Let's forget the Kol Kore, it's beside the point, what we may have March 9th at MSG is a showdown, a duel that's been in the making for quite some time now. There are hundreds and thousands of alienated youth and not so youth who feel like they've been given the shaft all these years. They may have hard times in Yeshivos, or maybe they were asked to leave Yeshivos altogether. Many of them never left the fold, and many may still love Torah and Yiddishkeit, but they have their likes and dislikes, and they believe that Rabbonim etc. do no speak to them when they proclaim things that seem innocent to them to be Ossur and worse. They're the ones who knock Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshiva off all stripes whenever they can. Recent stories of coverups, corruption, and the general state of relations between Rabbonim, Rebbes, and Roshei Yeshiva only add fuel to the fire, and provide ammunition. Then there are those that are Oofgeklerte Mentshen, they may have had run-ins with Rabbonim and such for whatver reasons, and they don't care for them. Then there are those that simply don't see what the big deal about going to an innocent litle concert is, especially if there's separate seating and all, so instead of accepting the KK they begin to believe that maybe there's some truth to what the nay-sayers say about Kol Korehs such as these; that it's all a bunch of lies and bluff.
I see that many agree that this all about breaking Lipa, and not so much about the actual concert. That Lipa is the first such threat to Heimishe/Chassidishe kids since he speaks their language, and teaches them to do stuff they never thought imagineable in theircurrent, pure Chassidishe state. "Di Moderne Kennen Gein Tzi Alle Rieches," they say, just leave our kids alone. That would explain why other concerts never get the attention that Lipa's get; since they don't really cater to the Heimish, so there's no need to bother. MBD, Fried and Shwekey, although they perform at all kinds of events and venues, aren't the threat that Lipa is even with his "no mixed seating" policy, which is why he taped his performances for HASC. This is apparently the motivation of those who went around collecting the signatures, not the Rabbonim, since the Rabbonim never saw it fit to Asser on their own. This too is another issue that begs to be discussed; why is it that "askonim," as well-meaning as they may be, are the ones that decide what the Tzav HaSho'oh is, and remind the Rabbonim what needs to be done?! Why is that the same Askonim who so fought the BP Eruv are the ones now saving us from this Issur? Are they as credible now as they were then? Are all those Yidden with Shtraymel/Vayse Zoken who carry their Taleisim and push baby carriages on Shabbos really racking up DeOrayses all that time like the "askonim" claim?
What many want to see is the Rabbonim who signed go down there and stand at the entrance, warning people of the harm this concert will do to them and their children, and of the bad example that they're teaching their children. "If they're so concerened let them go down there and force people to defy them," they say, otherwise the KK is worthless. Obviously that'll never happen, as well it shouldn't. It's not LeFi Kvodom and and will only hurt their cause. Maybe the Askonim will get a group of guys to go and be Moyche instead, and maybe the cops will have to come and restore order; that oughtta be fun to watch, not that I'm a violent guy or wish violence c"v. They say that Lipa was at the wedding of a child of Rav David Abuchatzeira of Naharia, Israel last week, and that he got a major Brochoh for the concert, this adds another dimension to the whole saga; who's words have more clout both here and in Himmel, and why does the Tzaddik and Mekubal not see the danger that the Rabbonim here see. I would like to add that I think Lipa is a poster child of how people can use their G-d given talents and make good money from it, even frum people, and that G-d helps you if just go out there and apply yourself. I'm just not sure how this will end, and how he'll use his talents if his tapes and appearances will be banned too... Needless to say we haven't seen the last of this.
(This is not an intent to belittle Rabbonim, Rebbes and Roshei Yeshiva in any way, please do not see it as such.)
Lipa's sister just called in to The Zev Brenner and said that the March 9th Concert is most probably cancelled.
ReplyDeleteZevel Brenner gets all kinds of freaks calling in because he gets all kinds of freaks like NK, elokists, Shimmy Deutsch etc to participate. Lipa's sister would most probably not call into a radio show, and if that call ever took place, it was a faker.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=14875
ReplyDeleteWhose, not who's.
ReplyDeleteWell I guess we found out who won.
ReplyDeleteCheck http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/14875/EXCLUSIVE:+Lipa+Schmeltzer+Backs+Out+Of+Big+Event+Concert!.html
Now it also means that Lipa is going to have to stop singing all of his traife goyishe songs. Does that also mean EVERY single frum song that its tune has goyish (or unkosher)orgins is traif. Boy that sure leaves so few tunes left for us.
Hirshel
ReplyDeleteIs their proof that Friedman (Tenker) is behind this?
all the proof in the world besides for his actual signature.
ReplyDeleteShaygetZaros.
ReplyDeleteYou arestarting to sound like Itzik S.
Why are you writing nasty things against Zev Brenner , a very decent show host who is very good with Chabad?
I heard the show and Lipas' sister did call in.How would you know if she would'most probably not call a radio show'?Do you know her?
I wonder how the Hamodia will cover the latest breakthrough on the concert....
ReplyDeleteThe previous generation of Gedolim had to figure out how to save world jewry from the Nazi Holocaust, Our's works on trying to save us from Lipa Schmeltzer.
ReplyDeleteEvery day I feel the fact that we are a dor yasom sheb'yasomim more intensely. The problem is that nobody cares what the rabbonim say and the musag of having an actual rebbi who imparts ikkirei ha-daas v'emunah has almost vanished in today's yeshivos and 13 y/o pishers walk around thinking they're the Brisker Rav.
ReplyDeleteLakewood has morphed into some sort of grotesque corporate yeshiva where the roshei yeshiva are clearly not in full control and many once proud branches of chassidus are emboriled in machloksim over gelt in secular courts vchulu ...... There is very little credibility left. Chabad has the moshichists, court battles and the corporate aura as well, so what is attractive to a young frum kid these days?
Rav Ahron Kotler would've folded up and taken the talmidim far away 10 years ago. The Satmar Rav would have thrown these clowns outta town 30 years ago. R' Shloimele Bobover, the ohev sholom v'rodef sholom of his day is rolling over in his grave.
Sex, drugs, and rampant kefira are all over the place along with ignored molestation problems and all of a sudden we're worried about "the big event" @ MSG!
Chareidi Judaism used to be a sacred cow to me but the culture out there is so repugnant at times it's almost too hard to bear. For instance OORAH a fine mossad is offering a catalog without women for those inclined to receive such. Well, is it poroper to have women or not? BMG puts out a catalog for a chinese auction that is considered too m'gushem and then cancels the event at a financial loss. Who authorized it in the first place? Were the roshei yeshiva consulted? Did they approve it? If so, fine. If not, we've got a problem. The rabbonim understandably assured the Internet but on Yeshivaworld was instructed when to "break" the recent Lipa story.
The "yeridos hadoros" that's taken place even in the course of my 39 year life is so immense that I fear for the future. IY"H Moshiach zol kummen b'meheira b'yomeinu! OY MEH HAYA LANU!
What's the chidush?
ReplyDeleteIt seems the yunger oilem is paying for not knowing history altogether.
Over a generation ago the singing rabbi, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was a sensation. He had great yekkishe yischus from a rabbonishe mishpocheh, he was a talmid chochem who had learned in Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, then in BMG the Lakewood Yeshiva, he later moved on to become close with Lubavitch...and then he went on to compose nigunim, play the guitar, go on concert tours and became as close to a modern musical star as anyone can become in the oilem HaTorah and in the entire Orthodox world and beyond in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s into the 1980s --- but then, when he invited men and women to dance on stage at concerts, and all sorts of rumors started coming out about his personal life --- guess what happened, the Roshei Yeshiva put a ban on his compositions. In Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin and in the Lakewood Yeshiva there is a known ban against singing niggunim composed by him during official tefilos such as during Hallel. A ba'al tefilah will be stopped if he does so.
This is all widely known in yeshivishe circles, that if Orthodox entertainers who have obviously captured the hearts of the public, like "heart-throbs", then the Rosh Yeshivas and Rebbes will sit up and take note, and will in all probabality ban the entertainers if they are deemed a danger to the Oilem HaTorah.
In some yeshivishe kreizen there is also a ban against MBD for who knows whatever he ever did or did not do. And they have zero tolerance for Avraham Fried because he is Lubavitch and of course Matisyahu 'cause he was rappin' -- even Lubavitch is broiges with Matisyahu for breaking ranks and saying that maybe there are other brands of Chasidus out there.
Anyhow, Lippa and company made a huge mistake by going overboard.
Why did the producers of this event need to go to MSG and do such over-the-top PR that even a blinde chosid could see?
They were waving red flags in front of bulls and now they cry that the bulls have trampled them.
There were huge billboards with Lipa's face over many subway stations in Flatbush and beyond. What was wrong to sticking to putting cheap little ones stapled around lamp posts? Any Rebbe or Rov with the weakest eye-sight could have seen Lipa smiling down at them with funny oygen lange tzeiner in his rimmed glasses, scraggly beard, bald patch on the side of his haed, peyos and all, pointing down into a person mit dem grobben finger (mercifully it was only the index finger) and wondered what the heck was this guy up to?
Lipa should blame himself for making himself open to this. Are these entertainers and the guys behind them so greedy that they need all this PR and the hoped for pay-back of mucho $$$?
So there are a few issues here.
One is that in the olden days even Shlomo Carlebach, the best of the best, was put in a virtual cherem by the Roshei Yeshivas who got fed up with him. So Lipa is lucky (and smart) that he pulled out just in time. According to Yeshiva world he is "learning with a Rosh Yeshiva" and will be changing his approach to playing goyishe sourced songs. Lipa the Ba'a teshuva should be interesting. Let's see now, will he join Lubavitch, Aish HaTorah, Ohr Somayach or Breslov? Maybe the Rosh Yeshiva will turn out to be Rabbi Leib Tropper and Lipa can sing Yiddishe niggunim to mekarev all the goyishe spouses of Jews at the Eternal Jewish Family concerts (oops, sorry, conventions)?
Another point is that the producers of this event only have themseleves to blame for doing it "over-kill" style. They could have done three smaller concerts, one at Brooklyn College, one at Queens College, and one on Long Island some place and taken smaller half page black-and-white ads that would not have gotten so much attention from suspicious and paranoid Rabbonim.
Just read the last Feb '08 "Country Yossie" magazine front cover story (pages 40-42, as well as the front cover and CY's intro) and the woman who writes it, "Chaya Sara Schlusel" (if it's even a real person because Country Yossi is always up to practical jokes!) gushes over three pages that this concert will make you "perk up" with "toe-tapping tempo" that "will get your juices flowing" and "leave you duly wowed" and that one track "rouses us all to our feet. Here's a doozy: "'Shmeichel,' never fails to curl the edges of my lips" as "he will grab your attention, and steal your heart." There is more like this drivel but this lady sounds like she is about to have multiple orgasms even before she gets to the concert. So it's not a very subtle subliminal sel and no wonder the Rabbonim got to smell the coffee here and trashed the whole thing before it could take off and "curl the lips" and "rouse" a few thousand innocent Yiddishe techter who would then take out on on the even more innocent boochirem who look a lot better, even on a bad day, than Lippa looks in the ads for the concert.
It would seem that the people behind this also forgot what has been going on recently in Eretz Yisroel where the Charedi bigs banned a huge concert there too. This teaches that the ceneter of Charedi life is in Eretz HaKoidesh, with almost half the world's Jews living there, and that anyone on this of the Atlantic who does not put that into their calculations is making a huge mistake, like a troop of US cavalry about to attack a small tribe of Indians when on the other side of the ridge there are huge armies of Indians waiting for the orders to join the battle.
Finally, there is history. And only a couple of hundred years ago there was the whole Shabtai Tzvi (1626-1676) false mashiach fiasco, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbatai_Zevi .
Shabtai Tzvi was a genuine personable talmid chochom, he had a good semicha and he was a mekubel at a young age. He also had an extraordinarily beautiful voice and one of his trademarks was moving from community to community singing Tehilim and composing beautiful poems in loshen kodesh which he sung himself. This hypnotized many good Jews. It was one way he was able to get so many Yidden to believe in him as the mashiach. Unfortunately, he also became a meshumad to Islam for the last ten years of his life and this caused a tragedy in Klal Yisroel as many Jews followed him, and for over two hundred years after his death he still had a following of those who did not convert to Islam but believed that he was the mashiach. This kept the Rabbonim opposed to Shabtai Tzvi and the movements he spawned busy stamping all this out.
When the Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760) and the Chasidic movement came along soon after Shabtai Tzvi, and started singing and jumping up and down as part of their hisorerus, the Rabbonim took note and many first regarded the Chasidim of maybe being Shabtai Tzvi-niks.
So that since the late 1600s, ESPECIALLY when frum musicians, composers, and singers, with beards, peyos, and who may even be talmidei chachomim and musmachim, start getting into neginah and in turn raising up a following among the oilem goilem, that the Rabbonim get very suspicious, worried and take out their klei-milchama, via cherems, kol korehs, macha'as, michtavim, teshuvas and seforim to go up against the meshorarim and menagnim who are not quite in the mold of the Levi'im in the Bais HaMikdosh.
Poor Lipa, and his backers of course, ran into a bigger brick wall than they realized.
(This is not an intent to belittle Rabbonim, Rebbes and Roshei Yeshiva in any way, please do not see it as such.)
ReplyDelete-----
Hershel, that's what the rest of blog is for.
I look forward to the next Lipe album titled "In Cheirem Arein"
ReplyDeleteWhy were there no Lubab rabbis signed on the issur?
ReplyDeleteSimple.There are no Lubab rabbis who are held in any esteem outside of Lubabland.
Says a lot about Lubavitch.
*Go ahead and censor this.
Btw, for you this ban is the ultimate post, because you don't care that the rabbonim come out of this looking bad, because Lubab don't acknowledge any rabbonim besides their Rebbe.So it's a good way of showing how backward thinking the rest of the Orthodox world is.Chabad have had their telethons with goytehs for years already so Lipa is a step up from anything Lubab has.Actually Lipa is much more Jewish that Fried
"the Roshei Yeshiva put a ban on his compositions. In Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin and in the Lakewood Yeshiva there is a known ban against singing niggunim composed by him during official tefilos such as during Hallel. A ba'al tefilah will be stopped if he does so."
ReplyDelete1) Reb Mayshe Feinstein zt"l has a teshuvoh where he is mattir to sing Slaymeh's niggunim.
To snag:
ReplyDeleteThat there was a shaila and suppedly a teshuva, from the RASKEBEHAG himself, tells you how serious of a problem it was.
By the way, when was the shaila submitted by whom, and who edited it? Hopefully not by the discredited Tendler menuvolim.
Can you cite or reproduce the shaila in full, so that we can see why and how it is being asked and how the answer is framed.
Thanks.
In all my years I can never seen or recall a Kol Kore signed by rabbonim dealing with economic issues. Lets say a call to rich landlords to give a tiny break to tenants, a call to landlords to provide adequate heat in the cold season. (Punk farkert when it comes to real estate issue the issur of arkaos does not apply !!) A call to store keepers to keep prices down as far as possibile, a call to Manufacturers of kosher food to keep in my mind the type of families who use their products , a call to yeshiva directors to give people a break as much as possibile. A call to the rich "nit zu farfen zich in doe eigen" . Alas I for one do not recall such kol korehs.
ReplyDeleteThe exception being a few kol korehs about weddings.
As in Europe most of our rabbonim are aligned with the rich . They feed off each other. The rabbonim and their families do not produce any money so they need the rich. The rich need the beards and brocaded bekishes and homburgs to give them the much m\needed kavod.
So where does that leave Joe Six pack of the frum world ... in a pile of debt.
By the way this is the reason Poali Agudas Israel was started in Poland and within 15 years of its inception became a powerful force in Polish Orthodox life and was disliked by many of the "gedolim".
There is nothing wrong with telling one's chassidim that going to concerts is inappropriate.
ReplyDeleteThe flyer is not applicable to anyone who doesn't have the signers as rabeyim. This is why they had to get so many signatures.
But look in the Brooklyn yellow pages under "Rabbi", and you'll see that only a miniscule percentage of rabbi's signed the pashkvil.
-Friendly anon
Friendly
ReplyDeleteAre you trying to say that the Rabbonim in the kol koreh are a tiny percentage of the people calling themselves 'rabbi' in the phone book?Do you really believe that they are equal to the telephone book listings of rabbis?
Oh...
You are a Lubab.
By you every guy gets a version of semicha.You and the Tzig are probably 'rabbis'.
This kol koreh and the concert are not geared towards Lubavitchers:The kol koreh because Lubab do what ever they want to and the concert knows that the Lubab are a miniscule percentage of Orthodoxy.
"By the way, when was the shaila submitted by whom........
ReplyDeleteCan you cite or reproduce the shaila in full, so that we can see why and how it is being asked and how the answer is framed."
I don't know all the details offhand so can't give you the mareh mokom right now, but I believe it is in one of the older chalokim of Igros Mayshe that appeared bichayei hamechaber and long before he was niftar. It was addressed to R. Shmuel Dishon and dated in the late 50's limisporom. It doesn't mention Slaymeh by name, but the description seems to fit him and I was told by someone that that was who they had in mind.
What can we learn from Soviet Experience about the Lipa's ban:
ReplyDelete1. People have infinite tolerance for the off the wall pronouncement and behavior of their leaders. In fact indoctrination in all educational institutions is chiefly designed to allow an average individual to withstand a barrage of contradictory stupidity without remorse, regret, contemplation, consciences or objection. The systems produces people who instinctively jump to defend their devious fathers.
2. There is no crime that can compel people to change their view in indignation. Millions of people were disappearing in Russia and most still kept quite.
3. The only compelling factor to move the society is the economic reality. Russia didn't break because of ideology it was the collapse of economy. Goverment programs in Israel and America are not likely to last or satisfy the needs of exploding population and there is not enough oligarchs to go around.
4. Because true history is still a taboo subject in Yeshivas, people are far more likely to retrace the same fatal steps. For example there are no lessons that have been learned from the mass assimilation of the past centuries.
5. Lipa is very talented but his music is really crap. There reason his music is crap is that you need a musical culture to develop and nurture the talent. With or without Lipa hareidy music will continue to be a loud base deafening rock and roll, albeit "very jewish" in origin.
...please where can I buy a unicorn?
ReplyDelete