Toda,
Ori

A Tshuvas Harivosh discusses when someone does an act that harms society, in his teshuva it was counterfeiting money. He ruled you can go to the secular authorities and it is not mesira, since their actions are destroying a vital function of civil society. He writes that it is worse than chillul hashem. Drug dealing and ‘importing’ falls into this parameter since we know it ruins neighborhoods and entire social networks (check out Watts, South Bronx, etc). Therefore, if I knew these 3 young men are knowingly taking drugs into Japan, I can inform Japanese police and it is not mesira. Dinah d’malchusa is again not a prohibition directed to us, but a tool for the goverment to enforce its laws without the entire klal yisroel rioting.

Chillul Hashem is a very misunderstood rule and applied incorrectly by almost everyone, including me and most of the people who posted here. Causing goyim to look down or think ill of us is possibly the issur of “Eivah”, depending on the circumstances. Chillul Hashem applies when a Jew violates a Torah (and sometimes a Rabbanan) prohibition publicly. For example, embezzlement from private people or pension funds. It is stealing money (Torah issur) and chillul hashem if it becomes known. On the other hand, if I speed and get stopped, it is not a chillul hashem. I did not transgress a Torah law by speeding. If I stop my car in the middle of a street during rush hour and block traffic, I will get lots of people angry and they may call me “dirty Jew”, and some other words. It is “eivah” and a chillul hashem since I wasting their time and gas is stealing, which is a Torah issur.

If you illegally copy some software and get caught, it is not a chillul hashem. According to Torah, intellectual property rights do not exist. The US goverment’s declaring it illegal does not make it a chillul hashem. A rov pointed out to me that medicine patents run 17 years in America. In Canada, Japan and China they run shorter. This 17 year rule was the result of a compromise in congress. I manufacture this intellectual property medical patent in year 10. Is this a chillul hashem because of a political compromise? I may get fined, sued, etc. but a Torah issur does not apply here.

The neturei karta idiots who went to holocaust denial conference in Tehran definitely caused “eivah” which applies to Jews as well. A rov told me it is hard to find the chillul hashem in it. He can’t stand them since his grandparents were killed by the germans yimach shmom, and therefore they caused “eivah” but where is the issur in Torah that would cause the chillul hashem.

This doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of this issue, and I hope to write more on this including sources in gemorrah, reshonim, and shaalos Ut’shuvos.

Thanks for giving me such a great stimulating subject to think about.

So smuggling drugs when you have reasons to think you won’t get caught isn’t a dinah d’malchuta violation. It is, however, a chillul hashem in a society that believes drug smuggling is wrong. It is also a lifnei eever if you have reasons to think that those drugs will be marketed to current or future addicts.

Helping someone do something that is forbidden is probably “lifnei eever” (before a blind man do not put a stumbling block”, so giving a knife to someone who wants to hurt himself or giving an alcoholic another drink would be definitely halachically forbidden.

BTW, what is the Halachic status of helping somebody do something forbidden, such as hurting your health for no good reason? If I ask you for a knife to amputate my finger(1), are you allowed to give it to me? What if I ask you for wine when I’m an alcoholic? Does it matter if I’m Jew or gentile, or are both forbidden to take unreasonable risks?

(1) Assuming that my finger is fine and there is no medical reason to amputate it.

Dinah D’malchusa Dinah does not mean that a Jew has to follow secular goverment’s law and if he doesn’t, he will be called to heavenly judgement after 120 years. When our time comes to give an accounting of our actions in this world, they won’t bring up unpaid parking tickets, speeding violations, business lunch writeoffs, etc.

When klal yisroel went into golus after churbas bais sheini, the Rabbis realized that they had a problem. We were going to be ruled by secular goverments who have their own laws that don’t follow Torah. A Jew will say I don’t have to pay taxes since Torah does not say to pay taxes to the Roman goverment. The Torah does not say that I have to pay property tax. The end result would be people being arrested, tried, etc. According to Torah, every Jew has the duty to do everything in his/her power to get this person freed. This would lead to even more arrests, executions, etc as every Jew would have to fight to free this person. To avoid such a situation that would lead to the destruction of klal yisroel, the Rabbonim ruled “dinah d’malchusa dinah” which allows a foreign non-Jewish goverment to pass laws and Jews living in exile in that country have to follow it.

This does not obligate a Jew to follow secular law as a Torah law, but it puts a process in place that a Jew cannot use halacha and Torah to ignore the law of the land.

YU and Touro College in America seem to be working out pretty well in America.

and

Zecharia Shlomo ben Miriam (Baumel), Yekutiel Yehuda Nachman be Sarah (Katz), Tzvi ben Pnina (Feldman), Ron ben Batia (Arad), Guy ben Rina (Hever), and Jehonatan ben Malka (Pollard).

I’m glad that you have seen Kol Korehs and public announcements in the Chareidi community, encouraging tefillos on the MIA’s behalf. Somehow I missed them. In other words, no way Jose.

——Dr. E.

I think you will find that Chareidim who are saying tefillos for Shalit, Goldwasser, and Regev.——

I therefore find it very hurtful and wrong that any blame whatsoever is placed on them. If the version mentioned is true they were an “Oines” in the chillul haShem that unfortunately evolved and not a shogeg or worse.

There are probably other versions of the story too, but “hevi don es kol haodom lkaf zechus is definitely something that this writer should practice especially when addressing multitudes.

In my local community are someone who scammed millions with phony mortgages, another who served time for taking federal school funds wrongly, yet another who did time for money laundering as well as a stock-market manipulator.

Can I assume I’d be correct in protesting when they get “kibudim”? After all, they’re certainly a bigger affront to Judaism than a gullible “charedi” bochur.

I think you will find that Chareidim who are sayng tefillos for Shalit, Goldwasser, and Regev. Does that mean that there should not be calls for tehillim for these bochurim?

Mr. Reismann,

There have been Kol Korehs. It has been reported that Hrav Shteinman said that people should not take packages even from people thay know.

Ori: In the US it’s relatively easy to open a university. In Israel you can use Open University textbooks, teach with your own people, and send the students to Open University exams.

Either way, it should be possible to provide academic vocational training in a Charedi environment. Maybe not law school or medical school, but most other things.

I was in Brooklyn last Shabbos and noticed the aforementioned Kol Korehs urging everyone to daven for the guys. I commented to my wife that halivai– the same enthusiasm should be shown in support of three non-”Chareidim” named Shalit, Goldwasser, and Regev. I guess they either didn’t attend the right Cheder or their fathers don’t go to the right shteibel.

I didn’t bother reading the entire text, but it would not surprise me if there was some insinuation of oppression of frum Jews by Goyim. As my friend Danny Rubin commented, this is no doubt a possible scenario when the life plan is one of undereducation and underemployment.

LOL!
As if the university is a bastion of honesty and high morality. Chareidi-supervised non-academic vocational training is the way to go.

What about hiring illegal aliens as housekeepers and factory workers? Whether or not other families and our business competitors are often getting away with the practice, the fact is that every time a Shomer Shabbos Jew (or company) is caught, it is always a chillul Hashem.

What about engaging in anticompetitive business practices that may fall under a country’s antitrust laws?

Are hechsherim ethically glatt or are there often strong-arm politics involved with mashgichim that would make us wince if they were publicized outside our community?

Regarding the calls for improvements in education… providing a wider track in our haredi yeshivos for bochurim to acquire marketable skills aimed at gainful employment will be a good start. This isn’t something to BEGIN to think about around age 22. Maybe withhold advancement in Gemara shiurim from those students who refuse to master 7th-grade math (pre-algebra) or write a business letter or a short report. If you can’t communicate written prose clearly in your mother tongue, it’s very likely that you aren’t thinking clearly in gemara, either. Scoliosis in fundamental skills isn’t likely to generate a future gemara acrobat.

I’d wager that these kids caught in Japan weren’t particularly good at the “3 R’s”, having been trained that choldik knowledge was treif.

—and when we read today of acid burns inflicted on a victim by allegedly the betar ilit modesty patrols today, will there be kol kore’s against violence on The Other; or do we interpret uviarta hara mikirbecha to be in force now…

Rabbi Rosenblum,

I would first like to express my gratitude that both you and Cross Currents provide an appropriate venue for this soul searching.

What I would like to add to this search is that I suspect the offenders are among the many, that were deprived the opportunity of exploiting there talents in an honest career that requires university training.
( This does not condone their terrible action by any stretch of the imagination.)

As long as realisic financial responsibility is excluded from the tenets of Torah education we are inviting this type of corruption, perversion and worse.

However, any community that finds particular kinds of misbehavior going on in its midst has to take stock and make the needed corrections.

It seems to be commonly accepted among many Jews believe that the only laws that bind are actual halacho, not any secular laws whatsoever. Which leaves open the unfortunate possibility of chilul Hashem, too difficult to evaluate since the majority of any kind of secular-legal infraction never comes to light.

But that being the case, why so money-hungry? In other words, all these violations of secular law are to make money. Where’s the hashkofo of being happy with one’s lot, believing that Hashem gives us what we need?