Kosher Rabbi Landa
I wanted to ask whether the kosher qualification of Rabbi Landa of Bnei Brak can be trusted. So far, Rabbi Landa Sr., who passed away, has not expressed messianic views (at least not openly), but his son, Yitzhak Isaac Landa, is a declared messianicist, he is the rabbi of a yeshiva in Safed that is full of clear signs of messianism (everyone there wears a kippah, “Long live our Lord,” and in the Beit Midrash there is a large picture of the Rebbe with the inscription “Moshiach” and more. A quick Google search will show the facts, including a magnificent photo gallery that cannot be denied).
My question is whether one can trust a kosher organization whose head believes in the Rebbe’s messiahship, which makes him, in the eyes of many jurists, an apostate (since he does not believe in the coming of the Messiah, after all, he has already come, and this is not a matter of an error of reasonable judgment, since there is no halachic indication that identifies the Rebbe as the Messiah).
Another question, as is well known, is that many Chabadniks do not stop at attributing messianism to the Rebbe, but rather see him as a deity, etc. (this can be seen in many of their writings, and also in a simple Google search), which makes them worshippers of idolatry, since the words of Maimonides are well known, according to which even one who accepts something in God is liable to death, even if he did not worship it, and it is difficult to know which of them is merely a messianist and which attributes divinity to the Rebbe, although my opinion is that someone who has already crossed the line and attributed messianism to the Rebbe against all common sense, there is nothing that would prevent him from also attributing divinity to him. In any case, I return to my question of whether its kosherness can be relied upon or not (Coca-Cola, Manna Company, and so on and so forth).
The question was asked on the day of his passing. A bit tactless and also becomes redundant. But it is Torah and we need to study.
I don’t know the views of Rabbi Moshe Landa, z”l, but I have written my opinion on Chabad here several times. I don’t think there is really any such thing, at least not among all Messianics. I also don’t accept the thesis that if one attributes messianism to a Rebbe, it is a short way to attribute divinity to him (although I know that there are those who see him as “a part of God from above”).
In any case, even if there is a literal “Az” there, it is a prohibition against drinking the wine that it touches. For our purposes, the question is what its kashrut standards are, and in my opinion, here it could be trusted.
The question was not about Rabbi Moshe Landa, because as mentioned it is difficult to find explicit statements from him on the subject, but about his son Yitzhak Isaac Halevi, who has been accompanying him for some time as his successor in matters of kashrut, and it seems that this will continue. The yeshiva where he teaches (according to publications on news sites) is full of messianic symbols, as I mentioned (they have a website http://chabadzefat.com, and it is not difficult to see their messianic faith there).
As far as I understand, the loyalty of the kashrut bodies is based on the rule of one witness being faithful to the prohibitions, and therefore the question is whether a person who does not believe in the coming of the Messiah (who according to many opinions is condemned as a heretic) is faithful to what requires one witness? I would add that even if we do not suspect him of believing in the divinity of the Rebbe, the judgment and common sense of a person who believes in the messiahship of the Rebbe is still greatly questioned.
There is a story about the Chazon Ish who once spoke out at the funeral of a certain person against something he had done unlawfully (I don't remember the details) and they asked him if now was the time to bring it up? The Chazon Ish replied to them that if I didn't think it was necessary to speak out against him on this matter, I would never have said it, but since that person made a serious mistake on that matter, I am obligated to protest and say the things.
Correction of an error: the son's name is Chaim Yitzhak Isaac Landa
I explained that if he is faithful to kashrut, there is no obstacle to accepting his testimony. One witness is faithful to the prohibitions even if the witness is disqualified from testifying, as long as his testimony is factually reliable. Therefore, a wife is also faithful and a relative is faithful, etc. Where one witness is sufficient (in prohibitions and not by oath), the intention is that there are no formal restrictions on loyalty and it is sufficient to clearly be factually reliable.
I don't think this is accurate, a convert to anger is also invalid for testifying to prohibitions, see Yoreh Deah, paragraph 2, meaning that it is invalid both to slaughter and to testify to slaughter, and the Lord rebukes as explained there.
And it seems to be said that it is the law for an apostate, because everywhere the Rambam includes the heretical and the heretical species as one unit (and according to the Rambam, the infidel at the coming of the Messiah is generally an epicurean).
A convert is not disqualified from the prohibitions except where there is a concern that he is lying. As stated, there are no formal disqualifiers of testimony in the prohibitions.
That's not what it says in the Shulchan Aruch there, a convert to anger is invalid because he is worse than a gentile (even a gentile is not clear whether it is kosher to testify to prohibitions) and not because of a fear of lying, a convert to appetite is invalid because of a fear of lying.
In any case, now I see that at the funeral, Chaim Yitzhak Isaac also appointed him as the rabbi of Bnei Brak (in addition to Landa's private kashrut) and will also deal with the religious affairs of Bnei Brak together with another Lithuanian rabbi, and it is already a real shame and disgrace to appoint a man who is an avowed messianic, who according to many systems is condemned as a heretic, and certainly whose opinions border on madness, as an official rabbi supposedly in the name of the great men of the generation. Simply shameful.
Even a Gentile is eligible to testify about prohibitions, assuming that he is trustworthy. The subject is ancient and has been discussed by both the ancients and the moderns. Testimony about prohibitions is nothing more than an estimate. You need to ascertain the reality and there are no formal rules regarding it. When someone writes that so-and-so is ineligible to testify about prohibitions, it is simply because he assumes that so-and-so is not trustworthy in this regard.
It is no small audacity for someone who published the following in Haderei Haredim on 9.6.17 [and according to the style of the writer there, he writes about himself in the first person and pretends to be Michael Avraham] to claim that he has problems with his actions and his faith. And these are his words [the following are quotes from an article in Dabari Ya'min as his opinion as published there]:
1. The Talmud is not free from errors
2. It also contains several halakhic errors
3. There are several recommendations of the Talmud that are not correct for our day
4. The Bible and the prophets . In my opinion, even a prophet can make a mistake
5. After all, the description in Genesis stands in quite direct contradiction to the theory of evolution
6. There is room to not accept some of the laws of prayer that are based on errors [regarding the involvement of the Rabbis in the world. This is what he wrote there before]
7. The first ones with all due respect .. they too could have been wrong
8. The same is true regarding questions of God’s providence and involvement in the world and certainly regarding the Messiah
He who opens his mouth against everything holy and precious to Israel with contempt, including the possibility that the prophets could make mistakes, including the belief in the coming of the Messiah. He is the one who speaks of heresy??????????????????
Ixs
🙂
This does not belong here. There is a halachic question here: Can a person who denies the coming of the Messiah, who is defined according to many systems as an epicurean, be trusted with regard to kashrut? And the answer should be factual.
In any case, I have difficulty accepting the answer that a convert and a wicked person are faithful to the prohibitions because in the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah, paragraph 2, it is explained that a convert who provokes anger is ineligible to testify about slaughter, and I have not received a source that contradicts this.
Secondly, even if we accept that a convert/epicurean is in principle kosher for testifying about prohibitions, what priority does Landa's kashrut have over any of the simplest kashrut there is? And who told us that Landa's kashrut standards are the most elegant? In the end, no one is able to check this, certainly not on a regular basis, and all we have left is the word of the kashrut supervisors, and if the fish there stinks from the head, it is very difficult to trust them.
Thirdly, a person who believes that the Rebbe is alive and that he is the Messiah is a fool and a fool, and I would not trust him with much simpler matters.
(This reminds me that at the Mai'ani Hay'shua Hospital, one of the senior doctors there is Professor Eliyahu Sorkin (he treated many rabbis, such as Rabbi Steinman and others), who is a messianic Chabadnik who wears the dome of the Lord's life on his head. (And in the past he was also a bit of a Christian according to Wikipedia, so everything fits).
And it's really crazy that people trust such a creature in matters concerning their lives, after all, medicine is not an exact science, and is mostly based on hypotheses and estimates, and how can one trust the judgment of such a cocoon in the most important and precious matter to anyone?? More than that, the main role of a doctor is to save people's lives, which means that at the very least he is required to distinguish between the living and the dead, and this person is not even able to do that, after all, he claims that a person who died about 25 years ago is still alive (he is also no less than a messiah), so how exactly can one trust such a creature in such a serious and important matter?? Beyond my understanding.
Yudi,
These are childish arguments. There are quite a few smart people in all sorts of fields who believe in nonsense. Do you know how many crazy people populate the math and physics departments at universities? Very smart people who can be trusted with everything, but they have strange beliefs and strange customs. By the way, this phenomenon is also recognized in halacha. It is called a fool for one thing (and perhaps a big debate will arise over whether there are three signs or whether one of them is enough, and should be rejected).
The world is complex, and in recent generations we have learned to understand this. Anyone who knows the world knows that there is not necessarily a connection, and if a person is a fool for one thing, he can be trusted in other areas. His kashrut prestige is known, and therefore his beliefs do not concern him here.
Note that many people will also say about you (and me) as someone who believes in God that you are also a fool for one thing (believes in imaginary friends) and cannot be trusted. A person's beliefs are the result of many things. Among other things, of the essentials (=things that must be believed in), and this is not necessarily the result of his own judgment.
By the way, someone who believes that Jacob our father did not die or Elijah the prophet, is kosher to testify and give kosher in your opinion? So what is the difference? That he lives in our time and they were once long ago? And what about all the Hasidim who believe in the stories of the Baal Shem? And what about those who believe in the resurrection of the dead of the Amoraim?
I get the impression that you have something in your heart about Chabad and therefore you draw rash conclusions that do not arise from reality, just to exclude them from the rule. Get out of it. I don't like them either, but the conclusions should be balanced. Especially in a discussion where you are making claims about the quality of someone's conclusions.
Regarding the inadmissibility of a convert to anger, I have already explained that you don't need any source that contradicts it. He is indeed invalid, but this is because at the time and place of the Shabbat, he was held to be unfaithful to tell the truth in these areas (but not the body). Therefore, in the place and time where he is faithful, he will be kosher to testify. Even if the courts are faithful, he will not be unfaithful, but a Jew who is hysterically strict about kashrut, and even if he is a practicing Jew, will not be trustworthy? In the same way, some poskim have qualified the testimony of Sabbath desecrators in our day (even for actual testimonies, not just for prohibitions) because they are careful to tell the truth.
In 2003, a reply was published by the Haran Feldman, Rosh Yeshiva of the Ner Yisrael Yeshiva in Baltimore, in which he wrote, "A question among Chabad followers who believe that their Rabbi will be resurrected as the Messiah, their belief is false but they are not heretics. In contrast, those who believe that the "essence of God" has clothed themselves in Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson and pray to him, are heretics and should not be included in the minyan."
Source;
https://he.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%9F_%D7%A4%D7%9C%D7%93%D7%9E%D7%9F#cite_ref-2
And see here;
http://web.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/feldman_berger_sm_2.jpg
And here:
http://moshiachtalk.tripod.com/feldman.pdf
In any case, the problem is who is the overseer and who is the slaughterer, and this remains even when a Lithuanian rabbi is also appointed…
Indeed, this is a problem because even if we accept that a kosher convert can testify to kosher, in any case he is ineligible to slaughter. (I do not know who controls the kosher system in Landa, but I have a fear that if Yitzhak Isaac Landa is appointed, he will make sure to plant as many messianists and the like there as possible, this is usually their pattern of action).
It is not so clear why Epicurus are not considered, since none of the signs of the Messiah will be present in the Rabbi. Even regarding Hillel, who said in the Sanhedrin that they do not have a Messiah for Israel, who they already ate in the days of Hezekiah, he has difficulty in the Book of Principles as to why he is not considered an Epicurus and states there that it is a mistake according to what one believes and understands, that it is not considered heresy, but for Chabad it is just a bunch of explanations that do not stand the test of any rabbi. (And as the Maimonides says, the heretic in the coming of the Messiah is considered a heretic)
By the way, be sure that if Rabbi Landa the Younger had taught for one minute in a Mazurkhaneh yeshiva, he would have already been burned by the Haredim, but what he taught for decades in a Messianic yeshiva.. It's not so bad because they have a suit and a hat, and white shirts there.. According to the pure and unadulterated view..
According to this, it follows that Sabbatites, Frankists, and Christians are faithful in principle to testify to kosher.
What about attending a Shabbat meal or Seder organized by Chabadniks who you don't know how deeply Messianic/Alohistic/righteous believers they are?
Indeed, faithful. Is this an argument of reductio ad absurdum? In my opinion, it is a reductio ad trivialum.
I did not understand the question of participation in the feast.
1 I have now heard from a friend that the Lithuanians also have concerns about the same Chaim Yitzhak Isaac Landa. According to him, there was something very strange about the enthronement of Rabbi Landa's son alongside his father alongside Rabbi Shevah Rosenblatt. After all, it is not really possible to appoint both of them as rabbis of the city of Bnei Brak, because one standard is designated for a Sephardic rabbi (according to the law, and so it was until recently when Rabbi Korach and Rabbi Landa, who had just passed away, served as rabbis of Bnei Brak). So what is the meaning of this joint enthronement (which is not yet official)? The answer is that the Lithuanians are indeed very wary of entrusting all of Bnei Brak's religious affairs to that messianic (there is already no shortage of Lithuanians who do not trust the qualifications of Rabbi Landa Sr. following Rabbi Schach's wars against him). And they are doing everything in their power not to abandon this arena.
And by the way, these things are in line with Rabbi Feldman's statements above, that even if there is no problem in principle with trusting them, it is certainly not recommended in the first place, because it is very difficult to trust their judgment.
2. There was no reference to the distinction made above between the possibility of trusting the testimony of a convert and legalizing his slaughter, since slaughtering a gentile or Epicurus is certainly invalid. (And so is their tefillin and mezuzot).
3 I would like to emphasize that I have nothing personal against Chabad, my main problem is with their primitive and herd faith (which, by the way, I really do not agree that they make a clear distinction between the Rebbe's messianism and his divinity, everything is very mixed with them), and the big problem is their clever answers and attempts to cover up everything when it comes to a principled discussion.. They will twist and turn with sophisticated answers regarding their faith. (Also a point raised in Rabbi Feldman's letter above, and also in David Berger's book to which the letter is addressed.)
Make an attempt sometime to extract from a person who is considered not a Messianic a clear statement like ‘The Rebbe is not the Messiah’ or to extract from a Messianic a firm statement that in my experience will not succeed.. And note that if these were serious people you would have long ago seen a complete renunciation of the non-Messianics from the Messianists, and a complete renunciation of the Messianics from the Aloists.
4 The claim raised above that we also have superstitions is not true, after all you are the one who claims and explains how rational the belief in’ And in the Torah, in contrast to the identification of the Rebbe as the Messiah or God, it does not stand up to any test. They do not claim to have new signs of the Messiah, but rather make a crooked and convoluted excuse as to how all the signs of the Messiah existed in the Rebbe. Indeed, I think that if you recognize in someone a consistency in a belief that is baseless and irrational, it is very difficult to trust their general judgment, unless we assume that they have some kind of connection to believe in that belief and therefore hold to it, and then it would be a problem to trust a person who, for the sake of a personal connection, is willing to accept delusional beliefs.
Small correction (end of section 3)
Try to pressure a Christian into saying that the Rebbe is not God, there is no chance you will succeed.
Some will understand it that way. But I mainly wanted to make sure because it is surprising, although of course, surprise is not a halakhic criterion.
The question regarding participation in the Chabad Seder is that it is a thanksgiving meal and the boundaries between regular Chabadniks, Messianic Chabadniks and Aloist Chabadniks are not clear, and then the situation is that it is not clear to which God exactly we are thanking: the Creator of the world, the one who was incarnated in the soul of the Rebbe, or the Creator of the world in collaboration with the one who is incarnated in the soul of the Rebbe?
For those who are interested, first of all, Rabbi Schach has already come out against Rabbi Landa Sr. due to his affiliation with Messianic Chabad, and therefore he was never officially appointed as the rabbi of Bnei Brak (Wikipedia source on Rabbi Schach). Secondly, the Lithuanians also apparently do not trust Rabbi Landa Sr. that is why they put Rabbi Shevach Rosenblatt in his place.
The rabbis of Peles, on the other hand, strongly oppose the appointment of Rabbi Landa Sr. to the rabbinate of Bnei Brak.
https://mobile.kikar.co.il/article/313217
The belief in the Rabbi as the Messiah and the declaration, "Long live our Lord, our Teacher, and our Rabbi, the King of the Messiah forever and ever," appears in a halachic ruling by rabbis of all denominations, with a link attached:
chabadpedia.co.il/index.php/فسك_حدين_شهربي_هوا_ملخ_المسيح
The great Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik, zt”l, published a letter of "disclosure" in the Tammuz 5756 in all Jewish newspapers in the US (translated from English):
The following is an answer to the many questions about my position regarding the Lubavitchers and their messianic faith.
Before Tammuz I included myself among those who believed that the Rebbe was worthy of being the Messiah. I absolutely believe that if we – especially the Orthodox community – were united, we would have achieved complete redemption.
As for the belief of many Lubavitchers (including prominent rabbis and yeshivot heads) – a belief based in part on similar statements by the Rebbe himself about his successor, the previous Rebbe – that the Rebbe could still be the Messiah, in light of the Gemara in the Sanhedrin, the Zohar, Abarbanel, the writings of the Arizal, Shaddai Hemed and other sources, it cannot be dismissed as a belief that is outside the Orthodox stream.
From a letter from the rabbi of Montreal, Rabbi Pinchas Hirschsprung, zetzil, published in the 3rd of Iyar, 28th of Matmoni, 5757:
Here I would like to state my clear opinion on this (without extending it in detail, as I have already heard the matter in detail, and I will now extend it):
The entire report regarding poetry and printing and the matter of the Rebbe, the King of the Messiah, and all that is involved in it – there is no shadow of a question in Halacha, and there are sources for this in the explicit Shas, the Zohar, and from the great Kabbalists whom we (all of Israel) also trust for practical Halacha. (Besides, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Goveri, etc. – in his own words, he is a Rav Tanna, and if he used these letters regarding his father-in-law, the late Rabbi Zacharias, and hundreds of times, this in itself can already be a source and authoritative.)
And yet, regarding the ways of influencing the Chabad community, etc., the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and the Chabad Hasidim themselves, have already been the ones to remove the amulet and the amulet, and who knows better than them what the correct approach is to approach the Chabad community, and in a way that is only this and not anything else, etc.…
And Rabbi Hirschprung adds in the same letter and says:
Whose opinion will be more accepted – the opinion of the Lubavitchers, who deal with all corners of the world and the United States in general, with great friendship, and are increasingly winning the hearts of the Chabad community, or the words of some Rosh Yeshiva (or even some of them). And when they print – Lubavitch – the root of their practices, how it is founded on Chazal in the open and the hidden (and on the words of the Rebbe himself), what good will it do that someone says his own “Torah knowledge.”
And our father blessed us when we were all one. And he will bless his people with peace.
Indeed, foolishness is not necessarily idolatry.
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