"The Gedolim told us very clearly that hishtadlus is illusory and has zero significance. The Beis Din Shel Maalah decrees how much parnassa a person receives every year, and it has absolutely nothing to do with hishtadlus. Yet we began to notice that the yungerleit in Kollel were suffering greatly from a lack of parnassah, whereas those who work were generally not suffering! Does the Beis Din Shel Maalah really think that they can pull the wool over our eyes?! This is clearly a breach of contract."
"Furthermore, the Gedolim also said that there is no correlation between secular education and parnassa. The Beis Din Shel Maalah certainly does not care about such hishtadlus and is against it. But we did a survey, and it turned out that there is indeed a correlation! Those who received secular education as children, and all the more so those who went to college, were much more likely to receive a higher parnassah that those who only learned Torah!"
The lawsuit against the Beis Din Shel Maalah was filed in the Beis Din Shel Mata of Bnei Brak. The defendant, speaking via Bas Kol, argued that the Beis Din Shel Maalah does not consider the Gedolim to be authorized spokesmen for its contract with mankind. The defendant also said that if people want to go against the very clear laws of the world that were set up then it's their problem, and added that the actual authorized spokesmen for the contract had clearly stated two thousand years ago that both education and work are generally necessary for parnasah and are even obligatory.
The Beis Din Shel Mata did not accept the defendant's argument and warned the Beis Din Shel Maalah that they are veering into heresy. It found the Beis Din Shel Maalah guilty and ordered them to make full restitution to the YMCA, redistributing parnasah from those who work to those who don't. This is being fulfilled by a new government arrangement between Likud and UTJ.
After all Torah lav Bashamyim
ReplyDeleteSuch nonsense cheapens you, your blog and all that you stand for. Leitzonus is not a good middoh.
ReplyDelete"middoh"? Its either "middah" or "midduh".
DeleteMake a berocho on some matzoh with kavonoh before dishing out your mussor.
Yeah. It's a little over the top.
DeleteRNS is no Jonathan Swift, and even if he were, the reality of extremism would prove him a rather tame satirist.
Funny stuff. Guessing most of the people that take government funds either in EY or the diaspora will have to answer to the possible chilul Hashem, misappropriation of $, and bittul Torah associated with the business of learning Torah.
DeleteAnd then they did the dance from the Village People Y, M,C,A!
ReplyDeleteYep, and ain mashgichin b'vas kol!
ReplyDeleteNext Yom Kipur when that unfortunate group of Kollel students with severe parnassa crisis recite:
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the rest of my post?
Deleteנצחוני בני, נצחוני
ReplyDeleteAnd where is מכרכר בכל עוז when you need him? He's always banging on asking for examples of how halacha was changed to fit societal trends. This is a good one for his collection.
DeleteAnd MO jews should stop using תנור של עכנאי as an example for halachic change and just use the halacha of parnassa to show how jews change halacha to meet their current social standards.
Pleasure to read this clever column. In fifty more years no one will be left to defend Israel.
DeleteObsession, move on..
ReplyDelete..
Like one who wearies himself shooting firebrands, arrows, and death, so is a man who deceives his friend and says, "Am I not joking?"
ReplyDeleteMishlei 26:18-19
The only difference between this and your other gaslighting posts is that this one isn't exactly gaslighting because it is so obviously false. I guess to rationalists, writing this kind of tripe is rational. To us it comes across as the ravings of a lunatic.
"To us it comes across as the ravings of a lunatic" ....says the conspiracy theorist who calls everyone retards! LOL.
DeleteI didn't call anyone that here, did I? As far as the other accusation, if this comment passes muster, let's just leave it at you have no idea what you're talking about and this isn't forum to demonstrate such.
DeleteThere are so many "Anonymous" posters here, who can't even be bothered to assume a throwaway moniker for the purposes of discussion. That is retarded, and even more so, because it is explicitly against a rule of the saloon, even if not enforced. Who am I talking to? Should I just s/Anonymous/Retard/ and be done with it?
Rav Natan
DeleteThank you for your posts and showing that some sanity still exists in the Frum community.
I wish I could say the same for many of the posters.
I live in Israel, work hard, send my kids to the army, learn every day, and had enough of seeing a growing population not contributing anything to the country while expecting me to risk my kids' lives and for me to pay for their lifestyles.
It's inexcusable
"other gaslighting posts"
DeleteDo you know what gaslighting means?
Spare me, Ephraim.
DeleteSlifkin has literally said things to the effect of (straight from Mishlei) "Am I not joking?"
He has expressed amazement that anyone took his false (ie gaslighting) posts seriously, more than once. We should have known the posts in question were meant in jest. And so forth. Once is a misunderstanding; twice, well, b'di'avad cut the guy some slack; thrice is a chazaka and qualifies as intentional l'chatchila gaslighting. In this case, despite the seriousness of tone, it is obviously not gaslighting. Would that his other posts were so over the top.
As long as these types of posts stick to Charedim and not strawberry salamanders and kosher cephalods, we are probably all better off. The charedi haters will find them hilarious and the rest of us, pointless at best. And no one will be fooled that they are in any way true.
Ephraim, what are you going to tell me? If gaslighting doesn't involve a, uh, gas light, then it's not gaslighting? Do you know what you're even talking about? How about, "a man who deceives his friends?" Would you find that more agreeable?
"his false (ie gaslighting) posts "
Delete1) False is not necessarily gaslighting
2) Satire, however heavy-handed or off-base is not lying in the usual sense of the term.
3) Pranks, though they may be mean-spirited, are not gaslighting. Being fooled is not necessarily being gaslighted.
"We should have known the posts in question were meant in jest."
You didn't know the post in question was in jest? Did you think it was presented as fake news, and not satire?
"it is obviously not gaslighting"
Consistency, please. You first write, " this one isn't exactly gaslighting" and now you write " it is obviously not gaslighting".
"How about, "a man who deceives his friends?" Would you find that more agreeable?"
No. Deception is not necessarily gaslighting.
You don't know what gaslighting means. That doesn't mean you're crazy or being gaslighted. It just means you made a mistake, possibly due to the term being overused and misused by the mainstream and alternative media.
Ephraim, you are now a retard. If you look at the comments at the previous posts in question, multiple commenters at each one were flummoxed. Don't be a retard and project your own retarded notions on others. Multiple posts without any hint of sarcasm or satire, no post category or tag appended, with multiple people at each one bewildered, even somewhat angry, to learn that a post proffered as authoritative was indeed fake. You could say they felt gaslit. It doesn't matter how intelligent you think you are (you aren't), or how obvious the deception to you (it wasn't, or multiple people wouldn't be complaining every time it happens), the term gaslight is entirely appropriate for these posts. Not this case, obviously. Which I conceded. And yet you still protested.
DeleteIt's astonishing how many retards will zero in on the use of this term, each and every time I use it, and protest its use, or my understanding of the term, and repeatedly double down in defense of their retarded attacks. It's like "retard" in its troll ability. Perhaps you have an innate need to challenge your superiors.
You can't even provide a definition, coherent or otherwise, of the term to counter my use. What is gaslighting? Please, Ephraim, for my sake at least, put up an actual definition already or shut up.
Ephraim, further to my response, assuming it will be posted.
Delete"You didn't know the post in question was in jest? Did you think it was presented as fake news, and not satire?"
I didn't speak about myself, which may or may not be true (you may read my comments at posts that post-date my appearance), but I spoke accurately about several commenters, at each of the posts in question.
Consistency, please. You first write, " this one isn't exactly gaslighting" and now you write " it is obviously not gaslighting".
Don't be retarded. The substance of my argument is entirely consistent. My characterization across multiple comments is subject to rhetorical flourish.
" You could say they felt gaslit. "
DeleteJust because they felt gaslighted doesn't mean they were gaslighted. In any case, it's not likely that you have the clairvoyant abilities to know how readers of the blog feel. Especially when no commenter here has confessed to any such feelings that would be consistent with the effects of being gaslighted.
"You can't even provide a definition"
Wrong. You've confused "can't" with "didn't". I didn't provide a definition, but that doesn't mean I can't. You've made a wild conclusion without evidence.
Gaslighting is not simply deceiving someone or playing a practical joke. It's not even presenting propaganda & lies that are accepted uncritically. It's a long term form of abuse involving manipulating people into questioning their own sanity. It's almost impossible to do that from a series of blog posts. Nothing like that is occurring here.
This is one of those mistakes conspiracy theorists make. They see something online and immediately accept it as true without due diligence and skepticism. I'm speculating that you've been exposed to the term "gaslight" in forums in which the word has been used incorrectly.
Ephraim, did you bother reading comments at these posts? Obviously not. I'm not the one projecting. I am not referring to myself in the third person. There were people who were offended at being manipulated, and so forth. You are the one who is projecting...excuse me...speculating.
DeleteYou don't provide a definition because you can't. You say what it isn't as if it's obvious without saying what it is. If you can't define what it is, saying what it isn't is pointless and retarded. Restating the movie plot of The Gaslight in an analytical manner is not a definition. The inspiration of the term is not the definition as commonly understood by most people, but not retards. Gaslighting is a behavior, not a long train of abuse. The end result of being gaslit for a prolonged period of time is indeed like you say, but a one-time act of gaslighting is still gaslighting.
Further, the fake but written as authoritative posts exhibit exactly that pattern. Read the comments from those surprised to learn they were the victim of a mild form of psychologically abusive behavior that indeed led them to questioning what is and isn't real, by a figure they trusted and who takes advantage of that trust. I don't know what goes on in anyone's head, and I don't need to. I am stating accurately what I observe, even if the internal motivation is at odds with observed actions and statements.
What really astonishes me is the extent of white knighting by retards like you on behalf of Slifkin on such a picayune issue as to the proper use of the word gaslight. What, is he a damsel in distress that you need to defend? Are there no women in your life?
https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/1594328373467443200
Delete"Wow. Just wow.
@US_FDA
doing some grade A gaslighting now. “It was just a recommendation!”"
Ephraim, is this a proper or improper use of the term gaslighting in your eyes?
I have no doubt that technically, the FDA lawyer is 100% correct. If you drill down into the fine print. There is only the one cited case, which could even be taken as parody, not a prolonged series of premeditated actions, and so forth. Do you care to retardedly advise the author the same way? How can you resist? It's a much bigger forum and he sounds like a conspiracy queryist, doesn't he? Why stop with me?
At least the FDA has fine print. Slifkin doesn't.
"You don't provide a definition because you can't. "
DeleteSpeculation.
Wikipedia: "manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality
Miriam-Webster: "psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts"
And so forth. I can given dozen of sources for the correct definition. They all say the same thing: abusive manipulation to get the person to question their own sanity.
"but a one-time act of gaslighting is still gaslighting."
No it isn't. There's no such thing as a one-time act of gaslighting. It has to take place repeatedly over a period of time.
"Ephraim, is this a proper or improper use of the term gaslighting in your eyes?"
Typical conspiracy theory nonsense. A legal argument offered in the context of defending a lawsuit is misinterpreted into something it isn't. Who was the addressee of the FDA claim? Even according to your incorrect definition, it's not gaslighting.
" they were the victim of a mild form of psychologically abusive behavior that indeed led them to questioning what is and isn't real"
Speculation. You have no evidence that readers of this blog have questioned their own sanity. And I've noticed you've backed off a bit by modifying your unsubstantiated claims with the words "mild". Mild can mean anything more than nothing.
XD
ReplyDelete"those who went to college, were much more likely to receive a higher parnassah..."
ReplyDeleteBy "parnasa", did you mean becoming a pesudo-"intellectual" welfare queen busy hectoring those who recieve money from voluntary donors instead of sponging off taxes? like slifkin?!
ex-Avreich
What's voluntary about taxes???
Deletepaging Not a fan:
DeleteThe VAST majority of an Avreich's income is voluntary; the vast majority of an acedeme parasite's income (and incomparably larger in absolute terms) is from taxes. how does the expression about the pot calling the kettle black go? or the one with the beam and the splinter?
Besides, the hypocrite NS loathes private scholars who accept ZERO gov. funding. in eretz yisroel no less, if not loathing them more.
ex-Avreich
Um, sure, there are a few college educated folks who go into academics. But hey, there should always be a few who go into kollel. There should be professors who get tenure, and there should be, l'havdil, baalei treisin and of course, gedolei hador.
DeleteBut most people who go to advanced education do not become welfare queens or "parasites." They work their tuchuses off at their jobs, be they in white-collar or blue collar spheres, whether they wear a white coat or a charcoal gray suit. And they create wealth and pay taxes.
Focusing on the tiny tiny fraction of those who get advanced degrees and stay in the academic world is beyond the worst "whataboutism."
Yeah right.
Deleteas if a monopoly degree handed out by a self-selecting elite and "licensed" overpriced text-book pubs doesn't stop other, more qualified people and dumb down the whole profession and lead to institutional laziness (except perhaps in engineering - at least until wokeness fully blossomed), and that's without going into revolving doors and corporate welfare...
Yosef R: i don't think i'll convince you so easily.
but again, i referred mainly to the tiny tiny fraction called NS who doesn't believe in kollel, period! for anyone! including avreichim in who get ten shekels an hour from private donors and nothing from ‘datot’!
and NS wasn't promoting trade schools but davka the greek places with the marble columns the avreichim wiped out on chanuka (college).
NS wants to insulate himself and his chevreh from market choices, and in the name of "intellectual freedom" hector his betters (in all senses as a group) not only in the ivy towers but also in an open medium avreichim disdain.
nobody chooses to voluntarily fund subsidized hacks (like NS) telling off deserving poor, unlike kollel salaries VASTLY funded by private donors (the state gives almost nothing).
and kolel is a meritocracy of ever-improving torah teaching and writing with proven results in a virtuous spiral. while anyone who thinks the same is true of acedeme with its unread journals and replication crisis and failure in almost any real-world area their ideas are tried is... um, too young to listen to.
so yes, avreichim and their wives and families pay massive taxes so NS and other parasites with too much free time can castigate them and tell them to go to college.
]Of course we should also cririticze avreichim and tell them to stop taking ANY taxes]
ex-Avreich
Yosef R.
Deletepostscript, the "tenure" you mention is another selfserving fraud. as are sabbaticals! wanna guess where they DONT exist? kolel!
I would like to comment on Yosef R's statement. 1. When he says people who get "advanced education" are working blue-collar jobs, I presume he means people with useless humanities degrees who need to work in Burger King and are on food stamps and Medicaid. So, parasites. 2. In advanced countries, most of the population, including workers, receive from the government more than they produce. So, parasites.
DeleteThe stipends to Avrechim of the last or the next governments do not determine who will go to work and who will learn. These stipends are and will be for minor amounts which no one can live on.
ReplyDeleteThe stipends may be insufficient for a livelihood, but they may be sufficient enough to motivate one to avoid earning a living.
DeleteThis is mean-spirited and not nice.
ReplyDeleteEven less nice is raising an entire community to be incapable of supporting themselves.
DeleteIn my experience, how 'well' somebody does is closely connected to family (including spousal family) wealth. Nothing else. Kollel/working has little to do with it. Numerous kollel families around here have a better standard of living than many working people.
ReplyDeleteEven those 'working' tend to be running around involved in 'family money'. Or based on family funding. Even good salaries paid by the non-Jewish world at middle management level can barely support a single person once accommodation needs to be paid for. With kids? Forget it.
And ethical working practices? Let's not go there.
Your first three words are the key. That is your very limited experience. The nationwide facts are very different. Bnei Brak is the poorest city in the country.
DeleteWhat is 'poor'. And those that are rich in BB (and there are plenty of those), are they all self-funded. Many those 'poor' people in BB seem to have married children all with appartments. How does that work?
DeleteThe 'poor' children of meah sheorim skip in the street during the week in nicer clothes than my children wear on shabbos. And the food in Israel costs more than here and that doesn't seem to stop the makolet's being busy all day.
Poor is 'having low income and having to take benefits from other tax payers to feed your kids (rather than doing an honest day's work)'.
DeleteSee the ביטוח לאומי דו"ח עוני for details.
What about taking benefits from rich family? Is that poor? What is the difference?
DeleteSyccess us a factor of your evolutio ary fitness to the current environment. Fortunes are made every day by peiple starting out with no education and no money. For an average person educatuon is beneficial.
DeleteAlong the same thinking of @Trst, education doesn't cause higher wages, there is just a correlation. Unless you are in a stem field where you need specific knowledge to work in that field, post 10th grade (USA) education is pointless as far as bringing in a parnassah is concerned. Virtually all my lawyer friends used a BTL and such have gone on to successful careers. The real culprit is ager of marriage, number of kids and age entering the workforce. Education has nothing to do with poverty.
DeleteIsrael is totally different from the USA. You are talking about people who HAVE a 10th grade education.
Delete" Virtually all my lawyer friends used a BTL and such have gone on to successful careers. "
DeleteSurvivorship bias.
"What about taking benefits from rich family? Is that poor? What is the difference?"
DeleteThe difference is that they are not being supported by your tax money.
Epharim, great chiddush. My question is why is one poor and one not? Or are they both poor? Or neither? Why?
Delete@Ephraim, you said "survivorship bias". Honestly, not really. Virtually all the guys that I went to yeshiva with are doing well financially and they are spread across random industries, credit card processing, construction, healthcare, ticket resales just to name the first that come to mind. I'm telling you, education and income are merely correlated. The more important factors are willingness to delay instant gratification and resolve.
Delete@RNS - Im not sure you're right. If I took a 25 year old BB guy who wanted to work and make money, I think he do fine if he had the time for it to play out. Most of the people who can't "catch up" are behind in terms of short term financial duties, aka too many kids to quick and too young. It's not an education issue. Education, outside of STEM is ridiculously overrated.
Big Mouth: then your friends are not representative of the community that RNS is talking about. Shkoyach to them!
Delete@Yosef R - my friends are not a misrepresentation of RNS point. RNS is trying to pigeon hole everything on education which is ludicrous for anyone in the biz world. The real inhibitors are age of marriage, number of kids, rate of pregnancy and family support. As many have pointed out the Lakewood and Flatbush youth that choose not sit in kollel are doing quite well!
DeleteThis post is so 1990s. "Going to College", you kidding? I'm a lawyer, on a chat with a dozen other lawyers, finance guys, business guys, a doctor - none of us are encouraging our kids to go to college. We don't actively oppose it, and we envision our kids working, not learning. But we all see college today as a waste of time. If you absolutely need it you can get a yeshivah degree, or a BA with yeshivah credits and one or two summer online classes, and either one is 100% acceptable. The smart people today (not just frum Jews) are skipping college, leaving woke corporate America, and opening their own businesses.
ReplyDeleteAnd all of you went to high school in the US. Not remotely comparable to Israeli charedim who go to charedi chadorim and yeshiva ketana. They are completely unprepared for jobs, and even the catch-up programs have an enormous drop-out rate.
DeleteNot true. It's the same as it is in the US. The smart ones and the ones who hustle do well, sometimes really well. The other ones either work for them, or just have a lower lifestyle they're fine with. That they are any more "Unprepared for jobs" than any other new employee is a myth that other people, mostly middle class, tell themselves so they don't feel like a Freier (the worst thing you can be in Israel) for having wasted their time in college. You should know, you didnt go to college yourself.
DeleteI really enjoyed reading this post, Rabbi Slifkin!! Very funny, and very poignant. I can't believe how many haters you have on here. It's wild. Unsurprisingly, the folks who speak against you on your blog come off as only semi-illiterate, and generally ignorant. Don't you haters have anything better to do with your time, than troll?
DeleteAnyway, thanks again for your post, Rabbi, and for your courage!!
Semiliterate. Not semi-illiterate. And I learn in Kollel.
Delete"The smart people today..."
DeleteWhat percentage of people are smart according to your standard?
For anyone who's worked in the business world, the only real kind of "unprepared' are people who 1) Pick something up and put it down a minute later 2) need instant gratification 3) are not willing to learn 4) Do not have resolve 5) impulsive behavior 6) live beyond their means. All of these can be avoided in the average Lakewood hulstery type of kid. People like to minimize the feasibility of making it without a formal education because they can't let go of the college fable.
Deletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_God
ReplyDeleteI am genuinely sorry to see that your frustration with the continued refusal of charedi society to collapse in on itself has driven you to such juvenile hyperventilation. It turns out there was no groundswell of charedi support for yesh atid. [1] Kollel shows no sign of going anywhere [2] Covid has become a non-issue, to the point where people barely even know what number booster they're supposedly up to.[3] Walder hasn't produced a watershed or cascade effect of anything. [4] And 15 years after the internet supposedly toppled charedi rabbinc authority, [5] you're still alternating between whining about charedi society, and shnorerring donations to try to reeducate them.
ReplyDelete[1] http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2020/04/kollel-1943-2020.html
[2] http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2022/10/guest-post-im-charedi-and-im-voting.html
[3] http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2021/05/dying-to-be-charedi.html
[4] http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2022/01/at-watershed-between-charedi-and-post.html
[5] http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2016/05/the-equalizer.html
Why would anyone expect pigs to take their snouts out of the trough voluntarily?
DeleteWhat class!
DeleteComments for this blog are moderated. Please see this post about the comments policy for details. ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE POSTED - please use either your real name or a pseudonym.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.jpost.com/opinion/article-722709
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at Nov. 18,22 at 4:48 PM
ReplyDeleteThose yeshiva based degrees won't get you anywhere as professional. You need second third degrees. Beyond merely course driven computer employment you won't get far. You need a strong math background. In Israel you should have an MS you n computer Science or similar education. Of course in the sciences you need special training in the field with an MA or even PHD.
Anonymous at Nov. 18,22 at 4:48 PM. Many a business goes bankrupt! Some people don't have the intelligence and/ or skills to be professionals. "Yeshiva talk".They can do anything because they sat in the Bait Hamedrash.
ReplyDeleteIf no one has mentioned this if any of your recent threads discussing the problem. This may be a possible solution: https://euiha41fnsb2lyeld3vkc37i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Basic-Income-in-Israel.pdf
ReplyDeleteThe dirty little secret that few cover of Kollel life, is that is is not very satisfying for most people, even aside for the economic disadvantages. If you broke the power of those who hold the kollel stipends over the heads of the yungleit, weather that is the gedolim or roshei yeshivot, or rebbeim lower in the system. I think percentages of people would decide to leave on their own and pursue options they were more interested in.
"The dirty little secret that few cover of Kollel life, is that is is not very satisfying for most people"
DeleteOn average, this is sheer nonsense. WADR, don't waste people's time with it in the future. Kollel is about studying Torah and there are those who had difficulty navigating that already in childhood due to natural restlessness and/or limited giftedness. Some dropped out of study before Kollel and others continued into Kollel and are unhappy there. But where's your data that they are anything but a negligible minority?