Why have I started this blog?
I am a religious Jew who is deep inside and I watch in horror as our people are torn apart from the inside and I can no longer be a silent observer like my friends and neighbors who resign themselves to the rally cry that "you can't fight city hall"
I'm here to say I can and will....I hope you'll join me....
Please feel free to leave your comments.
I am a member of the Jewish Community and until very recently a very proud one. My father is a graduate of the Mirrer Yeshiva and Columbia University. (bet that doesn't happen too much anymore) He has smicha (Rabbinical Ordination) from the Mirrer and has finished Shas (Talmud) 4 times. He is not Chassidish but would qualify, as would most of my extended family as Charedi. I have loads of relatives living in Lakewood (double digits) and "learning" in Kollel there. For the life of me I don't get it. What I do know is that my dad, the Columbia graduate, who spent zero days in Kollel, can learn my lakewood relatives under the table. I don't get it.
I don't get why we are allowing our greatest assets-our future-to go door to door asking for hand-outs. Rabbi Berel Wein points out that at it's height in Europe, there were less than 150 men in ALL OF EUROPE learning in Kollel. The back corner in Lakewood has FIVE HUNDRED. Think about that for a second. 150...why? Because KOLLEL WAS NOT MEANT TO BE A PARKING LOT FOR EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE KIDS WITH NO DIRECTION. It was meant to form, train, sustain, and protect the future leaders of their communities. Men who will be learned Rabbis and teachers so the communities that supported them will gain from that support as those men came back to lead and teach there. That WAS what Kollels (im) where set up for and nothing else. Ravina of the Talmud was a wealthy man who worked all day-no one today could withstand his Torah questioning. Rav Shmuel had a job, as did Rav Ashi, Rava, Abeye, Rashi, The Rambam, I do not believe I need to go on... This is a horrid joke. This is a crisis of epic proportions and the defenders and enablers of this practice will have a lot to answer for at 120.
Understand this please and read carefully...THE STUDY OF TORAH, not Torah, THE STUDY OF TORAH has become the Avodah Zarah of our generation. We must do something as a people to stop the destruction of our communities. We need to stop demanding that our daughters be mother, partner, caretaker, emotional supporter, and bread winner of a young family all before she reaches 25. We need to demand that our children be given an honest account of what life will be like on their own, without the support of their parents-will the Roshei Hayeshivas support our children if G-d forbid something happens to us or will our children have to learn the hard way that life is not easy on your own with no source of viable income. If that means we need to call out our leadership and hold them accountable for their failures, WE MUST DO SO-as uncomfortable as that may sound.
Lakewood will never return Charles Kushner's money. I would warn them to study in a few places in Shas, where the honor of the Kohein Gadol was bought and sold...I used to wonder how the Jewish people could let such corruption flourish at the time of the Bais Hamikdash, but unfortunately I have witnessed exactly how it was done.
We have allowed our leadership to work unfettered as we did at the time of the BH...we have allowed them to issue edicts whether right or wrong-and swallowed them full just because they are from supposed "das Torah" and therefore if it sounds frummer it must be frummer-just as we did at the time of the BH...we have allowed them to bring idols into holy places ie illicit money from evil doers with no remorse-just as we did at the time of the BH....we have allowed them to elect their own cronies and blood lines to sustain and fortify their own unholy behavior-just as we did at the time of the BH...we have allowed them to cover up their illegal deeds and those of their friends-just as we did at the time of the BH...we have allowed their defenders to out shout, dismiss, intimidate, and marginalize those with the courage to point out that the emperor has no clothes-just like we did at the time of the BH...I no longer wonder how well meaning G-d fearing Jews allowed corruption to take hold of their people without doing anything to stop it, because I witness it every day and now I know what Disraeli meant when he said, those who fail to learn from history and destined to repeat it.
We need to hold our leaders accountable as it says in Chaggiga regarding Acher-the sins of the "righteous" are held in far greater contempt then the sins of the regular man for they know better and still sin against G-d...We need to clean up our house post haste for if we just sit back and let the foxes rule the hen house, our fate and the fate of the Jewish people will be far more fatalistic than that of our forefathers...G-d have mercy on our souls...and by then the excuse of " but my rav said..." will be of no significance...
5 comments:
Kol hakavod.
There is an interesting irony in Jewish history that, as far as I know (but I'm ignorant and don't know much) has never been commented on:
Every reforming movement that arises to save the Torah world (I don't mean non-religious movements, I mean ones that see a deficit in the Torah world and try to combat it) wind up becoming as corrupt and deficient as what they tried to fix.
Consider two examples:
Chasidus started because a gap had grown between the Torah elite of the time and the common layJew. If you were a scholar, you had a special connection with G-d. If you were a regular shmoe, you didn't. And there was nothing in between. Chasidus came and filled in that gap, giving the everyday Jew a chance to fervently connect to G-d and strengthen his spiritual connection with Heaven. But over time, dogma set it to the point that the Chasidim and Misnagdim are now virtually indistinguishable except for their uniforms. Just like the problem they tried to fix, you are either like them or you're nothing.
Consider the Mussar movement. Rav Yisroel Salanter, zt"l, wanted to address your very point, that the "study of Torah" had become a religion unto itself, divorced of ethics and morals. Yet his descendants nowadays have also disappeared into the Chareidi model.
Yes, there were only 150 people studying in kollel full time in Europe 100 years ago (I think the number is too low, but not much higher). That's because, just as you said, back then the only person who got into kollel was an iluy, a future Gadol haDor. Otherwise you were told at the door: Go work for a living. You have a wife and children to suppport. Don't you care about your responsbilities?
Nowadays, this has been turned on its head. People who will never amount to anything, will never so much as try to get their own semichah so they can at least teach for a living, sit and drink coffee while the Rav drones on about whose ox gored whose. This is real learning?
Heck, even in the non-religious movements, this has been the pattern. Conservatism arose to counter the excesses of Reform and allow people to lead a non-committed, yet traditional lifestyle, ie the best of both worlds. But look at them today. With their recent decisions on who can get married and be a rabbi, they've become Reform-lite.
I would like to say that what is needed is a new Mussar movement, one that will once again point out to the Torah world what a chilul Hashem they're doing by creating an industry in which people not only forsake making a living, but sit back and say that they're on a holier level because they do! I'd like to say that, but then I think: in 100 years, this movement will have been absorbed back into the body of the Chareidi world. What's the point?
This is: You can't change the world. But the reason that the first paragraph of the Shema is written in the singular is because you have a special connection with G-d and the ability to live your life as a Torah-Jew to the best of your ability AS YOU UNDERSTAND IT. The people with the black hats and coats can't define G-d for you. They can't tell you what He is or isn't, what He finds important or not. The Torah tells us G-d put a choice before us and that "You should choose life", again in the singular. You learn, you decide, you develop your personal relationship. Why are you keeping mitzvos? Because of your personal connection with G-d. Isn't that what is all comes down to? So who cares what others say is right or isn't. "The Merciful One wants the heart". Give it to Him directly and you'll see you can be a Torah-observant Jew, fulfilled in every way. And if it breaks the corrupted model around you, who cares? You answer to G-d at the end of your life (until 120!), not them.
Don't worry, God will stop this stupidity. What will these lazy bums do when peak oil hits sometime in the next ten years and the economy collapses? Charity will vanish when gasoline costs $10.00 a gallon and food jumps 500% from transportation costs. Since these guys don't have any marketable skills, no crafts or artisanship that they can trade or barter, they and their families will starve. It's natural selection at work - or judgment from God, whichever you prefer.
Most of the frum world has never even heard of peak oil, they are so uneducated. They have no idea what's coming and are not prepared because their rabbis have told them to ignore what's going on in the world and stay ignorant. But that won't make reality go away. They will fall under judgment with the rest of the country for their sins, make no mistake.
Yes, God tells us to choose life. As long as people continue, though, to allow themselves to be ruled by social terrorism and the darkness of ignorance, they are in a culture that leads to death, not life. The system as it is cannot be fixed. Only when enough people move away and start life anew without the parasites will there be change. And I don't see that happening any time soon.
The one tragedy of Jewish history is that we never do see the big changes in history coming, or if we do, we ignore them until it's too late.
What was it like, I wonder to live in medieval Spain in 1491? Did they poo-poo that silly talk about Ferdidand and Isabella tossing all the Jews out of the country?
We know what it was like in Poland in 1939. Heck, as late as 1942 they were saying "No, the Nazis are just moving us into the conquered parts of Russia. Killing us en masse? Don't be silly. Why would they do that?"
Change will come and, chas v'shalom, it will be tragic but hopefully the result will be the final geulah that will put all this narishkeit behind us.
yaasher kochavha
sheheciyanu v'kimanu
great TRUE stuff
keep it up
keep going strong
u hit the nail in the empty kops
?and who is it that decides who is righteous, and connected??
Why, the guy with blackest hat or biggest shtreiml in the room at the time, of course!
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