The historic Asifa "kinus klal yisroel" ichud hakehilos hatzolas hadoros had many people wondering, speculating and guessing: what will be said there? who will speak? what will come out of it ? will anything change? will they ban social media outright? will they go after the blogs?
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When was the last time so many chasidishe youngeleit were together with bnei torah from Lakewood, with baalei batim, all together davening in harmony. Yes, we may have our diffrences of opinion but none of that was evident at the Asifa. The thundering kabolas ol Malchus Shamayim, the singing of vetaher libeinu, and the Maariv all together was a perfect setting of achdus and tefillah as we get ready for kabbolas hatorah.
The mashgiach rav Matisyahu Solomon was quoted as saying, Now we can go on to the Siyum hashas. We have prepared ourselves for kabbolas hatorah.
Great post heading. Rabbi Wachsman certainly knocked it out of the park!.
ReplyDeleteI plan to post later in the day on my Asifa experience.
Deeply disappointed. Just one big mussar shmuez with some fiery hisorerus from R.Waxman thrown in. None of the speakers have probably ever used a computer let alone the internet.
ReplyDeleteThe message was: it is assur to take a kid into school if his home has internet,even filtered (R.Wosner), if you think you need internet for work its just your yetzer hara (R.Segal), if you disagree with us you have no chelek in olam haba (R.Waxman) - too bad for R.Shmuel Kaminetsky and the other rosh yeshivas!
If you like 4 hours of yiddish drashas and don't use a computer I guess you thought it was a huge success.
The only good thing was 50,000 yidden davening together - but we could have waited two months for the 90,000 at the siyum hashas and saved lots of money and machlokes.
You said that very well. My thoughts exactly. I'm disappointed and upset.
DeleteI traveled up from Silver Spring, and while it was inspirational to be with so many other Jews, and to hear two great speakers in English, the 75% that I couldn't understand because it was in Yiddish was frustrating and disappointing, especially since I could see that Citi Field had captions but we did not in the Tennis stadium. Also if another event is held and it has to have an overflow, why not divide the speakers between the two venues?
ReplyDeleteThanks to Rav Salamon and Rav Wachsman for speaking in English, and especially to Rav Salamon for making a point of saying that there were people there that did not understand English. Also if the event is scheduled to finish at 9:30 then it should finish at 9:30, not 11pm. We did not get home until 5am. I also was looking for some answers. Banning the internet is not the answer for me, although I agree with Rabbi Wachsman that we can ensure our children are not tarnished. Filters help but they are not perfect. I don't think the event would have been so successful without the technology that is under discussion - I know that our shul had a live hook up provided via the internet.
One other point is that thousands of frum Jews earn their parnassa from the internet.
I just posted anonymously and I am willing to give my name to you privately if you have access to the organizers and can pass on my feedback.
ReplyDeletehave no access you can call the Ichud hakehilos office.
ReplyDeleteYes, i did it. I just went ahead and blocked totally the Internet Browser, and App World on my Blackberry Torch phone through GYE.org. I give credit for this the Asifa last night and particularly R' Afraim Waksman. I thank all the people involved in arranging the event.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the most inspiring thing was that so many thousands of yidden travelled from far and close and came out on a Sunday (for many of us, that's our only free day of the week) to hear mussar on this subject. If you include the people at the Arthur Ash stadium, as well as the women at the many hookups, there were well over 60,000 yidden who came out of their homes and travelled because they are still yerei hashem (even if we sometimes do sin, in some cases by means of the internet), want to do the right thing and listen to the manhigim even if we don’t understand why they are telling us to do certain things.
ReplyDeleteIt is very easy to sit a computer screen and criticize (even if the criticism is valid) but it's less easy to travel at your own cost and time to an event you don’t really want to go to. How many frum yidden are on the web making fun of all types of yidden and rabbonim? 1000? 2000? even 5000? So 5000 do a very easy thing; they sit at their computer screens and type away making fun. There were 60,000 of us that travelled to hear mussar and many of us did so without understanding why we should but we went anyway at the command of our rabbonim because at heart, us 60,000+ yidden want to be better yidden and do what’s right even if it’s hard. As I looked around the stadium my thought was that some people talk all day about how the current dor of yidden is such a bad and low dor. They're wrong! We are a very good dor, notwithstanding our many blemishes, and every one of us yidden that were sitting there are proof of how GOOD we are,. We live in a society that is very hard to live in (and especially work in) and we still remain cognizant of our true tafkids in life.
I would only hope that in the future I think at least some portion of time should be spent during the speeches praising us yidden and not just demanding. I think there would be lots of chizuk that can be gained from the praise and we definitely deserved it.
What happened to the booklet that was to be distributed to all those participating. they announced that everyone take home the booklet with guidelines, included in it was tefillas mincha and maariv.
ReplyDeletethere was supposed to be a 100 page booklet handed out with detailed information about filters and options for 'safe' internet use. Apparently, they were not handed out for some reason.They were printed and ready to be given out. Something got in the way.
DeleteThe program was way too long. people were away from home for 12 hours! rav matisyahu shlita was the only one who cut his speech. There were many Litvisher roshe yeshiva but none of theem spoke at the Asifa.
ReplyDeleteAn event meant for the benefit of all Jews should be represented by a proportionate number of speakers who speak the languages of those they represent. That the gathering on Sunday had a disproportionate amount of Yiddish speakers indicates that not enough thought went into preparing it, which is tragic considering the amount of people eagerly awaiting to hear something inspirational in their own language.
ReplyDeleteI 'm Charedi (Litfish)and live B"H in Eretz Yisroel
ReplyDeleteBut please don't call it Achdus when Lubavitch, Modern
Orthodox and others were purposefully left out;
Achdus of certain Charedim- wonderful, but until we really ALL join together we're missing the boat. By Har Sinai-No Jew was left behind!!