Weather: 57° A mix of clouds and sun. High 57F.
- Hespedim tonight 6:20 in BMG for the Yartzeit of Harav Aharon Kotler zatzal and Rav Nosson Wachtfogel Zatzal.
- The New Jersey Department of Transportation, has installed a new left turning arrow for Route 9 southbound traffic turning onto Courtney Road. The new turning arrow went live today. (Faanews)
- Schools in Lakewood will need to pay property taxes if banquet halls become permitted as they will lose their property tax exemption on the banquet hall portion of their property, since it is used for the revenue producing business. More at Faanews
- Hachnosas Sefer Torah at Mesivta of Eatontown 5pm Off New Hampshire ave
- Shiva for Harav Feivel Cohen ZTL at 24 Goldcrest in Pine River village
- Today marks the 14th yartzeit of the Mumbai kedoshim HYD
- El Al Black Friday Sale: Fly Round-Trip From The US To Tel Aviv From Just $698 Or 46.5K Chase Points Round-Trip, Including Mid/Winter Break more
-Bde: Petirah of Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu Zt"l of London at the age of 90, after a brief illness, The levaya will take place in London with kevurah in E"Y
- No transportation today for some school to or from
- Aldi BJ’s Wholesale Club Costco Target Trader Joe’s Walmart will all be closed today for Thanksgiving. Shop Rite in Howell closes at 4 pm.
- Hanochas even Hapina groundbreaking event for girls elementary school Bnos Hadassa today at 613 Prospect street Lakewood 2:30 pm
-Agra Dpirka Thanksgiving day learning program this morning at B"M Kol Chaim 618Caranetta Lakewood
-Black Friday sales stores will open early Friday morning at 5am,Target 7:am
- APP reports on Jbiz expo last week in Lakewood a special women's panel took place organized by the Women in Workforce division of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce. "Helping women climb the ladder to success". Panelists shared their secrets of success and tips for managing busy personal and professional lives. some of the tips given "It doesn’t always need to be the perfect supper, or “When running a household, you got to learn how to take shortcuts. Learn how to pick your battles,” “All panelists were self-made. No inherited wealth. “We want to empower more women to reach more heights,”
- Musical Hallel lkavod Rosh Chodesh at Mordys shteible
Rabbi Avigdor Miller on Thanksgiving from Toras Avigdor
Q: What is your opinion about celebrating the holiday of Thanksgiving tonight with a turkey dinner?
A: Thanksgiving is a holiday that was manufactured by gentiles for the purpose of going to church. That’s what the original purpose was. And therefore it’s avoda zara and Jews are forbidden to participate in such a thing. If you eat turkey especially for Thanksgiving, you’re an oveid avoda zara. That’s my opinion.
Now, some people are weak in this matter; but I think it’s real avoda zara; I think it’s יהרג ואל יעבור. I think a Jew shouldn’t eat turkey on Thanksgiving at all! He should make a sacrifice not to eat turkey. Because it’s a Christian observance you understand. It’s not a legal holiday alone. It’s only recently that it became a ‘legal holiday.’ But it used to be a Christian holiday and that’s what it is, all the way down till today.
So what happens? In a Beit Hakisei called Sha’arei Torah, on Albemarle Road — there’s a toilet there called Sha’arei Torah; so today they had a special service there; they had there a Jewish so-called rabbi, and a reform rabbi and a priest and a minister. A whole mishmash of Christianity and so on. That’s what happens when Jews start going after the idolatry of the gentiles.
Q:
But isn’t that only if eating turkey has religious symbolism?
A:
No, it doesn’t have to have religious symbolism to be a problem. As long as it’s connected with the holiday and the holiday has religious symbolism, that’s enough to make it forbidden. There’s a gemara that says it’s forbidden to wear laurel leaf on the day of a certain gentile avoda zara. Now, laurel has no religious significance. But because the gentiles wear laurel on that day, it’s forbidden.
However, like I told you earlier there’s somebody who permits it, and even though I say it’s all wrong, I’m not going to force my opinion on you. But if anybody in my synagogue would ask me such a question, I would give it to him. But since you’re not in my synagogue, so I’ll let you go.
(Tape 1972)
Why is it OK for a frum store to advertise a fully catered Thanksgiving meal for $399!!
ReplyDeleteThat is crazy expensive for a turkey and some dips on the side
It's ok to advertise, the question is who is buying it. But is it different than all the meat and fish boards?
Deleteלפני עיוור לא תתן מכשול
DeleteRefers to the advertisers, publications and store.
Duh it’s an expensive store and they don’t even have shopping bags! Besides they cater to a watered down version of yidden living in Jackson.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what a watered down version of yidden you mean, but it sure sounds like sinus chinam to me. I bet you run one of the mosdos in town that so cruelly rejects yiddishe kinder.
DeleteIn the half a century since it was recorded re: Thanksgiving, the holiday has become nearly completely secular a football and parade off day, can one allow the conjecture perhaps that he would delimit the response slightly less stringent potentially?
ReplyDeleteIt was always completely secular and the "person" who argued with R' Avigdor Miller that he references just happened to be the unanimous posek hador at the time.
DeleteSo why did he say that you cannot do it every year?
DeleteIt was not always completely secular . Just go on Wikepdia and type in Thanksgivings to see it's origin. The question among poskim is if it's original quasi religious nature creates halacha issues even today. That is in a general sense. Rav Avigdor Miller told someone who asked him about the Igros Moshe that he is of the opinion that since in the encyclopedias it is called a church holiday we pasken with the goyim about the nature of their holidays. Even when there are gedoley haposkim who don't see it having enough of a religious nature to be considered avodah zorah.
DeleteThere may still be issues but it is not yehareg val yaavor.
DeleteThat it was Completely secular is blatantly mistaken . Though it was more biblical than Christian holiday
DeleteIt was originally based upon the Festival of harvest ie succos
Women in the workforce is not something we are proud of it is a necessity to support a family or a husband learning. It is not a goal to reach greater heights that is not what is expected of bnos yisrael. This whole message of career over family is anti Torah.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately families today need 2 breadwinners to survive but the goal is not to empower
I always say the best thing that happened to Kollel life was Feminism. It became much easier and common for women to get solid, better paying jobs due to feminism, and more avreichim were able to stay in kollel longer with fewer financial worries. Is that a good thing in general, though? With the crazy, rushed life we lead nowadays due to 2 working parents of ka'h large families, I'm not sure...Food for thought.
DeleteWho says what actually caused what? We are catalysts for world changes more than we imagine.
DeletePlus, middle class married women going (lower class women always worked)to work arguably happened in supply and military industries of 1940's before second wave feminism
Reb Moshe did not have a problem with it. Rabbi Miller's position is a bit extreme on this.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't? Rav Moshe wrote many teshovos on the topic. How many of them did you go through? He says that it isn't strictly forbidden if it isn't being done as an obligatory yearly celebration but it still would be better not to make one. And Rav Moshe is from the lenient opinions on this. Rav Avigdor Miller said that his opinion was based on looking in three different encyclopedias. They all said that Thanksgiving is a church holiday (while today Thanksgivings is a secular holiday no one disagrees that it has religious roots. Question among poskim is if that still causes an issue today)
DeleteSo, Rav Moshe said you can do it every year??? Quote him correctly.
DeleteNot lekatchila
DeleteR Avigdor Miller's assertion doesn't align with what historians know about it. So unless he's saying it from ruach hakodesh it's not based on Christianity.
ReplyDeleteMy suspicion has been people in general take him a bit more literally than he actually
Deleteintended
Halachically Speaking has a whole article on Thanksgiving and also turkey in general.
ReplyDeletehttps://thehalacha.com/wp-content/uploads/Vol8Issue8.pdf
Seems like the lakewood yeshivos and beis Yakovs celebrate Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteMany schools ending early for some reason?!
They celebrate Thanksgiving for the sake of the Yiddisher Kinder of course!
DeleteOnly Leshem Shamayim
Chutzpah that there's no busing today
ReplyDeleteOy vey - is R' Avigdor Miller really referring to the Rashkebehag as "someone?"
ReplyDeleteI know a young man who used to speak against Rav Avigdor Miller. He died a misa mishunah at a young age. It's not kidai to speak out against Rav Avigdor Miller.
DeleteThat was a question. In any case, if your assumption is correct is it kedai to speak dismissively of RMF?
DeleteMaybe he's referring to RYBS, who matired it more unequivocally
DeleteRav Avigdor Miller on Thanksgiving: A Church Holiday
DeleteQ:
What’s my opinion of Jews eating Turkey on Thanksgiving?
A:
What’s my opinion about Jews eating turkey on Thanksgiving? What’s my opinion of Jews going to church on Thanksgiving? Same thing. I consulted three encyclopedias – they weren’t written by gedolei Yisroel but they weren’t written by kanaim either. They were written by goyim. And each one states as follows: “Thanksgiving is a church holiday”. Forget about it being a legal holiday; forget about it being an American holiday. It’s a church holiday! And it’s made for the purpose of going to church and holding services.
Now, when Jews say, “Well what’s wrong with us doing it? We’re not going to the church?” you have to know that in the Torah it says that if you’ll say איכה יעבדו הגוים ההם את אלהיהם ואעשה כן גם אני – “How do these nations serve their gods and let me do likewise” it’s a sin. So the Gemara says it doesn’t mean likewise to serve idols. Likewise means to serve Him — just that we’ll serve Him the way they serve their gods. Oh no! That’s forbidden.
We should serve Hashem like they do?! To hold Thanksgiving services, that’s abizraiyhu d’avodah zarah, it’s something like avodah zarah. And therefore any symbol of that day, like eating turkey, is abizraiyhu d’avodah zarah. And a person should do everything in his power to avoid such things. The fact that in America you have butchers or restaurants that sell and serve turkey on Thanksgiving, kosher turkey on Thanksgiving, and there are even rabbis that give a hechsher on eating turkey and celebrating Thanksgiving, they are the victims of ignorance.
I don’t ask talmidei chachomim about what Thanksgiving is. I ask goyim what Thanksgiving is. And three kosher goyim wrote in encyclopedias that Thanksgiving is a church holiday! They are my poskim.
TAPE # 529 (November 1984)
For the record- go over the teshuvos - Reb Moshe zt”l had a problem with Thanksgiving meals. Maybe not as extreme as Rabbi Miller zt”l but problematic just the same.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.faanews.com/2022/11/new-schools-will-need-to-pay-property.html
ReplyDeletePretty sure even the "legal Halls in Lakewood that have shuls/ schools are not currently paying property taxes on that portion..
DeleteThere are currently no legal banquet halls in schools as the Township ordinance does not permit them. So, the Tax Assessor doesn't need to consider whether or not there is a banquet hall.
DeleteIf the Committee adopted their ordinance, the Assessor will be required to consider that there might be a hall.
I’m certain the privately controlled schools would have no problem paying their fair share for the revenue generating portion of their buildings. After all, their stated interest is to help the community. And what better way to assist than to help offset some of our tax burden.
DeleteSimcha Halls would raise the hall rental prices to cover the taxes if that would be the case.
Deletehttps://www.faanews.com/2022/11/lakewood-route-9-intersection-receives.html
ReplyDeleteIt’s not the cruelty of menahalim and roshei mosdos. Anyone even a little objective understands that at the core of the issue is a lack of space. If there wasn’t an issue with space schools wouldn’t be able to be picky. Besides the notion that the way parents dress or live their lives should have no bearing on the kids getting into school is absurd.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the shaycus of whatever you said to anything on this page??
DeleteParents that are not exactly living the way that most parents in the school where they send their kids, will not only not change their way they dress etc, they'll make fun of the rules when the kid gets a little older and put up fights with the principles, and that's a very hard thing for school administrators. And they have to take it into account when the kid is just 5 years old
ReplyDelete