him and surely very out of touch and in no position to say anything about recent developments in CB the last few years about which he knows nothing.”
To which I responded:
“I seemingly know a lot more than you about recent CB developments.”
And now you wrote:
“Who cares?”
Well, apparently you do! After all, you tried to discredit my knowledge of recent events in CB. So I was just pointing out that I am very up to date and involved.
“The mesivta is being running from top to bottom by his brother in law the Segan Menahel Rav Michel Guzik”
Of course this would be a silly argument to have because there is no way to prove it one way or another. But this much I can tell you, that I am a lot more involved in the Mesivta than you, and know a lot more bachurim in the Mesivta than you.
What you write is only true for the first year or two after the petira of RCS.
When RSB first came in it was very unfamiliar territory for him. So RMG, although the S'gan Menahel was as much of a Menahel as RSB.
Today RSB is clearly functioning as Menahel and RMG S’gan Menahel.
“Giving an answer is like "bashmutzing" people? Huh? What twisted non-logic is that?”
Exactly where did I say that “giving an answer is like "bashmutzing" people”?
Stop twisting my words.
Your attempts at putting me down are really getting pathetic.
Just because you are giving an answer does not mean that you can not bashmutz somebody. Which is exactly what you did; you answered a question and within the answer you bashmutzed somebody.
“are you afraid that I know who you are, you sure look like you do”
I look like I’m afraid that you know who I am?
I just invited you to out me!
I know that you have no idea who I am and I am not the least bit scared!
“Notice how in trying to deal with how you should have responded to the question about RMS (nothing to do with me) instead you create a smokescreen and get into a whole rant about my "bad ways" etc instead of coming up with some real information”
Practically the entire post is directly addressing his question about RMS, only a line here or a line there to discuss your bad ways.
I wrote that you bashmutz other people. One line out of a very sizeable post and I am creating a smokescreen? Wow! You really need to take reading comprehension classes.
“yet again, with insults. Intelligent people know that in a debate, insulting the opponent is not an excuse for clear and rational thinking”
You have insulted people here countless times!
As a matter of a fact in this very sentence you attempt to insult me by writing that my capacity to think clearly is diminishing!
And then you come out and say that I am trying to insult you instead of debating rationally?
Your hypocrisy knows no bounds!
“Ok, this is true. So what is the point? Noone claimed it was a sudden move. Stop padding your answers. Soon you will tell us what clothes they were wearing and what day of the week it was that it all happened”
Is this a joke?!
Did you not start off this thread by pointing out the R’ Nosson Schechter is named after the Alter of Slabodka?
Did you not just feel write that RMG is the brother in law to RSB? What was the point of the information? You certainly did not need that for your answer!
Did you not just write that RCS was the mentor of RMG? What was the point of the information? You certainly did not need that for your answer!
I can pull up countless pieces of useless information that you have written up on this thread alone, not to mention how many useless things you have written on other threads!
I was just giving Anon@8 some information that he seemed to be curious about. I apologize if you think that I said more than was necessary. Unfortunately for you, Anon@8 has already thanked me for my post and seemingly appreciated it.
“Wrong! He had many connections with many bachurim and yungeleit who often sought him out because he is a genuinely interesting person for those who can manage to connect with him.”
Again, a point that is worthless arguing, since there would be no way to prove the truth here.
But as I am familiar with a lot more CBers from the era right before RMS became Mashgaich than you are, I can tell you that you are dead wrong. I will not go so far as to say that nobody had any shaychus to him, but threre were many many choices of people in CB that bachurim went to speak to before RMS. He was not at all popular and not many went to him about much at all.
“Please, he is not such a quiet person. His mere physical presence is very strong, so he does not need to say things. What are you trying to say in any case? That he was little spelled grazing hay in the corner, when in truth he was young lion waiting four his day to take over the pride, that is pretty obvious. One alpha male always succeeds another alpha male that is the way of the world!”
No he is not a quiet person. But it is very hard for somebody to make noise when they are not around, even if they are a big loud person.
RMS was rarely seen around CB during seder before his days as Mashgiach.
Of course he was there for davening on Shabbos and Yom Tov, but not much else.
You are making the big mistake here of assuming that it was pashut that RMS was always on deck.
Before he became Mashgiach most assumed that he would never hold any sort of high position in CB. If you don’t believe me, go to CB and ask around.
“RMS had been spending time with bochurim more than most people. RMS is a great and patient shmoozer and always invited bochurim over to his house for Shabbos”
RMS might have been spending more time with bachurim more than most people in the world. But not more than anybody who was part of the CB Hanhalah. RMS barley knew any of the bachurim in CB before he became Mashgiach. That is a Fact. You can go ask the bachurim in CB if they knew him before he joined the Hanhalah. Almost all will say no. He knew very very few bachurim in CB before his shteller.
“This is perhaps your best piece of testimony from all your words. It shows many things. That RAS likes to bully instead of talk.”
Stop trying to be so dramatic. You know good and well that a small slap from RAs is harmless. Maybe now is a good time to mention that that slap was followed by a 45 minute talk. So a split second slap and a 45 minute talk and you decide that RAs bullies and doses not talk?
Obviously RAS never ever slaps anybody, I’m sure you can not find me another such instance.
This bachur happened to be very very close to RAS, one of his favorites, and had no hard feelings about the slap.
“Mostly true, but you are being confusing. What is with this seven years deal when you said previously he was sitting quietly and learning until he became mashgiach. Can you explain what this new "seven year" period is that has significance to you, when it is not really anything.”
The seven year period is the seven years that he was Mashgiach second seder. In those seven years he got to know many bachurim and he got very involved in CB. Before those seven years, before he was mashgiach second seder, was when he sat and learned quietly and had almost nothing to do with any bachurim.
“Stop getting into these diversionary details that are just fluff. Yes, I know, I was at the levaya and hespedim.”
I know you know. That comment was clearly addressed to Anon@8 who did not know.
I was giving him the history of RMS being Mashgiach. That’s what he wanted.
You call this diversionary fluff? Ha! Try reading through some of the garbage that you write which is filled with useless and pointless details.
“The main point, was why they (meaning RAS) didn't wait a full year as should have been done.”
Who decided that RAS should have done that? You? Who are you to decide that?
RAS did as he felt fit at that point and nobody had a problem with RMS getting the seat within the year.
“What I said is 100% true, as any talmid in CB today knows”
“False, because they carry lion's share and the main burden of the real mashgiach work, such as the critical work of advice about dating and shidduchim”
Wrong again.
Ask around CB and you will see.
I am maskim the RCK and RAK are spectacular mechanchim and they do dispense much advice and many eitzos. But like I said, neither of them is more of a mashgiach than many of the other rabbeim in CB.
And they do not carry the lion’s share of the burden any more than R’ Pinchas Kahn or R’ Yosef Fruchthandler.
“No one said that RCK or RAK were official mashgichim”
I know, and I never said that you did say that.
“You haven't been saying anything bad about him and why do you assume that it's required to say only bad things and to be suspicious of other's praises?”
What makes you assume that I assume that?
Stop making assumptions about others, worry about yourself.
“Ok, you do not have to be a genius to figure that out. Say something original won't you, please.”
Again, I was not addressing you, I was addressing Anon@8.
This is wheat he wanted to know, and this is what he thanked me for saying.
“Al nonsense. Who said anyone saw him a "pasuter ba'al habus"?”
Ask around CB. Speak to the bachurim who were there when he became Mashgiach.
There were many who saw him as just that.
“I don't "need" credibility. I have it.”
You wish you had credibility!
You lost it many years ago in the real world, and you never had it on this blog to begin with!
“I had nothing to do with RMS's choice of my son or any oh his personal choices and wants.”
In case you had not realized, I have left your son out all of this.
I never brought up anything about him, and never responded to your claims that RMS wanted him as an eidim.
It would be very very very foolish of you to bring your son into this in way.
After seeing the way that you cried after I joked about your wife, I can not imagine how bad it will be when I’m done with your son!
For the sake of family, leave your son out of this.
“Wait, you just said above that he was NOT a "plain and simple man": "they saw him a pasuter ba'al habus [which he was not] -- your words, "WHICH HE WAS NOT"!”
Sorry if I was unclear, I meant to say that it is a plain and simple fact that he is a good man.
I though you would understand that.
Apparently your brain has deteriorated far more than I could have imagined since we last spoke.
“Duh !!!”
Again, that was to Anon@8, not you.
That was info he wanted.
CBT, you are sounding more twisted and dishonest than ever.
You are a bigger fool than I ever could have imagined; but sadder than that is that you have become a real lowlife.
Wow!! All this is both fascinating and entertaining together with a wealth of CB historical knowledge
בואו נרד למטה ונראה שור וארי מתנגחין זה עם זה
(תנחומא ויגש)
CBT,
Although I do know the staff in CB, I haven't been there in many years. So much of the information that was simple knowledge to you, was total news to me, and I definitely appreciated VN's elaborated post just as I appreciated yours.
To "vus nisht who says
"CBT, Your attempts to criticize me are really getting sadder…"
Sure, and all the while you merrily reveal your own attack dog "his master's voice" and sycophantic submission to RAS because otherwise you would not even be here. You just can't get enough of defending the indefensible, so you make up the issues, when the world couldn't give a darn about me, and when the issues are much more profound, like trying to understand why RAS is still at the helm, what makes him tick and why. It was not I that unleashed the IH controversy, and yes I did get involved on this blog in criticizing RAS at that point -- after having defended him in the RSC posts earlier on. So my credibility and objectivity is very good, and I am not the subject, despite all your determined attempts to do so.
People are frightened about CB and its leadership under RAS, and instead of coming up with reassurances, you prove yet again that RAS and CB will resort to cut-throat tactics to keep itself afloat. But as any student of history knows, a regime built on such attitudes and disregard for people cannot last. It will either be forced to change or it will lose the race to other mosdos. And it's happening. Bochurim and yungeliet are walking away from CB all the way to Lakewood and EY because people are sick and tired of the tyranny.
" “the owner of this blog has called me a "pillar of truth" so which is it” Of course you would rather be known by the name given to you by the owner of this blog."
Just for the record, I have no official connection with the owner of this blog. I write. I try to be accurate and factual. It is truthful. If I make mistakes, I am always willing to correct them. I think I do as good a job with the 5 journalistic questions of "Who, what, when, why, how" better than most. Certainly better than you.
"Unfortunately in the street you are perceived to be liar."
You know, you have called me so many names by now that it's hard to keep track of them all: "Liar", "delusional", "twisted", "oisvurf", "punk", "menuvel", "lowlife" and I don't know, so many it's hard to remember and keep count. It shows you are desperate and panicking! Let the readers decide, and I certainly don't worry what all of RAS's forced true believers think. The entire world knows that many in CB are living in a fool's paradise mass-hypnotized to obey the rulership and the only reason that you are having a fit is that one little tiny person like me dares to SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER. If such crushing cannons are brought out to shoot at tiny ones like me this should just give you pause to think about the sad shape things are in and how bad they have become the last few years as RAS has lost his cover and fell into traps of his own making with the three revolting episodes of 5768: the contrived sheitel macher boycott (when there is actually a far worse problem just one or two blocks down on CIA of a nightclub that attracts at risk Jewish youth and about which RAS has not spoken out); the signing on to the forged Lipa ban that turned tens of thousands of people off; and the worst was the IH kidnapping and RAS's defense of MH. And you have the audacity to make *me* into the issue here in the hope that people here will get distracted and forget about RAS and CB and pay attention to your ongoing select thesaurus of how many ways can you say "oisvurf". Nice try but no cigar because people's institutional memory is not that bad and there are more questions about RAS and CB than about me. They are bigger. I am but a tiny speck on the wall.
"Most who I have spoken with about you seem to agree that you have a tendency to distort, omit and hide the truth, while often telling outright lies. I am going to have to agree with them and reiterate my claim that you are a liar."
I don't know who you are speaking to, but I have lived outside of the CB bais medrash for well over 20 years now, and in that time I have met and spoken to thousands of people and let me tell you, in all that time, basically noone has had anything very nice to say about CBers and RAS, and it would usually be left to me to do the PR for CB and put in a good word for RAS, so I don't know who you are speaking to "on the street" and in addition, I had always supported CB with my own means as well as having brought in people, helped with shidduchim for its people, and still send my own kids there because I know that the majority of CB is a good place, but that does not mean we must shut up when wrongs are done and certainly your claims about what people think about me don't worry me when I have long had nothing to do with those types. And quit acting as the official spokesman here when you are just showing the world the negatives of CB instead and you don't even realize it, pathetic indeed.
"I will also point out that all the people I have spoken to know you a lot better than Tzig. They all know you first hand and have had real life experiences with you."
Ok, fine, so what? And believe me, no doubt I could state that I have had real life experiences with them, and then some. This knife can cut both ways, so don't flatter yourself, and don't push your luck. I don't want to talk about every last shvantz in CB and I know hundreds of them very, very well.
"“Note how you have not apologized to the comments and insults you make about me” And you have not apologized to me for your unfriendly remarks wither."
Oh, I didn't know that what I said had any meaning to you. So which is it, you take me seriously or I am a "punk" and "delusional"? You obvioulsy take me seriously enough that you keep up this dialogue with me and force me to respond to YOU! You can't have it both ways even though you sure do try.
"You wrote: “As for "vus nisht" he may know RMS well too but he is probably jealous of him and surely very out of touch and in no position to say anything about recent developments in CB the last few years about which he knows nothing.” To which I responded:
“I seemingly know a lot more than you about recent CB developments.” And now you wrote: “Who cares?”
Well, apparently you do! After all, you tried to discredit my knowledge of recent events in CB. So I was just pointing out that I am very up to date and involved."
Good for you, if it makes you happy, and as I have said that and 2 dollars will get you a ride on the NYC subway.
" “The mesivta is being running from top to bottom by his brother in law the Segan Menahel Rav Michel Guzik” Of course this would be a silly argument to have because there is no way to prove it one way or another. But this much I can tell you, that I am a lot more involved in the Mesivta than you, and know a lot more bachurim in the Mesivta than you.
What you write is only true for the first year or two after the petira of RCS. When RSB first came in it was very unfamiliar territory for him. So RMG, although the S'gan Menahel was as much of a Menahel as RSB. Today RSB is clearly functioning as Menahel and RMG S’gan Menahel."
I have only the greatest admiration and respect for RMG and RSB, and we can leave it at that. Remember again what I told you earlier, that no two people experience the world identically, and while to some it may seem like you say, to others it is not like that. But in this case it is neither here nor there and RMG and RSB function as a team and for all intents and purposes the point we are arguing is moot.
" “Giving an answer is like "bashmutzing" people? Huh? What twisted non-logic is that?” Exactly where did I say that “giving an answer is like "bashmutzing" people”? Stop twisting my words. Your attempts at putting me down are really getting pathetic."
Poor "vus nisht", are you so sensitive that you have to be so self-righteous? Don't you realize all the harm you are doing to CB with the way you speak and attack and spin when the world sees past that? What have I done beside pointed out the OBVIOUS while you come here with your litany of "liar", "delusional", "oisvurf", "punk", "menuvel", "lowlife" -- well grow up boychik and smell the coffee, you are letting your CB slip show and it's as ugly, or uglier, than most people fear.
"Just because you are giving an answer does not mean that you can not bashmutz somebody. Which is exactly what you did; you answered a question and within the answer you bashmutzed somebody."
I thought you were going to say that I did that all-time Jewish thing of answering a question with a question. But heck, good to know you, or someone at least, is reading my words soooo closely, pity that this is not a colloquium for which you could get some college credits.
" “are you afraid that I know who you are, you sure look like you do” I look like I’m afraid that you know who I am? I just invited you to out me! I know that you have no idea who I am and I am not the least bit scared!"
Scared, shmared. Outing people online is so stupid. It usually only makes them more famous, so why even bother with such a waste of time.
" “Notice how in trying to deal with how you should have responded to the question about RMS (nothing to do with me) instead you create a smokescreen and get into a whole rant about my "bad ways" etc instead of coming up with some real information” Practically the entire post is directly addressing his question about RMS, only a line here or a line there to discuss your bad ways. I wrote that you bashmutz other people. One line out of a very sizeable post and I am creating a smokescreen? Wow! You really need to take reading comprehension classes."
I took many English classes in my life, as that should be obvious by now from the way I write with ease. Anyhow, you are yet again just getting off on your digressionary pony here when you yell "bashmutz" instead of getting real and writing up some nice truths for a change instead of survivng on a diet of the once a year CB newsletter that will tell you nothing. Just how many people show up at dinners to give money. Which is important, but it's really not newsworthy.
" “yet again, with insults. Intelligent people know that in a debate, insulting the opponent is not an excuse for clear and rational thinking” You have insulted people here countless times! As a matter of a fact in this very sentence you attempt to insult me by writing that my capacity to think clearly is diminishing! And then you come out and say that I am trying to insult you instead of debating rationally?
Your hypocrisy knows no bounds!"
You know, I was curious how you would end the above paragraph and why should it surprise me that you find yet another bad word for me "hypocrisy", my, my. You have a very thin skin and it shows. Only *you* are allowed to read people the riot act, but G-d forbid someone stands up to you, then they are guilty of "hypocrisy". I am wondering if you are a man and not one of those multiple secretaries that work in the CB office answering the phones and taking messages being paid from all that donated money instead of letting the machers there answer their own phones.
" “Ok, this is true. So what is the point? Noone claimed it was a sudden move. Stop padding your answers. Soon you will tell us what clothes they were wearing and what day of the week it was that it all happened” Is this a joke?! Did you not start off this thread by pointing out the R’ Nosson Schechter is named after the Alter of Slabodka? Did you not just feel write that RMG is the brother in law to RSB? What was the point of the information? You certainly did not need that for your answer!
Did you not just write that RCS was the mentor of RMG? What was the point of the information? You certainly did not need that for your answer! I can pull up countless pieces of useless information that you have written up on this thread alone, not to mention how many useless things you have written on other threads! I was just giving Anon@8 some information that he seemed to be curious about. I apologize if you think that I said more than was necessary. Unfortunately for you, Anon@8 has already thanked me for my post and seemingly appreciated it."
Stop belly-aching. So far, readers can't get enough of what I write and so far I have been restraing myself from writing more. I could write a few volumes, but I am restraining myself. You know, I have just read through your above paragraph again. Most of it is just cry-baby stuff. But I am impressed that you even thought to say "I apologize if you think that I said more than was necessary" but I am not sure what kind of "apology" that is in any case?
Try apologizing for the right kind of things. Try apologizing to the sheitel macher across from CB who was bashmutzd by RAS, try apologizing to Lipa who was humiliated by RAS and suffered a huge hefsed and to the tens of thousands of people who lost their deposist, try apologizing to IH who was almost bagrobbed and may have easily died ch"v, and all the people who got hurt by that chilul H-shem caused by RAS misguidedand ongoing support for MH, try apologizing to RSCand the batei din that support him ad hayom hazeh for all that he has suffered and to many others who have faced the wrath of CB machlokes-mongering and came out short (and I will keep myself from going into details of that too at this time) but if you persist in your attacks on me we will have to open all the cases where people were brought down by CB and it will not be apretty sight I assuer you, so have your say shrotz). I am moichel me, I PROUDLY carry my wounds from the battlefields of life with grace and by now an apology from you would mean nothing in any case. So take your pick vus nisht, do you want more verbal warfare or not?!
" “Wrong! He had many connections with many bachurim and yungeleit who often sought him out because he is a genuinely interesting person for those who can manage to connect with him.” Again, a point that is worthless arguing, since there would be no way to prove the truth here. But as I am familiar with a lot more CBers from the era right before RMS became Mashgaich than you are, I can tell you that you are dead wrong. I will not go so far as to say that nobody had any shaychus to him, but threre were many many choices of people in CB that bachurim went to speak to before RMS. He was not at all popular and not many went to him about much at all."
From what I hear most bachrim are avoiding RMS. Again this is not from me. But there is definitely a huge communications and relationships problem that is not being bridged by RMS and RAS effectively and I don't know if it ever will be so that in itself would be yet another CB TRAGEDY. Let's pray that things improve in the near future for RMS.
" “Please, he is not such a quiet person. His mere physical presence is very strong, so he does not need to say things. What are you trying to say in any case? That he was little spelled grazing hay in the corner, when in truth he was young lion waiting four his day to take over the pride, that is pretty obvious. One alpha male always succeeds another alpha male that is the way of the world!” No he is not a quiet person. But it is very hard for somebody to make noise when they are not around, even if they are a big loud person.
RMS was rarely seen around CB during seder before his days as Mashgiach. Of course he was there for davening on Shabbos and Yom Tov, but not much else. You are making the big mistake here of assuming that it was pashut that RMS was always on deck. Before he became Mashgiach most assumed that he would never hold any sort of high position in CB. If you don’t believe me, go to CB and ask around."
Whatever, as by now it's clear that I admire RMS and wish him well. Going back almost 30 years I was one of his biggest admirers and I still am. He is facing a momentous and monumental challenge. Forget RMS's personal history because there is nothing wrong with it. He is now VERY close to the driver's seat and hot seat, and let us just hope and daven that he gets it right because he won't get too many chances if he makes one major false move to upset the present CB applecart that is precariously balanced in a cliff-hanger situation as RAS is in his 80s and RYD is in his 70s and the top leadership look like tired and haggard old men with white beards who belong in a meishev zekeinim rather than running an instition filled with children and young people.
" “RMS had been spending time with bochurim more than most people. RMS is a great and patient shmoozer and always invited bochurim over to his house for Shabbos” RMS might have been spending more time with bachurim more than most people in the world. But not more than anybody who was part of the CB Hanhalah. RMS barley knew any of the bachurim in CB before he became Mashgiach. That is a Fact. You can go ask the bachurim in CB if they knew him before he joined the Hanhalah. Almost all will say no. He knew very very few bachurim in CB before his shteller."
Again, this is getting into issues that are not that critical. Rather tell us what RMS was learning and what he was into during those times he was away from the main events of CB as you claim he was. And do note, that with having many of his own sons and family members in CB, both RMS like RAS automatically are connected to a vast swath of bochurim, yungeleit and rebbeim and they know gants fein mi vami haholchim.
" “This is perhaps your best piece of testimony from all your words. It shows many things. That RAS likes to bully instead of talk.” Stop trying to be so dramatic."
Oh, so it's me now being "dramatic" when YOU cite RMS being inferred to be as a "Nazi" (your words) and then the bochur who says this gets hauled on RA's carpet. This goes to the core of RAS's personality and "educational philosophy" (if you can even call it that) and how he "solves" things in the end. Most times he slams and bangs the table in front of him to make his dramatic points, but sometimes it is a human face that feels the brunt, pain and humiliation of it. It is not called for and it should be denounced, instead of waved proudly (I think you were very STUPID to even mention that here) and then defended and watered down as you try to defend the indefensible yet again. You are predictable by now.
"You know good and well that a small slap from RAs is harmless."
Nope it is not and I will not go into the personal history of who RAS slapped or not. But there is indeed one famous slap that is still known and spoken of in CB legend and that is the slap that RAS gave to the then young Aharon Lichtenstein (the future eidim of Rabbi JB Soloveitchik of YU) who is today the rosh yeshiva at Har Etzion, when the young Lichtenstein supposedly made some sort of silly insulting comment about RYH and was promptly slapped by RAS who was there. Now while that may have been well-deserved on some level of honoring a rebbe, in hindsight, it was a clear warning signal of RAS's modus operandi and how he would rule come the day he took over. So we don't need too many slaps to make the point, the two cited here are more than enough, that something is surely rotten in the state of Denmark.
"Maybe now is a good time to mention that that slap was followed by a 45 minute talk."
Yet again with the pedantic tone of "now is a good time" -- get this mister, this is not a nice little chat in front of naive bochurim. Could we get a verbatim or summary of what that talk was about? It should be fascinating as it is probably a window into how RAS personally views and defends the appointment of his son RMS to the mashgiach slot.
"So a split second slap and a 45 minute talk and you decide that RAs bullies and doses not talk?"
No it's not based on this alone. And I have repeated more than once the examples, aside from the long encounters that many have had with him. Go read over what I have written on this blog. And how do you know it was a "split second slap"? Does that make it different to a "one minute slap"? -- Shoteh! ALL slaps are split second slaps. That's what makes them so shocking, surprising and powerful. You know, a bullet is shot, flies and hits its victim in less than a split second and it can kill very quickly, sometimes just from the traumatic shock of impact. That's why slapping someone like that is like a form or "retzicha" and it's very, very dangerous leaving scarrs for life and bringing no glory to the slapper. It's one thing disciplining your kids, and we all struggle with issues of how best to discipline our kids, but slapping other people's kids is considered to be "verboten" in today's world, even in yeshivas, which are catching on!
"Obviously RAS never ever slaps anybody, I’m sure you can not find me another such instance."
I did, see above, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein was the most famous "slapee" before you openly cited this other recent case about a bochur in CB protesting RMS's approach, to their faces mind you, and look what happened to him. You know this reminds me of that old line RSC used to utter in frustration: "When I became mashgiach I thought I was just the doorman, but now I see that I am just the doormat" and making "doormats" out of people is what RAS has done more than once because as I discovered the hard way he has the psychological profile of a schoolyard bully who knows that by expressing his force, verbally, maniputively, physically, politically, spiritually, psycologically, in whatever way, he will get his way. Many people can't take it anymore. Even retroactively, and neither should you or anyone else.
"This bachur happened to be very very close to RAS, one of his favorites,"
Which makes it even worse, if this is how he treats supposed favorites, think of what could happen to RAS's avowed enemies!
"and had no hard feelings about the slap."
Sure, dream on, not after YOU have made it famous online now, and now tell your own obvious lie to yourself yet! It's called *denial* and you are suffering from it big time! Are you this boy's best-friend in whom he has confided? Are you a mental health professional or doctor to know what emotional harm this "split second" phyical abuse from a supposedly great rabbi did? Are we already in the times of the Sanhedrin when they are paskening who gets malkos and who gets misa? Get real and leave your fool's paradise. The sooner the better.
The ship is taking on water, listing, and at this rate will sink with such abysmal things happening: Wars with sheitel machers and popular singers, consenting to kidnapping teens and backing up their corrupt fathers, not answering dinei Torah and becoming a lo tzayis dino, slapping once upon atime and now keep on going witha few more well-placed and publicized slaps ... and expect people to fawn at you because you have a nice smile? This must be one of the biggest distortions of Yiddishkeit ever attempted and you defend it yet, or better yet, never focus on real issues but think of yet another expletive to throw my way. But just like the expletives didn't help Nixon and in the end he was impeached for his OWN self-destruction, likewise your cause around RAS will also not go on forever either. Hashem yerachem on all this!
" “Mostly true, but you are being confusing. What is with this seven years deal when you said previously he was sitting quietly and learning until he became mashgiach. Can you explain what this new "seven year" period is that has significance to you, when it is not really anything.” The seven year period is the seven years that he was Mashgiach second seder. In those seven years he got to know many bachurim and he got very involved in CB. Before those seven years, before he was mashgiach second seder, was when he sat and learned quietly and had almost nothing to do with any bachurim."
You drone on and on and still say nothing. What are you trying to do, to say that RMS was a gurnisht until RAS appointed him mashgiach? Sure seems so. I thought you claimed you "loved" him? What is your definition of love? Selling people short? Maybe it's the other way around, that RMS was a somebody and free to be whatever he wanted to be in his own right before he was dragged in by his father to be mashgiach and now all his faults and falings have to be put on public display to justify this or that. This is a TRAGEDY, don't you get it?
THERE IS A JINX OF SOME SORT ON THE SHTELLE OF MASHGIACH IN CB (RAM, RSC, RSG all found out the hard way!!!) and it is now RMS who sadly and fatefully has to tase its bitterness, while you come along sounding a void and inane merry tune of bobkes mit mandlen.
" “Stop getting into these diversionary details that are just fluff. Yes, I know, I was at the levaya and hespedim.” I know you know. That comment was clearly addressed to Anon@8 who did not know. I was giving him the history of RMS being Mashgiach."
Nothing of the sort, you were trying to be a spinmeister and falling flat on your face in the process.
"That’s what he wanted. You call this diversionary fluff? Ha! Try reading through some of the garbage that you write which is filled with useless and pointless details."
For someone who does not like what I write you certainly spend a lot of time rifling through it and then coming back with self-righteous defenses and spewing insults, of which you must now be getting help from all those people "on the street" you are consulting. Are you visiting people in the sewers too?
" “The main point, was why they (meaning RAS) didn't wait a full year as should have been done.” Who decided that RAS should have done that? You? Who are you to decide that? RAS did as he felt fit at that point and nobody had a problem with RMS getting the seat within the year."
Sure, RAS always does as he sees fit, that's the way it works in a totalitarian system that allows no dissent (on pain of slaps, expulsions or worse maybe). But it is not me. It is common derech eretz and basic seichel that it is considered the ultimate sign of respect and kovud not to fill such a sensitive position after the petirah and during the year of aveilus of someone so beloved and choshuv as RSG zt"l.
Think it over and don't be such a knee-jerk yes man, you may wake up feeling better with yourself each day that way rather than justifying other people's obvious blunders.
" “What I said is 100% true, as any talmid in CB today knows”
“False, because they carry lion's share and the main burden of the real mashgiach work, such as the critical work of advice about dating and shidduchim” Wrong again.
Ask around CB and you will see.
I am maskim the RCK and RAK are spectacular mechanchim and they do dispense much advice and many eitzos. But like I said, neither of them is more of a mashgiach than many of the other rabbeim in CB."
Wrong. AS any insider in CB knows bochurim and yungeleit salivate to get time and input from either RAK and RCK. They are extra-ordinary in their capacity to EMPATHIZE (look up what that means, yotz) and they have the ability to set up HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS with people. If anything RAK and RCK keep themselves in check and hold themseves back from appearing to overstep their places in the heirarchy, but they are so gifted and in demand that it's hard for it to be quashed or denied (except by you, but that is another story, since you are not here to talk truth but only to act as a henchman and attack me. Go ahead, make my day.)
"And they do not carry the lion’s share of the burden any more than R’ Pinchas Kahn or R’ Yosef Fruchthandler."
While it is true that RPK does spend some time with people helping them out with personal isues, RYF runs away from it most of the time. He loves giving his shoiur and he is good at that. At least he is honest with himself. Why run to be a "mashgiach" when that is not what you are cut out for, unlike the RMS situation which is what they call in simple English a square peg in a round hole.
" “No one said that RCK or RAK were official mashgichim” I know, and I never said that you did say that."
Finally we can agree one thing. Mazel Tov!
" “You haven't been saying anything bad about him and why do you assume that it's required to say only bad things and to be suspicious of other's praises?” What makes you assume that I assume that? Stop making assumptions about others, worry about yourself."
Now you are going around in circles. I do you the courtesy of reading what you say, and guess what, you make mistakes sometimes in presentation, logic and quite often in misrepresenting facts. If that is pointed out to you, don't defend yourself by being deprecating. HKB"H shared and gave many talents to many people so don't suppress that or me.
" ”Ok, you do not have to be a genius to figure that out. Say something original won't you, please.” Again, I was not addressing you, I was addressing Anon@8. This is wheat he wanted to know, and this is what he thanked me for saying."
There is a law that I couldn't give answers when you were not?
" “Al nonsense. Who said anyone saw him a "pasuter ba'al habus"?” Ask around CB. Speak to the bachurim who were there when he became Mashgiach. There were many who saw him as just that."
RMS was/is truly a humble man. Now he is in the public eye and I do not envy him.
" “I don't "need" credibility. I have it.” You wish you had credibility! You lost it many years ago in the real world, and you never had it on this blog to begin with!"
Nu, nu, as the variation onthe Abe Lincoln quote goes: "You can make all of the people happy some of the time, and some of the people happy all of the time, but you can't make all the people happy all the time!" Few have been through what I have been through, and few have overcome what I have overcome, and I have always faced struggles from the day I was born. Starting with my long-suffering yet idealistic HOLOCAUST survivor parents a"h, I have never praised myself on this blog and so far my story has not been told. Try some humility and eating (kosher) crow instead of that CB force fed diet of ga'ave dekedusha and of the need to feel "choshuv" which only makes CB into a joke and caricature instead of what it deserves as a serious world-class and historic makom Torah.
“I had nothing to do with RMS's choice of my son or any oh his personal choices and wants.” In case you had not realized, I have left your son out all of this.
I never brought up anything about him, and never responded to your claims that RMS wanted him as an eidim. It would be very very very foolish of you to bring your son into this in way. After seeing the way that you cried after I joked about your wife, I can not imagine how bad it will be when I’m done with your son! For the sake of family, leave your son out of this."
A long self-defense on your part trying to sound oh so noble. There is only one reason I cited the case of my son and RMS, which I am glad to see you are not denying, is that your so-called "joke" was not much of a joke, given that you keep on taunting me as a (take your pick, it's quite a long multiple choice list by now): "liar", "delusional", "oisvurf", "punk", "menuvel", "lowlife" etc so that while those things are truly jokes because anyone can see what a shvache debater you are that you have to use expletives like a Nixon wannabe, some things are not funny when I know, as a few others do, that RMS wanted my son as his eidim (his choice not mine, if it was up to me I would have been maskim) and was in fact running after him and the ONLY reason I mentioned that, was that people should not give any credence to *your* attempt at smearing me with name-calling about marriage when my marriage produced gants feine desirable sons who still learn in CB (and I am proud of the!) unlike many so-called supporters of CB whose sons run away from RAS and CB as quickly and and as far as they can. They can smell the danger, while I am willing to still live with it.
As for your threats about what you will do with my son, get this, we are all tough around here, and he is capable of defending himself come what may, so quit making vague threats when noone is impressed with your bullying too, and now I can say that you too are a veritable lowlife if you can talk in such terms. But name-calling is just not my derech. It is so childish and immature. I prefer intelligent and careful RESEARCH, DESCRIPTION and EXPLANATION and not stoop to simplistic and degrading vulgarities like you. But if I need to respond to yours I will. Have your pick.
" “Wait, you just said above that he was NOT a "plain and simple man": "they saw him a pasuter ba'al habus [which he was not] -- your words, "WHICH HE WAS NOT"!” Sorry if I was unclear, I meant to say that it is a plain and simple fact that he is a good man. I though you would understand that.
Apparently your brain has deteriorated far more than I could have imagined since we last spoke.
While I am imprssed that you utter the word "sorry" yet I doubt it ushers in a new warm and fuzzy vus-nisht as you find yet another way of calling my brain deteriorated. I am sorry that you phrase it that way, but I will state that one of my theories about why RAS has declined in his judgment so much is because his choshuve rebbetzin is suffering from alzheimers, as every single person in CB and the world knows, so don't start jumping up and own, and therefore he has lost her always sensible and moderating input and in all probablity why 5768 was such a notoriously atrocious year for him.
" “Duh !!!” Again, that was to Anon@8, not you. That was info he wanted."
I know. I just couldn't resist, and by now it should very clear to you that Anon@8 is not an am ha'aretz about CB he is just patiently trying to get a deeper persepctive, so I was pointing out your patronizing and mostly worthless response in this instance.
"CBT, you are sounding more twisted and dishonest than ever.
You are a bigger fool than I ever could have imagined; but sadder than that is that you have become a real lowlife."
Shuks, now I must add "twisted", "dishonest", "fool" and "lowlife" to my "resume" -- keep on going vush nisht, soon we will discover how far your formal education went beyond eighth grade and if you have a mature adult's vocabulary or you just get a kick out using juvenile expletives.
In sports they always say, keep your eye on the ball and play the ball and not the man. Meaning that in an argument, by the responses and methods you have consistently chosen, you are guilty of the biggest fraud in logic by changing the subject and shifting the focus from the problems in CB and with RAS and onto me and my pesronal life which counts for little in the grand scheme of things.
While I appreciate your boost to my fame, it will not deflect nor solve the main issues that have been brought up about what is really going on in CB, if it can be fixed, and how to do that. Now while that may sound "chutzpadik" to you and RAS and to some in CB, I doubt that if this was a publicly held company, which in many ways CB is, it mostly belongs to the good frum Jews of Flatbush, and it's doubtful that a CEO like RAS would have been allowed to retain his position following the revelations of the IH affair, accusations of nepotism, and very revealing self-admissions about pupils being slapped around and with past law suits not settled (as in the RSC case). Such a CEO would be history by, but not, evidently, in CB. Why???
So carry on with your diversionary attacks aginst me, noone is fooled by them, and it will not solve your or CB's problems.
"RYF runs away from it most of the time. He loves giving his shoiur and he is good at that. At least he is honest with himself. Why run to be a "mashgiach" when that is not what you are cut out for,"
So why did your son "spent shabbos" by him discussing his personal issues about being RMS eidim?
CBT,
Once again thanks for your post. From both your posts and from VN's posts I am getting a clear picture on the issue which bothered me (although not you) most and that were the appointments of RAS's family in CB.
However I feel you are not being fair about the slap. After all he called RMS a NAZI!! Do you think it would have been a better idea to throw that Bachur out on his face which he truly deserved?
After all he kept him in the yeshiva afterwards, and gave him a 2nd chance. I realize it's a very unpopular way of punishing, but remember what he said!
Then you bring out an old "well known" story from a half century ago at least, and put these 2 stories together, and build so much on them. Just doesn't sound fair to me.
Vos Nisht,
I feel you are not being fair by degrading CBT personally with so much name calling. You know his identity while he doesn't know yours. You have an advantage here and it's not a fair debate (or fight). You should stick to the issues (which you're doing pretty well). And keep away from this. An apology on the hurtful personal words would be zum zach.
To anonymous who asks " "RYF runs away from it most of the time. He loves giving his shoiur and he is good at that. At least he is honest with himself. Why run to be a "mashgiach" when that is not what you are cut out for," So why did your son "spent shabbos" by him discussing his personal issues about being RMS eidim?"
There are more than one Fruchthandlers in CB (go back and see, I never said it was RYF) and you are missing the point by nitpicking. Glad to see that you are reading, but you are mixing up two different subjects and tracks here: (a) One subject had to do with questions about my own personal credibility after "vus nisht" started this ugly business of talking about wives (which is not done in machlokes, keep points about wives and children out of it) but since vus nisht stooped to the lowliest of the low (all the while as he calls me a dozen or so epithets and counting) I was forced to take the discussion to the next level and mention very briefly that RMS regarded my son as a potential eidim, but that at that time my son was not in the parsha and still had plans to learn in EY as a bochur and that he was just not ready for the offer at that time. Ad kan. (b) The other subject is about what's going on with the work of mashgiach in CB and I had pointed out that a lot of it was currently being done by RCK and RAK (why is that such a problem to admit, they should be proud of it) to which vus nisht retorted that RCK and RAK were doing just as much as other rebbeim like RYF and RPK. I stated that while it is true that RPK does devote himself to some mashgiach type counseling it is not on the scale of and demand for RCK and RAK and that RYF tries to stay away from that. Of course if someone is absolutely determined then RYF, like any mentsch, will help out, but it's very well known that generally he avoids doing mashgiach type counseling work and leaves it up to others, basically anyone but him, in the bais medrash to do so. So try to halt kop, and don't mix up what you read like mumbo-jumbo just to score a point.
To anon@8 who says:
"CBT, Once again thanks for your post."
You are welcome.
"From both your posts and from VN's posts I am getting a clear picture on the issue which bothered me (although not you) most and that were the appointments of RAS's family in CB."
Indeed, and because this is very much a public matter involving a community yeshiva that serves the frum Jewish public, takes donations from the frum Jewish public, and educates the sons of the frum Jewish public, there needs to be more accountability and the ability to air concerns and ask questions without fear of being put down or yelled out of the room with "frumkeit" excuses that one dare not ask probing questions of "the holy men" let alone expect meaningful answers from rosh yeshivas and the yeshiva. They too must somehow answer in some way especially if it starts to look like nepotism at work which is essentially your concern.
"However I feel you are not being fair about the slap. After all he called RMS a NAZI!! Do you think it would have been a better idea to throw that Bachur out on his face which he truly deserved?
After all he kept him in the yeshiva afterwards, and gave him a 2nd chance. I realize it's a very unpopular way of punishing, but remember what he said!"
I can appreciate what you are saying. But let me telll you a story I heard from the person who it happened to and has repeated it to me a few times. About 40 years + - ago when it was clear that RYH had appointed RAS as the new de facto rosh yeshiva of CB (co-equal with RYD) and essentially RAS was given the mandate to run the place he had a very bitter falling out with a certain bochur (the person telling me about his confrontation with RAS) who was enraged at the way RAS was treating him and his parents. The bochur took his case to RYH who heard him out. When he was finished, RYH looked at him and tried to convince him to keep on talking with RAS and that RAS was not such a bad person, and then RYH said the weirdest thing: "RAS is not a member of the Nazi party!" That was RYH's way of talking and his way with trying to use sardonic black humor to defuse the situation, even by invoking the "Nazis" y"sh. It did not help, and ad hayom hazeh this person is still enraged at RAS. So now when vus nisht cited this new case of the slapping of the bochur and how the bochur IMPLIED, note he did not say it outright, he was trying to be meramez that RMS was acting in way that evoked feelings in him of facing a "Nazi" (and in American culture it's quite common to call someone who's acting like a dictator a "Nazi" as in Jerry Seinfeld's "soup Nazi") I could not help but remember and contrast the way RYH used concepts and stories and the way RAS uses them and reacts to them, or to put it more accurately, does not use them.
While RYH, while retaining his aura of gadol and rosh yeshiva that naturally evoked respect, yet he was also full of jokes and humor and mirth and surprising quotes that popped out of his mouth, unlike RAS who is ever the constant ba'al avoda and belabors his moves (except when he has his notorious temper tantrums and rampages that drive people crazy), no joking, no humor, all somber, almost oppresive, and the poor bochur, who was actually being very HUTNERIAN in a way and talking like a true Kotsker in pupik arein and calling the PROBLEM by its name. He was not trying to taint RMS, he was trying to point out that he was not coming across in a loving parental avuncular Yiddishe way to be expected of a mashgaich but was instead coming across as a tyrant (="Nazi") (like RYH used to play around with such notions to make his points) and rather than RMS taking the point to heart (as in umitalmidai yoser mikulam...), he has to go and tattle-tale to his father and get the bochur into trouble.
That is why I too am worried about RMS's capacity for the mashgiach job, but at this time he definitely still deserves the benefit of the doubt because he is trying hard not to rock the boat, and sometimes that too is a ma'aleh. He also has those other burdens on his shoulders as I have described above.
"Then you bring out an old "well known" story from a half century ago at least, and put these 2 stories together, and build so much on them. Just doesn't sound fair to me."
Well, I was asked by vus nisht if I could cite another time when RAS slapped a bochur and I did. Why is that not fair? Is it my fault that they are separated by half a century? It's like saying if you cut a person in half, only the above the belt (or the below the belt) counts. To many old-time CBers the slap that Rav Lichtenstein got as a youngster is very famous, so that when I hear that RAS still uses that "method" after all thse years, it tells you something about the man. He is a consistent bully, even if he is a bully leshem shomayim, he is still a bully and it should be denounced and rejcted to the hilt unlike vush nisht who not only has no problem with that kind of thing and thinks all CBers should just swallow it and grin and bear it, but like a fool "cites" it online to "prove" the obvious that RMS is a mere mortal with human tendencies and failings.
You also say:
"anon@8 said... Vos Nisht, I feel you are not being fair by degrading CBT personally with so much name calling."
And what makes it worse is that vus nisht does not realize that in the process he is also doing great harm to CB's public image because, as he he is trying to project himself as the putative
"spokesman" for the CB cause it makes people realize just how dirty they play when the truth is spoken for a change and that they will act no different than the Mafia in wiping out opponents rather than deal with the issues in a fair, rational and open manner.
"You know his identity while he doesn't know yours. You have an advantage here and it's not a fair debate (or fight)."
I have a fairly good idea of who he is, it may have been more than one person using that ID over time, but whoever he is, I know that he is facing serious problems himself and that his attacks on me give him some sense of "security" and comfort that he is not getting from real life. Quite honestly, I have no grudges against him. I forgive his silly statements. And may HKB"H send a yeshua venachama to him and his family.
"You should stick to the issues (which you're doing pretty well). And keep away from this."
Agreed 100%
"An apology on the hurtful personal words would be zum zach."
And I will be makdim with an unconditional apology to him if in any way he was hurt by anything I may have said to him personally. I will repeat, I have no desire to engage him in any personal debates bacause all the issues that the owner of this blog has brought forth have been well-known publicly and discussed events about public personalities and their roles in the lives of frum Jews that affects every frum Jew that comes into touch with them.
Thank you Anon@8 for your sensible attitude and clear-headedness and for your interest in the issues and willingness to hear them out.
"There are more than one Fruchthandlers in CB"
Last I checked there is only one in the BM, and RSF in the HS wouldn't go near this, and doesn't get involved with bochurim in the BM. To anyone that has any clue about the goings on in the BM, your statement is hilarious.
My point is something bigger, this is a nice cute bobo mayse that never happened.
To Anonymous who said...
" "There are more than one Fruchthandlers in CB" Last I checked there is only one in the BM"
Who's arguing?
"and RSF in the HS wouldn't go near this, and doesn't get involved with bochurim in the BM."
Hmm, are you 100% sure of that?
"To anyone that has any clue about the goings on in the BM, your statement is hilarious."
Hilarious? Reeeaaallly? This was a private matter that only became public now in a different context, but that it took place is 100% true, trust me.
"My point is something bigger, this is a nice cute bobo mayse that never happened."
And how do YOU know if YOU weren't involved what this particular bas yisroel and her parents wanted? Obviously by now everyone has moved on with life and noone dwells on past havvei aminnas in shidduchim. I could name more names of people who were involved but I will not because it is pointless. But I will repeat one more time what I said at one point earlier, that I spoke with RMS's wife personally and she was very clear about the interest and the offer. They just liked my son, RAS likes hima lot too, and RMS wanted him as an eidim, and it ain't a bobbe maise it was the real mcoy that never came to be.
The mere fact that so many people want to now quash the idea in itself proves how desperate some people are to spin away and tell lies, but it will not change the facts. But let us move on from this topic because by now those that will want to deny it will do so, and those that don't will know that I do not make up such things, certainly not personal things that I have seen, heard and experienced.
Gershon Ribner, a third rate Talmudist, (just read his publications!) is totally amoral. Everyone lives to be a pawn in his ego trips.
Post a Comment