Hillarious if it wasn't pathetic.
Apparently, he went off the derech too late to lose his Yinglish. "I am today a professor!"
I didn't know they still published it. Growing up we had my mother's old copies. The illustrated stories on the back were my first (and only)exposure to mussar (ex. Rabbi Y. Salanter as a child and the applecart)
I love it. I hope you can find more of them.
Why did the rebbi stop wearing a hat?
KT
Here's one I remember: The Shach had a din Torah with another Jew. After the parties made their arguments, the judge said that the Shach's argument had seemed correct, except that it was contradicted by a new commentary that had just been published. Of course, that commentary had been written by the Shach himself.
The moral of the story: הַשֹּׁחַד יְעַוֵּר עֵינֵי חֲכָמִים.
I always liked that one. It's obviously stayed with me though the years.
By the way, the easy Hebrew essays were by Rabbi Israel Shurin, who had a small shul in my neighborhood until moving to Efrat.
I grew up on Olomeinu, as did my father, and enjoyed the magazine.
I am wondering how to convey the basic lesson without allowing the inferences in question to be drawn. In other words, I think that there is merit to the theme itself, of people leaving the Orthodox world(or the Yeshivah world), and then rediscovering something to be true which they had previously thought did not make sense.
If I were writing, for example, I would have written something like, "[I have to cut all my ties to the yeshivah and religion]...some of my friends attend college at night, and learn by day, but I'm not going to do that".
It's a challenge to convey this type of story with nuances, but I think it needs to be done.
Truly hilarious!
Mendel the mouse was killed off. A treife sheretz, and, adding insult to injury, named after the Rebbe. Now they have a kosher, kippah-wearing Duvi the duck. Seriously.
"I couldn't believe it! Professors! The best of our society--stealing"
one more implicit message--
goyyim/frei yiddin: ganovim
torah yidden: honest
and the best of our own society would never be caught stealing.
The story is already brought an in earlier book. (I think visions of greatness or something along that line).
I've got to disagree with your analysis. This is pretty typical basic stuff. (and it soes have a precedent in the Talmud Berachot - לגלג עליו אותו תלמוד - אותו האיש
one more implicit message--
goyyim/frei yiddin: ganovim
torah yidden: honest
No, I think the message is:
goyim ==> ganovim
frei yidden ==> eventually admit they're wrong
Or maybe the message is that college professors ==> ganovim. Considering the recent growth in college tuition, not too far off the mark, but perhaps should be directed at administration instead of faculty.
Another message is: Even if you go of the derech, you'll always be able to call your rosh yesiva and waist his time by telling him pointless stories.
JOE:
it wasn't clear to me if the professors were frei yidden or stam goyyim, so i lumped them together (now perhaps that was the message?)
but in any case, even if you are right then it is still not true.
". . . Considering the recent growth in college tuition . . ."
in that case the yeshivot should also be considered ganovim?
shabbat shalom
Wow. That's just... wow.
I actually LOVED the back stories the most when I was a kid.
in that case the yeshivot should also be considered ganovim?
Possibly, but I'm not aware of any yeshivos with multi billion dollar endowments.
Wow, that was great. I remember Olameinu but I don't remember it being this awful.
The implicit message that most fascinates me is college professors = best of society. It's something I've noticed several times. Have you ever noticed that when an Artscroll biography wants to refer to a brilliant secular person (usually before they bow to the superior knowledge of the Gadol in question) that person is invariably a "professor?" My theory, based on a good deal of anecdotal evidence, is that chareidim can't fathom a world without the Rebbeim/Gedolim structure and so they project that role onto college professors, (those dastardly teachers of "Science" with a capital S that is the secular analogue of Torah.)
Someone once handed me that Chick tract on campus though - I found it highly amusing and sort of pathetic.
I don't find the cartoon that bad, except for the one panel about college. It surprises me, because the Olomeinu readers are day school students, most of whom will attend college. If their parents read that panel, they would flip out.
I read Olomeinu in an after-school Hebrew school, which is mostly extinct in the Orthodox world. Today, it's either yeshiva/day school or nothing.
three college professors would be travelling together in one car to go to a lecture, as though they were bachurim going to a chasunah
LOL! Methinks the author of this tract is not so familiar with secular universities.
can't fathom a world without the Rebbeim/Gedolim structure and so they project that role onto college professors
Exactly. The secular world is one of autonomy rather than authority, which makes it a hard target for this kind of polemic; so "Scientists" have to be set up as some kind of analog to rebbeim.
Here's a real-life example from the NY Times that demonstrates Mar Zutra's point:
Fare Beating in the Subways Falls Off Under a Tougher Arrest Policy
By Andy Newman
Published: November 18, 1997
For the public, turnstile jumping is probably the common cold of crimes in New York City, a nuisance rather than a threat. But for the police, subway scofflaws are responsible for costly violations and in many cases go on to commit more serious crimes.
* * * *
"Fighting fare evasion has a very key role in what we do," Chief Donohue said. "It's like stopping them at the gate. We get them with the weapons, we get them with the warrants, we get those who are recidivists and we take them off the system before they get an opportunity to commit crimes."
I understand that the original version had the professors not collecting sales tax in their basement science shop :-)
KT
I used to think Olameine was second to none. Now I'm not so sure. (I couldn;tfigure out how to put that into doggerel.)
>Here's a real-life example from the NY Times that demonstrates Mar Zutra's point:
I'm glad you pointed that story out, but I don't think anyone will seriously take issue with Mar Zutra's principle, in principle! It's good, ethical common sense.
"so "Scientists" have to be set up as some kind of analog to rebbeim"
"Scientists" serve sort of an "Elders of Science" role in some people's imagination; leaders of the masses, smart, accomplished, influential, devious and conspiratorial.
(As in: You think dinosaur bones are millions of years old??? Gasp. I can't believe you believe THE SCIENTISTS!!!)
It also shows just how stuck in the past are some people at Olemeinu - its cartonists and its editors who allowed it to run. In the yeshivah world of the 19th century, the "University" and professors were public enemy number one. Today, though, no intelligent person thinks particularly highly of profs, especially given the rot they teach in colleges. Fighting the battles of a century ago make the yeshivah look foolish.
Anoher nuance I noted is that Amram first goes to "public school", as painted on the wall, stating "I have cut ties with yeshivah and religion, and after this I can go on to college". The implication is that 1) the yeshivah education wouldnt be sufficient to let the kid go to college, and 2) college is incompatible with religion. ( "I've cut ties with religion, ergo I can go to college"). These are really bad messages.
"It surprises me, because the Olomeinu readers are day school students, most of whom will attend college"
That's why it's possible to be charitable and view the frame as likely not being a polemic against college, but simply an oversimplification of dropping out of yeshivah-- leaving Slabodka and going to Berlin for a degree in philososphy; also as was pointed out, the story itself need not have been made up.
But I still think that the editors need to make sure that their intentions are not misinterpreted.
>also as was pointed out, the story itself need not have been made up.
Who pointed that out? On the contrary; it appears to have been made up. (Although I will grant that it also might have occurred. But, then, Rabbi Waxman also might have...).
I don't think the cartoon is simply a polemic against college. I think college is, however, set up as the polar opposite of yeshiva; bad vs good. And, the point is, it all started from being chutzpadik and questioning a Gemara (and not being convinced by the rebbe's explanation).
Furthermore, the more I think about it the more I am convinced that even though this was in a new issue, it's actually an old cartoon. Kind of like how Archie comics would reprint ones from the 1940s, '50s, '60s, &c.
In any event, Baruch is correct that there are more effective and less alienating ways to make a point. However, I must say that I myself don't personally want a more successful polemic teaching my children something which I rather disagree with, so if my kinderlach brought this home, I'd probably rather see this than something more nuanced but against the way in which I train them to go. But that's neither here nor there. I simply thought the panel is of interest!
Surprised noone is commenting about your reference to Blog in DM. I'm overall pretty impressed by the game they made up, although some of the cards are a bit over the top (hillarious though.)
"Who pointed that out? On the contrary; it appears to have been made up."
Wolf2191 referred to it above; I read the story which I think he meant (I don't remember the book).
>Wolf2191 referred to it above; I read the story which I think he meant (I don't remember the book).
Ah. Actually, I ministerpreted his comment initially. I thought he meant that he had appeared in an earlier Olomeinu book (as you probably know, several books compiling the "best of" material were published).
I see now he was referring to one of these books.
However, it is both likely that the story actually comes from the Olomeinu cartoon (especially if I'm right and it is a reprint), or that the story is made up anyway, as many "inspirational stories" essentially are.
Or not. Perhaps it happened as described.
"Or not. Perhaps it happened as described"
Whatever it is-- you can object to the portrayal in different degrees and ways.
There's a connection between this post and the one on Prof. Halivni. In his memoir the Book and the Sword, Halivni mentions the questions that he asked as a child in Sighet that first won him fame as an illuy.
I don't recall offhand what they were, but I recall thinking at the time that they weren't so much brilliant questions as skeptical questions, and that they foreshadowed his later career.
There's also an interesting post at Michtavim that touches on how a rabbi should react to questions. This is Rabbi David Ellenson recalling lessons with his rabbi, Nachman Bulman:
One day, as Rabbi Bulman and I were studying the first paragraph of the Amidah prayer, we came across the phrase, "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob." Rabbi Bulman commented, as Jewish teachers have for hundreds of years, that each of us, no less than the fathers of our people, must strive for a personal relationship with God. I imbibed his words and looked at the text. "There is something that troubles me," I said. I pointed out that the text said, "Abraham" and not "Abram," the name his father Terah had bestowed upon him. In contrast, the first name of the third patriarch appears as "Jacob," rather than his other name, "Israel," which he earned as he struggled with the angel.
When I asked the rabbi why this was so, he broke out in a tremendous smile and rushed over and kissed me on my forehead. His answer to the question--which was that Abraham was the name given Abram when he became a Jew, while Jacob was born a Jew--was almost beside the point. What I remember most was his kiss. Through this single act, he displayed the passion and joy involved in the study of Torah, and he embedded a love for Jewish learning and discovery in my neshamah (soul) that burns at the core of my being to the present day.
"Mendel the mouse was killed off."
No, he commited suicide.
IIRC R' Halivni was led to wondering how chasurei mechsara vhachi kattani could really be what happened.
KT
The Gra had the same concern. See the Hakdamah of the Pe'at HaShulchan. So did the Tiferet Yisroel. And many others.
I disliked the tone of that NYT article. At the moment traditional scholarship is way ahead of academic scholarship when it comes to understanding the actual CONTENT of the Talmud (and I have studied both methods).
JoeCool:
"Possibly, but I'm not aware of any yeshivos with multi billion dollar endowments."
that's true (unfortunately). i just read something (in the wall street journal) critical of how colleges amnmass these endowments.
It probably started with his parents . Amram is not a "yeshivishe" name. They must have "moderners" using Biblical names.
"asking questions leads to going off the derech"
That part's true, and you know it.
If the questions can't be answered, perhaps we SHOULD go off the derech?
"If the questions can't be answered, perhaps we SHOULD go off the derech?"
The fact that they can't be answered by a rebbe in an Olomeinu cartoon does not mean that they can't be answered by anyone.
Ben Bayis- 2 points. Number one: any rabbi who kisses his students nowadays will suffer for it.
Number two: look how Ellenson turned out. Do we really want to encourage that result?
>any rabbi who kisses his students nowadays will suffer for it.
That thought crossed my mind, but I think a kiss on the forehead is still OK.
>look how Ellenson turned out.
Ellenson is a Reform rabbi, but an interesting one. I've seen him in shul a number of times and, trust me, I only go to Orthodox shuls. His scholarship is largely about Orthodoxy.
This cartoon is reality for me. Last year the school claimed that my daughter questioned the rationalization of a non-universal but common minhag. To them that is equal to mocking. My pre-teen daughter did not remember questioning the teacher. We were called on the carpet and told that she has no place in this school. I cannot reveal more just that she is still in school but our lives have become Kafkaesque. A true nightmare.
The former principal of the girls' high school where I have moonlighted as a Jewish history teacher would remind the faculty at the beginning of every year, "There Are No Stupid Questions!" No matter how off the wall a student's question (or answer) may sound, always try to validate it as much as possible: "Yes, I see why you might be saying that, but..." This is a lesson that people like ZevVolf's daughter's teacher should absorb, as R. Bulman obviously did. Whatever happened to the old Yiddish saying, "No one ever died of a question"?
Of course Olomeinu was part of my childhood. It was turning noticeably rightward even then.
>three college professors would be travelling together in one car to go to a lecture, as though they were bachurim going to a chasunah
Co-workers never carpool to an event? Id on't see why you thinks its so unusual - in fact I know of it happening to a group Jewish Studies Profs going to the AJS or something.
Also, the "professor" doesn't look a day older than 25.
You neglected to mention that the entire epiphany is illogical. Of course thieves are disrespectful of other people's possessions, but that does not prove Mar Zutra's point. Professor Amram ought to be aware of the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent.
Ben Bayis,
If you happen to read this -- I would like to know more about this David Ellenson. I wrote to him when he first wrote this story about the kiss from R' Bulman (my father) in Reform Judaism magazine, and we had a few friendly exchanges. He was even kind enough to send me a copy of his book about 19th c. German Jewry, an excellent book I may add. I was a little girl when we lived in Newport News, where my father was Ellenson's teacher in the Talmud Torah. I don't remember him but my mother remembers him and his family.
I wrote about him on cross-currents.
oh BTW my mother wrote a few stories for the old Olomeinu -- really delightful stories if I may say so. e.g., About the snowman who was so afraid he would be mechallel Shabbos (because the children had forgotten to take the pipe out of his mouth) that he nearly melted from fear, but at the last minute the children took out his pipe. Today that story would be verboten in any kids' magazine because the pipe would be a total no-no.
The panel you have here reproduced is inadvertently hilarious -- ridiculous -- but I don't think it would actually cause any harm to children.
I just read an essay by a scientist who became a ger tzedek for a lot of reasons but one of them was, he noticed that fellow scientists -- whom he initially revered as the epitome of admirable and cultured people -- were often dishonest in their writing, faking lab results and so on. We often hear of people losing faith in religion because they come across religious people behaving in reprehensible ways. Here that cliche was reversed, and it was the atheist who lost faith in his atheism.
Ben Bayis, if you would be so kind, please contact me
t613k@aol.com
There is a similar story in some book I once read about a formerly observant Jew who joined an ashram and saw his guru pick up a wallet someone dropped on the street and pocket it, saying it was karma or some such thing.
The issue of morality on college campuses is certainly shocking. I am a student in Penn, and the student newspaper over the past 6 months has covered the murder trial of a student, the question of rehiring a professor convicted for sexual crimes, and a few other similar things. (I would be able to remember if it weren't 3am.) And this is an Ivy League school!
Among students, morality is not much better either. The difference between here and other places is that here they finish their homework before going out and partying and doing whatever immoral things they're doing.
Hmmm....I would say that there is alot of validity to what the gemara says in this case. I firmly believe that someone who is dishonest in one area of their life is also dishonest in many others. You cannot be partially honest...although it is acceptable to lie in some cases, many take this way too far. Check out this crazy dishonest professor from Columbia Teachers College.....After (I will happily allege) lying about the noose incident, Columbia found that this lady plagiarized from her smart students papers.....
By validity i mean truth.
http://www.ivygateblog.com/blog/
...conspiracy.html
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