Shomer Mitzvah

Seems like a political issue to me, not a theological one. Can’t blatantly violate Shabbat when everyone’s watching you, have to make an appearance at the country’s biggest political function, can’t let the goyim think you’re putting Judaism ahead of helping run the country…I don’t envy them that situation, but it still irritates me to lamely say “well it’s probably pikuach nefesh or something idk” like we’re playing fast and loose with some definitions here so you can go to a party and everyone knows you only get that exemption because you’re famous now and it has nothing to do with halacha

as a chabadnik, can you shed any light on the situation?  As someone who is across the pond (and a litvak) I’m not really sure with what’s going on. This sounds really outrageous. 

Anyway….like I wrote this morning in another post, my main issue is with the massive missed opportunity for a kiddush Hashem. Whether the heter is valid isn’t really the business of anyone except them, their rav, and Hashem.

Also, the articles I read online stated the reason it was considered pikuach nefesh was because traveling on foot after the event could pose a risk for them (most likely related to all the anti-Trump protests, but the details were left vague). I’m not a rabbi, so I’m not qualified to judge the situation and the halachas. But the OP should be aware that halacha does not care if someone is famous or not, it is what it is. And to intimate that the rabbi who paskined would ignore halacha to give someone special treatment just because they’re a famous or influential person is highly insulting and disrespectful, as well as an aveira.

Theoretical halacha discussions I cannot stand: ones that say, “What if halacha basically existed in X fictional universe, except Y thing (usually the prohibition against magic) about halacha just wasn’t a thing?” Because literally why are you even bothering bringing halacha into it in that case - if Y was different then who’s to say everything else wouldn’t be completely different to? You just ruined the entire premise of the conversation and it’s no longer exciting stop.

So I think I agree with you that it would be very interesting to keep these concepts of magic and miracles and nature in mind when imagining how one might react to living in a world where, say, people go to school to study magic... Would one give into the strong pull of assimilation and physical opportunities and attend such a place? Would one want to attend for the future financial and career opportunities it will help with, but find ways to bend the rules to conform to one’s beliefs? Would one just find the idea of it unappealing and go to Navi school (which was an actual thing) instead?

“Maurycy Trębacz (May 3, 1861 – January 29, 1941) was one of the most popular Jewish painters in Poland in the late 19th and early 20th century. Many of his paintings were lost in the Holocaust, but a representative selection of his artwork survived. Trębacz died of starvation in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto during the Nazi German occupation of Poland.”

(Taught by the Bnei Yissaschor, and paraphrased from a shiur by Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein.)