Miracle amidst the tragedy

↑ amother ↓

Thu, Dec 20 2007, 5:01 pm

Motek wrote:

Clarissa - What do you have to say to parents who refused to give their children over to gentiles during the war, saying - better they die a Jew than live as gentiles? Do you condemn them?

And what do you, Motek, say to the parents (my grandmother), who put their children in convents to save their lives. Some were irretrievably lost, and some (my mother), went on to live full, religous, mitzva-filled, Torah filled lives. Do you condemn them? Given the opportunity, what would you have done??

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chanie TLS - it wasn't about "difficulties", it was about the almost 100% assimilation from Yiddishkeit

Just curious where you got that statistic from. If you meant to say "many many", then that's what you should have said. Don't know why you would create a statistic to make a point.

My paternal grandfather emigrated to Australia against the advice of the Belzer Rebbe. B"H, he lived to see children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who are all BE"H frum, ehrliche yidden. The rest of his family, and his town, was wiped out HY"D.

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defy - yes, we say "where there is life, there is hope" - the rabbis who advised Jews not to leave Europe were not knowingly condemning those people to death! The question wasn't: Rabbi, should I emigrate and live, very possibly as a [gentile], or stay and die?

and the answer wasn't: stay and die

So I guess getting back to your original story, the Gerrer Rebbe who advised his Chossid to come to E"Y wasn't saying "come and live", as you implied.

Anon because of personal details.

↑ Motek ↓

Thu, Dec 20 2007, 5:54 pm

amother wrote:

No, I don't condemn them. No one can say what they would have done. I think that they hoped or assumed that they would survive. Now that I've answered you, I will say that I don't think your questions are relevant here. I asked clarissa my question because she ridiculed the idea of spiritual death being worse than physical death when Rashi says otherwise. What do you think of Rashi's statement?

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Just curious where you got that statistic from. If you meant to say "many many", then that's what you should have said. Don't know why you would create a statistic to make a point.

Huh? Create a statistic? Have no idea what you're talking about. Our history is that the vast majority of Jews from Eastern Europe who emigrated, did not remain shomer Shabbos.

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My paternal grandfather emigrated to Australia against the advice of the Belzer Rebbe. B"H, he lived to see children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who are all BE"H frum, ehrliche yidden. The rest of his family, and his town, was wiped out HY"D.

In telling you this story, what did your grandfather want to teach you?

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the Gerrer Rebbe who advised his Chossid to come to E"Y wasn't saying "come and live", as you implied.

Huh? Did you read my posts? I repeated a maaseh she'haya. Nothing was implied.

↑ amother ↓

Thu, Dec 20 2007, 7:36 pm

Quote:

I asked clarissa my question because she ridiculed the idea of spiritual death being worse than physical death when Rashi says otherwise. What do you think of Rashi's statement?

I haven't looked at Rashi's statement inside. You say it refers to the Moav Mitzrayim situation. Do you know that it can be extrapolated here? Remember, many holocaust survivors became irreligious after the Shoah too.

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Huh? Create a statistic? Have no idea what you're talking about. Our history is that the vast majority of Jews from Eastern Europe who emigrated, did not remain shomer Shabbos.

I am well aware that assilmilation was a problem in those days (as it still is today). But I get very annoyed when people use expressions like "countless times", or "millions of people", or as you said "the almost 100% assimilation from Yiddishkeit", when they really don't know how many times, or how many people, or how likely it was.

Do you have a reputable statistic to prove that it was a virtual certainty that one who emigrated from Europe would become irreligious? Or is it possible that it was a 30% chance, a 65% chance, a 90% chance. I would think it would make a difference when considering leaving a situation that carried a risk of death.

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In telling you this story, what did your grandfather want to teach you?

Huh? Did you read his story? He repeated a maaseh she'haya. Nothing was being taught.

↑ Motek ↓

Sat, Dec 22 2007, 6:01 pm

amother wrote:

Quote:

Same with my family, killed at Auschwitz because their rebbe told them to stay. The rebbe left.

I've thought about these posts and have decided that since they were written anonymously and no identifying information has been provided, that they aren't worth discussing here. Even if a screen name was used, if names and other information are not provided, I dismiss it. We have no way of knowing whether this is true or a lie or a partial story, so what's the point in analyzing it?

as for the question about assimilation rates, this is recent history

if you're really interested in knowing the truth, it's easy to find out

here's a clue: how many Jews emigrated to the US from Eastern Europe from 1850-1930? How many Jews are presently living in the US today? What percentage of Jews today in the US are shomer Shabbos? (rhetorical questions)

↑ shalhevet

Sat, Dec 22 2007, 6:36 pm

Motek wrote:

amother wrote:

Quote:

Same with my family, killed at Auschwitz because their rebbe told them to stay. The rebbe left.

So why should we believe or analyse your posts any more than we believe theirs? I mean, I don't know many Moteks personally.

↑ Motek ↓

Sat, Dec 22 2007, 6:59 pm

The one I started this thread with? Nobody has to believe what I posted. If someone truly wanted to verify the story, I would provide them with the name and phone number of the person who told my husband the story. Though as you can see from the subsequent posts, the story of the car accident happened and people know the people involved. Unlike the anonymous posts which are about nothing anybody here knows about. We have had posters and threads that pulled our legs. There is nothing compelling about the two anonymous posts, nothing that I can check. They only serve to demonstrate that a tzadik was responsible for people's deaths. And the second anonymous post tells us that the Rebbe survived while his people died. Sounds despicable, does it not? Can we know which Rebbe that was?

↑ chocolate moose

Sat, Dec 22 2007, 7:17 pm

Clarissa wrote:

I've started, and deleted, responses to the last two posts about five times but I think it's best that I step out of this discussion. I know the way it's going to go if I continue, having had experiences like this here, and I'm just going to get too angry and expend too much energy, which is totally not merited here.

I'll just keep repeating to myself, "It's only a message board, it's not real life, it's only a message board, it's not real life..."

Permission to use that as a signature, Clarissa ?

↑ Ruchel ↓

Sat, Dec 22 2007, 8:20 pm

Quote:

We know that the VAST MAJORITY of Jews who left Europe, became irreligious (and in many cases they or their descendents intermarried and cut off their line)

Is it really better to have non frum descendents instead of nothing ? or, let’s say, 2 or 3 frum descendants because they either stayed frum or did teshuva, instead of 0 and no chance of ever having?

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this spiritual death was worse than dying al kidush Hashem as religious Jews

certainly less painful anyway. I wouldn’t judge what's worse unless c’v I knew what I was talking about. May we never know.

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Was he by any chance from Bialki (sp?) or a surname beginning in O?

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Same with my family, killed at Auschwitz because their rebbe told them to stay. The rebbe left.

Oy vey.

Not the first time I hear this Sad

↑ Ruchel ↓

Sat, Dec 22 2007, 8:37 pm

many? I don't see it at all, sorry.

But I clearly see why so many European Jews hate the charedim for putting alia doers in cherem and stuff like that, when in many families the only survivors (or at best, the only not too assimilated survivors) are those who left for Israel before the war. That could also be seen as murder you know. Too bad so few of my family were rebels.

mushmom

Sat, Dec 22 2007, 8:54 pm

I think youre all forgetting that a tzadik is not gd- hes just His agent. So sometimes gd can let him see certain things, sometimes not. think- yaakov avinu.
I think its horrible and ridiculous to suggest that there were rebbeim who advised jews to stay in Europe bc they would assimilate if they survived the holocaust. rather, we can say that Hashem simply blocked their vision- didnt allow them to see the vision that would save these lives, because for some reason- and this of course we can NEVER understand, rationalize etc- Gd did not want them to survive. Kach Olo Birtzono.

↑ Lechatchila Ariber ↓

Sat, Dec 22 2007, 8:58 pm

Ruchel wrote:

I don't know anything about that ruchel.

I don't believe my family are in cherem to my knowledge. Confused

↑ Ruchel ↓

Sat, Dec 22 2007, 9:05 pm

In some circles it was cherem, in others it was "just" not frum, badly seen, a shame for the family. And in other countries it was ok, or even something to be proud about that your kid did alia, for sure. But from what people told me, in chassidishe circles, it was the exception when it was good!
Of course, the worse is when a rebbe has connexions that allow him to leave, after having being sooo against people leaving...