Jewish HaShkafa (Ideology) is Not a Buffet

I [Music] it's important for a person to ask themselves where is the source for what this Rabbi is saying and who else agrees with him now he can tell you a source but if you're not a scholar yourself you don't know what to do at the source he could tell you this is in thear such and such and you can open the gar but you have no idea right or left what the is saying he can tell you listen the P such and such said it and you have no idea who this R is but if he said some other Rabbi said it okay fine it's important for you to use your common sense listen is what he saying what the biggest rabbis in the world are saying is what he saying in line with what Judaism has always been not what Judaism is today in the public which is a mixed batch of good and bad unfortunately some more bad than good at times no no is this what we did throughout the generations is this what we did throughout the generations is this what was accepted throughout all of Judaism throughout all of history now you're going to say listen sometimes you're going to have a uh different uh strategy in your community because you're saying listen it doesn't say that I'm not allowed to do certain things I'm not allowed to behave in certain ways and doesn't even talk about this so therefore this is an Asic issue this is a ideological issue and since the ideology of Judaism is not codified there isn't like one specific book that tells you uh anger you know how to deal with your anger of you know doing no there isn't it wasn't codified like the other laws so therefore you would think oh so since there is no specific codification for thefa for the ideology therefore all have to worry about is yes Allowed no not allowed wrong a very wellknown by the name of raob shap has an extraordinary write up that a friend of mine sent it to me recently and it's definitely worth our our uh time to to learn what he says word for word because he deals with this topic in a very very uh uh extraordinary way I uh generally I uh love to highlight tell me that are alive not just the ones that have passed uh especially since uh the the issues of ideology of asfa are typically the most confused ones people have no idea what to do with it so he says the following he says there's a question that came up question is if you don't have to follow a single poc in Al and you don't then surely you don't have to follow a single person's ashfa or when there's a disagreement and he says simple answer this is wrong wrong ideology thinking that you can that you don't have to follow a single person for aafa is wrong why it's wrong and it uh it's unfortunately a represents the common view in many modern Orthodox circles that when it comes to Al you have to listen to your Rabbi but a GAA they're simply opinions that are more subject to individual preference that's the ideology of today that AA that ideology is simply your opinion versus my opinion you are a modern Orthodox I am you are kidish I am this I am that people think that just because you are this and I am that therefore that we don't have the same Torah wrong or sometimes people will go even further they'll even distort Al where they'll say listen uh you know I'm inviting such and such to my house for Shabbat oh is is that person is going to sleep by your house also no no no he's he's conservative so he drives it's okay as if just because he's a conser he follows the heretical views of the conservative Jews or the reformed Jews or sometimes unfortunately the modern Jews it's allowed for him to drive because he's conservative there's nothing more wrong with it but this has to do more with thefa than it does have to do with and the reason is this follows where it first starts with a person needing to know that this type of thought says is plain is heresy just as there is correct there's also correct as mandated by the T that you have to have them as it says that you should not follow the the ways of your heart thear says this is referring to heresy that following the ways of your heart is the heretical belief that a person has any idea that disagrees with the opinions of the Torah which is the D tah says the which is one of the that we've talked about in the past and about 800 years ago and also the Mish the say that this this type of behavior is heretical this foreign uh concept this this type of mentality of thinking that you can just uh you know have your opinion of what aafa should be and I'll have my opin opinion of what a should be is the heretical thinking or the heretical brainchild of Moshe melon imim who said that Judaism doesn't matter as long as far as what you believe but rather how you behave this you'll see is also the types of a belief system that's preached by Mesa and his teacher Prager and all of the people that are like them all these so-called rationalists that's in essence what they're saying follow but as far as how who and what and when and thefa that's all subject to uh your own interpretation the reality is Shapiro says is that the idea of asfa is a freefor all is a modern day stain a strain on the uh of the Mendelson uh P suit and was really the uh the the uh the product of the musine the enlightenment movement and the truth is that Torah and Torah are both the possessions of those who have Torah knowledge and those who have Torah knowledge only so violation of T even if it doesn't violate any specific Al is a sin and is punishable in the same way this is because the Torah demands if you will that you have the torah's that in essence the Torah itself is is obligating you to have a Torah ideology and what I understand someone to mean when he says that there is more options in is not that is per se less authoritative Shalom but rather that a new questions arise almost every day and therefore you have the Contemporary Torah authorities debating and disagreeing over them these new questions have not been discussed by a predecessors and are first being dealt with today therefore there's no explicit precedent or author of decision in essence the uh responses that you see today or the debates that you see today among the P it's not rediscovering the wheel it's not new things that are being created uh as far as uh by CH or new Innovations if you will that are they're changing the original law but rather things that weren't discussed in the past weren't discussed in the past because there's new Innovations in the world there is the uh uh Shabbat timers there's electricity there is obviously automobiles there's different medical uh equipment how you treat medicine there's certain things that are considered uh lesser of Life risk today than they used to be considered in the past so the Pim delve into these topics today that weren't discussed in the past because they weren't uh relevant in the past so that new responses new Alas and so on is not saying that the uh uh previous Al the previous teaching are less meaningful or less value shom but rather it's simply telling you that right now there is a uh debate over how to apply the pre-existing law into the current reality but the Torah though the ideology on the other hand although there are sometimes question of how to apply and establish torfa to individual situations the KFA do not necessitate a from scratch analysis what the rambam and the rash believed asically applies to us today and the m is much more clear when it comes to proper Torah beliefs than proper decisions since new technology and circumstances do not necessitate a new evaluation of asfa here Shapiro is saying is that unlike ala that has had certain things that are new if you will new things new technologies new circumstances for the people and so on the ideology if you will didn't really have didn't change the T the opinion of the Tora of the rash of of the r of ofu is the same then and it's the same now nothing has changed few circumstances from time to time that are completely new would uh would need a further review but those a few far in between meaning that the actual ashfa that the rambam had is the very same one that we have to apply to our lives today and even more so he says the torfa depends much more on the M than does the Ram's 13 principles of Faith are nowhere to be found in thear and nowhere brought down in the yet the which the entire is based on 99% of the is the r the rambam says that if you do not believe in one of them or you even have a doubt regarding one of them you are considered an aicos A heretic and for all prac practical purposes you're not considered part of am so for all of those people that say no listen I don't need to believe in the 13 principles of faith because it wasn't codified into law by the this is completely this is heretical in every aspect known to known to person that knows what to is when somebody tells you that you don't need to believe the mhia can come every single day because they don't see a specific verse according to their understanding in the five books of Moses or you don't need to believe in the resurrection of the dead because they don't see a specific verse in the five books of Moses this is AOS and many times times you will see those very same rationalists those very same Heretics that we've called out in the past be the very same people that preach this nonsense even though there's AAR that specifically says that if you don't believe in the resurrection of the Dead there's obviously you're not going to be resurrected yourself it's a very severe punishment the uh the uh uh rambam calls a person a heretic where they're literally not considered part of Am anymore they're on their Judaism is on suspension now they're going to say wait a minute how could that be it's not in a or let's say in the five books of Moses that you have to believe it doesn't have to be for it to be something that you have to apply to your life for it to be obligatory for you to apply to your life there is something called which is based on the opinion of the that you have to treat no different than from now of course the Heretics will disagree with this but that's because they're not willing to change their lives but if you ask all all of theim both alive and the ones that have preceded us this is the way they've lived their life if you look at the lives of the you look at the lives of the G you look at the lives of the all of the great rabis among himself the all of the Giants of the past and you compare their lives their behaviors if you will to the current Giants ra sternbach ra kvki Maz all of these Giants because of course you can't compare to some Average Joe that works at a supermarket with a uh with a t-shirt on no you have to compare it to the people that have delved into the Torah meaning they know the most about it the experts of the past to The Experts of today you see how they live their lives how they think about what our responsibility you see it's the same thing that's who we supposed to learn from we're not supposed to learn what some Joe Smith that decides that he knows better than the biggest rabbis in the world not that's not the way you're not going to learn from some guy that says he's a doctor because he has a building because he has patients but he also has a killing record of killing about 80% of his patients you're not going to go to a doctor like this you're going to go to a doctor that has a track record that has a history that has a resume to match it that has Integrity that has some type of a uh uh teaching that you can depend on because other experts agree with not that there are some lone soldier or Cowboy so this is what the modern mentality would like people to think where they want you to think that if it comes to yes you have to do it but if it comes to AA not so much and there's nothing further from the truth there's nothing further from the truth and this is in essence what shap is telling telling us he says that I'm skipping around a little bit here that when it comes to the issues of Asa unlike the issues of Al that were codified and specified and so on these great things these ashfa were left for great Torah Scholars to decide same concept when it comes to uh the uh the teachings of today how do we know what's the right ashfa we look at the leaders we look at the leaders of am what are they saying we're supposed to do if something changed if nothing has changed then we obviously continue what has always been the M of when a person disregards what the M of is and simply decides that they know better than the then you have to ask yourself what if they're wrong what if they're wrong what if okay so they're saying that they know better than all the big rabbis out there we're not talking about your local rabbis and Your Average Joe's out there no we all do respect to all the local rabbis out there many of them being extraordinary we don't learn from local rabbis as far as this is what the nation is supposed to do we learn what the nation is supposed to do by the by the by the the leaders so if you're going to listen to some local person that doesn't care if you drive on Shabbat that doesn't care if you are a adulterer it doesn't care if you gamble it doesn't care if you are in unethical businesses as long as you give staka doesn't care if uh you're doing all types of things that in essence are forbidden sometimes sometimes es scopically you're say no but my Rabbi told me to do it now this Rabbi however you might like him however good his speech is however clever he is when you go up to Sham do you think they're going to consider his opinion like they consider the ram like they consider the like to consider the like to consider or his father the the are they going to consider their opinion of the Ben like his are they going to consider the opinion of the sttip lagon like his are they going to consider their his opinion next to theirs no which means what if I follow the biggest rabbis in the world the ones that are supporting the T like it always was I'm going to follow the biggest Dian in the world the people that have delved into the T so much they became posim they became diim they became the leaders even if they're not popular and the world doesn't know them and they don't have necessarily YouTube channels but the point is they have done what exactly the K is saying what the is saying is they've put themselves in a situation where the world exists for them that's who they are they're di they are Pim they're amazing right some are famous some not so famous but nonetheless no one can question how extraordinary these people are and not just one I'm going to rely on the ra kki of the world on the ra of the world on all of Theon Ben all the biggest guys in the world that alive and also their teachers theas the mfi the uh the father Shalom the his his uh current's Rabbi all of the great sages of the previous generation and not just them their teachers their teachers and their teachers and their teachers all the way back to the ramban to the RO to the to the to that's one way I could rely or I could rely on this one guy and perhaps maybe three of his friends none of which are internationally recognized as none of which are internationally recognized even as none of which are even internationally recognized as even rabbis none of which are internationally recognized as even decent people but they say that they know better than all of the biggest rabbis that we just mentioned which one do you want to rely on you want to rely on the biggest most important people that ever existed in the last 3,000 years that all feed off of each other learn from each other and repeat what each other do for the last 3,000 years or you want to learn from Uncle Scrooge and gagam and perhaps maybe a few Pikachus in between that have a YouTube channel and maybe even a local Sho that's 5,000 sare ft which one do you want to learn from this is what a normal person needs to evaluate before they follow the so-called Modern Way the new way the rational way you are you have to be smart if the guy that's telling me is right okay great he's right he's right he is an innovator he is something special I'm going to follow him and he's going to get me the G right okay if the existing Mas the existing tradition is right and I follow them I also go to ganeden right okay but what if they're both wrong what if the Uncle Scrooge of today and the Gargamel and the p pachu they're wrong and whoever follows them they're wrong versus is wrong is wrong is wrong all all the biggest leaders in the world they're wrong which one is a going to rebuke which one is he going to rebuke you for following the biggest leaders of the world or is he going to rebuke you for following the Gargamel and the Pikachus of the world which one if you tell them listen I followed the biggest soldiers you have the most popular soldiers you have the most devoted soldiers you have the people that delved into your Torah day and night for 80 90 100 years for 16 to 20 hours a day that's who I followed they made a mistake it's not my fault follow them says you're right you are right you did what was normal you actually followed the Torah even if they're wrong you're still right you are right why you follow that to but if you follow the little Pikachu of today from your local community that nobody knows and nobody cares about and even when they know they don't care about in fact people can't understand some of these people when they get to know them you follow them and they made a mistake what are you going to tell them oh I follow D is going to tell you that's not D was millions of Jews that were following the same tradition since m not that he said he has a new they said they have a new you didn't follow you follow and one of the main things in Judaism is there is no do there's no uh individualistic opinion the opinion of the individual No Such Thing No Such Thing unless you are a giant among giants which who is these people that are making lectures in their cars or making stories up as they go who who are these people this robotti what a person needs to understand know [Music]