We have not yet written about episode 15...but that will happen soon enough.
In the meantime, Srugim still dominates discussions all over the place. At a simcha last night, the person next to me was rather surprised at all the "anti-srugim" sentiment among the Chardalim. "It's not meant to be a show about to convince anyone to become frum...its entertainment," my friend said.
The disconnect between the chardal and dati leumi worlds continues, and a recent Q&A with Rabbi Aviner announced a new prohibition: double dating.
Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, whose controversial rulings on relationships and dating have sparked a series of public debates, spoke out against double dating Sunday in a Q&A section of a synagogue pamphlet.Aviner ruled that a couple on a date should not meet with another couple, be they married or single, even if the reason for such an outing were to observe the other's behavior in a standard social environment."Its out of the question," he said, suggesting instead that the interested subject ask friends and teachers about the person they are dating.In the question and answer section of a pamphlet published by a number of synagogues, the rabbi said meetings between couples was "not allowed", and added that "spending time with a girl is prohibited even if the intention is not just to have fun." YNET
You can forget fun dates completely.
Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד
11 comments:
"Its out of the question," he said, suggesting instead that the interested subject ask friends and teachers about the person they are dating.
...
...the rabbi said meetings between couples was "not allowed", and added that "spending time with a girl is prohibited even if the intention is not just to have fun."
Jameel: You can forget fun dates completely.
I think you're dramatically understating it. Its not just fun dates that Aviner is prohibiting; it sure sounds to me like he's prohibiting going on dates at all.
Aviner's metamorphosis into extremist haredi humra-ism is now complete. He can now begin his work on surpassing it.
SPOILER ALERT FOR SRUGIM EPISODE 15:
The publication of this psak by R. Aviner provides the answer to a mystery raised by episode 15.
In a previous episode, Reut revealed herself to be a follower of R. Aviner: She justified her decision to go out with two guys in parallel (Yochai and Well-To-Do-Cool-Dati-Lawyer-Guy) by citing a ruling from R. Aviner that supposedly allows this. (Of course, Aviner later denied that he had ever allowed such a thing. Although he also gave a special exception where it is allowed, that, most curiously, seems to quite closely resemble Reut's case...)
Anyway, in episode 15, following her break-up with Yochai, Reut decides to abandon the bitza, quit her lucrative job, and travel to India. Many people were very surprised by this, as it certainly seems to be very uncharacteristic behavior for Reut. Why did she see a need to suddenly run away?
The answer has now become fully clear: Due to R. Aviner's new psak against dates, Reut realized that the bitza is a completely unacceptable environment in which to live. It is, after all, full of people going on dates [rahmana litzlan], both with and without the intention "to have fun". So in order to comply with Aviner's psak, Reut had no choice but to leave.
Mystery solved.
In all seriousness, Aviner doesn't really merit so much attention. His constituency is far smaller than many people realize. He started out, years ago, on the dati leumi world's religious "left". But he has since drifted very far to the right, and most of his original fans are now pretty much alienated by him (due to stuff like this). Meanwhile, the dati leumi "right" regards him as "treif" -- as they have for quite some time now (and not without reason), and that's certainly not about to change. So who does that leave him with?
Maybe if he puts on a kapote and shtreimel and publicly klops al heit for his Zionism, the haredim might come to accept him.
Nah, probably not.
Dear dear lurker...
"Aviner doesn't really merit so much attention" hmmm..but yet you have written three comments...
Hmmmmm
Lurker: I agree with Safranit on this.
Then again, I did write a post about this.
Safranit: "Aviner doesn't really merit so much attention" hmmm..but yet you have written three comments...
Point taken. Of course, most of the attention that Aviner gets is generated by Ynet.
spending time with a girl is prohibited even if the intention is not just to have fun
A better argument for anti-social behaviour would be hard to find.
Time to ban all women.
I'm thrilled.
If we have banned woman advertisements from Egged buses, it is now time to ban them completely. (What do i do with my wife and daughters then?)
I disagree that Rav Aviner is typical of the chardal "community." In reality, there isn't much of a chardal community at all.
There are individuals who can be categorized as chardal when
1) they are either living in a DL community but are to the right of the mainstream.
2) they are living in a chareidi community but have distinct nationalistic opinions.
Regarding the negative reaction to the show by "chardal" people. The argument that:
"It's not meant to be a show about to convince anyone to become frum...its entertainment"
does not really work for someone who is chardal. First, for a chardal person its probably not that entertaining to see individuals with kipas on their heads making light of halacha. So there is little entertainment value in it for them. Then when looking for other redeaming features of the show, they are confronted with the fact that it is pretty spiritually vacuous. In fact, of the few actual dialogs the show about religion, the longest one was a conversation with Dov Alboim of all people talking about how he is much closer to God now that he has abbandoned religion.
So why should a chardal person who does not rule out television completely enjoy this show? What about it should speak to such a person? What good words should he find? please let me know.
BTW, I agree with lurker that R' Aviner is pretty much marginalized. The left of RZ considers him somewhat of a nut, especially with regards to tzniut issues where he consistently substitutes humra for ikkar haDin. And the right will probably never forgive him for what they consider a very warped mamlachtiut that came to be very distructive during the expulsion. His followers are his students in atteret Kohanim and a few people from Beit-El.
Rav Aviner has more influence than some of the comments here would suggest. I agree that his views on anything having to do with women are so incredibly extreme (and far removed from the classic halakhic mainstream) that they cannot be considered anything but chareidi.
Nevertheless, despite his real influence, the Chardal names that are thought of as "gedolim" by the majority of Religious Zionist youth today are clear: The two former Chief Rabbis associated with Yeshivat Merkaz Harav (Rav Shapira zt"l until his recent death and Rav Mordecai Elihayu), Rav Eliyahu's son (Shmuel), Rav Dov Lior, Rabbis Melamed (father and son), Rav Levanon. With the death of Rav Shapira, Rav Eliyahu is thought to stand head and shoulders above all the rest, and many want to anoint his son as his successor.
Except for in yuppie settlements (and even in many of them!) the vast majority of our Religious Zionist youth are taught by the students of these men, led by them in their youth groups, and come to revere them and their views. And their views are chareidi, no more and no less. Except for celebrating Yom Haatzmaut and doing 9 months in the army ("Hesder Merkaz"), the average black-hat American Jew would feel very comfortable with the rest of the views that they espouse, having encountered similar very hashkafos in Ner Yisrael or Chofetz Chaim.
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