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| The System spit him out and crushed him! |
Hear The Man Grasping At Straws:
https://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/731293/rabbi-nathan-kamenetsky/making-of-a-ban-a-look-at-the-banning-of-making-of-a-godol/&ved=2ahUKEwiCss6NmuLiAhUpnOAKHdwxBVsQFjABegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw08PCB3yPT4E1bDLDMowMlJ
Shaul, you are too harsh on the dead. Here is what happened just a few months ago:
ReplyDelete“But what does Daas Torah say about that?” my son asked. Rav Nosson [Kamenetsky] looked him straight in the eye and responded, “Daas Torah is that you should use your own brain!”
The thing is, you cannot be part of contemporary Orthodox Judaism and be independent at the same time. A little Marxism:
One cannot live in society and be free from society. The freedom of the bourgeois writer, artist or actress is simply masked (or hypocritically masked) dependence on the money-bag, on corruption, on prostitution.
Look at what happened to you and your blog: Just ten years ago hundreds of people were posting brave comments, everyone thought they would crush the corrupt system within a short period, and each person would be experiencing some better form of Judaism. Nothing of the sort! Heroic men like you are marginalized, victims of rabbinic abuse are ignored, and religion is still hijacked. There is no light in the end of the tunnel. Our enemies will either eliminate us one by one, or just wait till we expire on our own. Sad indeed!
At the urging of UOJ I have come out of "retirement" to comment on this item. While it is flattering that the great UOJ seeks my opinion, I never read the book nor have I ever had a good handle on this particular story and if anything perhaps the Mara d'Asra can answer my questions.
ReplyDeleteThis hit the fan before I was reading blogs which were in their infancy & there was not much background released to the public. Even R' Nosson's pained speech at Young Israel of Boro Park does not reveal a whole lot.
Why is R' Nosson being thin on details here? I have to say I am not even sure how much I support him in this matter considering that the tzaddik R' Michel Yuda ztl had a problem with the book, likely for a reason or a knaitch different than the usual suspect crazy kanoyim. R' Nosson doesn't even mention R' Michel Yuda here but he did attack him rather angrily in a public interview with Slifkin. Something doesn't sit well with me about that especially since he never tells Slifkin the why & what driving R' Michel Yuda. While I don't like Slifkin as a person, I still feel he was unfairly destroyed. Slifkin was very thorough about who did what in his parsha which allows people to make up their own minds with the facts at hand. I do not agree with the crazy kanoyim calling Slifkin a koifer but I do agree with R' Shlomo Miller labeling him a gass ruach.
R' Nosson hides behind the Hesder rosh yeshiva Lichtenstein to indirectly attack Rav Elyashev as inconsiderate while talking out the other side of his mouth to describe himself as Rav Elyashev's biggest chossid. I have no idea whether the kanoyim completely duped Rav Elyashev to know how considerate he is. This prompts me to ask will the real R' Nosson please stand up.
Otherwise the only villain he comes close to naming is a mystery grandson of R' Aron Kotler, perhaps a Schwartzman, who he attacks as an ingrate former talmid of his.
After looking into this more thoroughly including getting the pulse that the Briskers feel about it I can report the following.
ReplyDeleteR' Nosson completely misread that the yeshivishe crowd, after moving more to the right since his days as a bochur, was not interested in this type of muckraking.
Even after he learned the hard way, he not only was akshening zich but he went running around to rant in front of modern orthodox crowds who cheered him on with Charedi-bashing geshmak. This was unforgivable to the entire yeshivishe spectrum except for it's most Left-leaning component Ner Yisroel who also happen to be Kaminetzky cousins.
Believe it or not, R' Nosson learned in Beis Hatalmud who they understandably then viewed him as a traitor. Or at least except for the former Beis Hatalmudnik Elefants who have themselves also fallen out of favor with Beis Hatalmud.
R' Nosson somehow managed to miss even the zog of his own tatteh R' Yaakov that certain controversial things can only be said by etlicher who have no kinder to marry off or else it will come back to bite them.
And the oylam by the way finds it rather curious that while dishing out dirt on everyone else, R' Nosson neglected to mention that none of his own many uncles & aunts remained frum.
Perhaps R' Nosson's biggest avlah is the missing part of the puzzle I learned after asking around in Brisk. He would usually hold back his reason for spewing extra special vitriol at the tzaddik yesod oylam R' Michel Yuda ztl. But he once blurted it out in a rather arrogant & demeaning way. R' Michel Yuda mind you didn't have a political bone in his body & is absolutely a deyah if feels R' Nosson shouldn't have publicized certain things. He is someone who even Chassidishe Rebbes called the posek hador in devorim shebikdusha, referring shaylos to him. R' Nosson huffed Ich bin a meyuchoss and this (Michel Yuda) son of a baal habos is spouting his opinion on ME? R' Michel Yuda's father lived in Brisk & I don't need to tell you where many supposedly "poshutta baal habatim" in Brisk were holding in learning. Even if not, it's not like R' Nosson reached the madraigah of R' Michel Yuda ztl.
What a sad epilogue for someone who could have instead been remembered in a favorable way.
I personally knew him and his family. while his brothers were unique in their own way/s; they had a congeniality about them. Nosson did not. he was bitter and vindictive. He should have spewed his venom at the people who oppressed and frustrated him. He was a dirty fighter and a defanged cub. His brother Reb
ReplyDeleteAvrohom was a walking Kiddush "H". He was not not a Rabbi he was an honest and honorable man. something the former was not. The book will be relegated to a dusty musty shelve.