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May 6, 2011

Rav Elyashiv puts an askan in his place

Rav Elyashiv Puts An Askan in His Place

Rav Yosef Chaim Kupshitz recently went to Rav Elyashiv recently asking him to sign a letter. He said there is a big problem today that seminary girls walk through the streets talking on their cellphones, and it is very inappropriate. He asked Rav Elyashiv to sign a letter saying he is opposed to this phenomenon.

Rav Elyashiv responded by telling him a story. The Emperor Joseph sent one of his aides to the Jewish community to find out what they were up to. The messenger gets to the Jewish community and finds them congregated in groups outside looking up to the sky.

The messenger went back to the emperor and related what he had seen. The emperor now wanted an explanation so he summoned the rabbi of the community to explain.

The rav explained the were performing kiddush levana - he said, every month we see the moon getting smaller. We pray to God that he should make the moon big again. Sure enough, the moon always gets bigger. God accepts our prayers.

The emperor laughed and said if that is what you are concerned with, your situation must be pretty good.

Rav Elyashiv continued and told R' Kupshitz, if the last problem remaining to be dealt with is the cellular phones of the girls, our situation must be excellent.

Rav Kupshitz took his unsigned letter and left. (source: Bechadrei)

Thoughts:
  1. That is a great story
  2. Why are the two things mutually exclusive? Just because there are other problems means the "smaller" problems should not be dealt with?
  3. If Rav Elyashiv could refuse to sign a letter with this excuse, on a topic that has had letters and bans and pronouncements in the past (though I don't know if Rav Elyashiv put his name to them in the past on this issue), does that mean all those times he does agree to sign his name he really approves of the content and is not being duped?
  4. It has seemed like these askanim have their way with all these rabbonim (example: see the way Rav Nissim karelitz was recently duped to sign the Yated letter against the Mishapach aand other newspapers, but when he found out he had been lied to and presented with information that was more than 2 years old he wrote a new letter pulling his approval from the original letter and supporting Mishpacha instead). Is that no longer the case? 

6 comments:

  1. Do you have links for the R. Nissim Karelitz/ Mishpachah story?

    ReplyDelete
  2. ladaat.net kikar.net bhol.co.il

    it has been raging all week. That has been the main story in the haredi internet sites this week.

    ReplyDelete
  3. FYI, the emperor in the story (which may or may not be true) was likely Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, not "Emperor Joseph". Franz Joseph was known for his favorable attitude toward Jews, and there are a number of stories about him out there.

    ReplyDelete
  4. 1. Indeed.

    2. Yes, and no. But leaders have to pick their battles. You can always find SOMETHING to complain about. But if that's all you do, then you'll just be known as a complainer and then people will stop listening to you, even for the really important things.

    It's nice once in a while to hear encouragement rather than there always being something else we're doing wrong.

    3. You can full all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. But you can't full all of the people all of the time.

    4. There comes a time where someone must realize he's being fooled and must either stop listening to those askanim who have an agenda, OR step down from issuing proclamations.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This Kupshitz is actually a shitzkup. Why wouldn't he do what every other askan does, go and complain about something racy like how the girls are using cell phones to talk to boys or something like that?
    As for Rav Eliashiv, of course he doesn't think there are any bigger problems than that anymore. After all, he already banned everything else!

    ReplyDelete
  6. there are a similiar story published recently about Rav Henoch Leibowitz z"l(rosh yeshivas chofets chaim) who was asked to sign a ban against tv many years ago. He refused saying "klal yisroel's pants are falling down and you want to straighten out its crooked tie?".

    ReplyDelete

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