The New Idea Sure Sounds Old?

I wonder what it must be like to be someone who thinks he has all the answers. How does his car run? What is his marriage like? Does he sleep soundly? Do birds acknowledge him? Do the trees bow to his superior intellect?

Suddenly, everywhere I look, the pseudo intellectuals write their whiny diatribes on every blog in every corner of Jewish cyberspace. They call those who they look down upon names, mock their lifestyle, brow beat them with nonsense, until those who are subjected to their incessant, sophomoric, pompousness turn away in disgust and wonder what sort of miserable person lives this way?

If it wasn't so sad it would be funny.

There is a new form of religious intellectualism which goes by the name of Orthoprax Jews. A term they lovingly give themselves. If I understand the theory behind it correctly, they are the Jews who go through the motions of a religious lifestyle with no real belief system to back it up. They don't believe in the Validity of Torah, they don't believe in Revelation at sinai and the exodus from Egypt and they don't believe in a Creator. They hang onto their religious facade because they are too deep into it. They have a wife who believes in G-d much to their dismay and children who do the same. They abhor the teffilin they wear, the shabbat candles they light and the prayers they say. Most of all, they disgust in the illusionary G-d they pray to.

Do they think they are the first Jews to behave this way or just the smartest?

Yet through all of this, I feel for them. I feel the pain in their helplessness, the sorrow in their anguish and the emptiness in their lives. I wish they had what I have. They would call me child-like, naive', uneducated and even lost. I may be all of that. Or I might have what they have never had.

When they think about my Creator, they think of his nonexistence. When I think about Him, I think of his Omnipotence. When they think of my Sustainer, they think he is wicked and evil, when I think of Him, I am overwhelmed by His Goodness. When they think of my Rock, they think of nothing, when I think of Him I think He is everything.

With every peek from around the struggle of the Orthoprax corner, there, laying in wait for him, is the atheist waiting to pounce of his fragility. They regale him with anti semitic german theories about the fabrication of Torah and ask him to join their brilliant assault on the uneducated masses. They attack all that he used to believe in and dress their theories up with higher learning, luring them in with the faux intellectualism that spits on the graves of their forefathers. The new enlightened ones smell fresh blood and ascend on them with a vengeance.

What they can't ever answer in their quest to destroy G-d is how the Jews--the uneducated, archaic 7th century shtettle clinging Jews are still here. How did they survive the most powerful armies known to mankind. How did they survive the treachery of the Romans, the assimilation of the greeks, the savagery of the Cossacks and the ruthlessness of the germans? How did that happen? Interestingly enough, the majority of the perpetrators of such evil, were themselves convinced of their own intellectual superiority and enlightenment. The godless knew better what to do with the G-d fearing. Yet each time, the Jew, him of the backwards old fashioned Torah is true clinging belief, survived while he bore witness to the death of them all.

"I shall bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you."

In the coming days I will address this struggle. To my fellow Jews who grapple with their servitude, do not give up hope. There is an answer to your confusion. I know.

I have been there.

And I have survived.

Can Anyone Save us from Ourselves?

I apologize for my tardiness from this blog. Between family issues, weddings, work and life, time to write has been scarce and even now I am overloaded with work so I will be brief.

A little over a week ago I was in Boro Park for the wedding of my cousin. It was very nice to see everyone, yet very sad at the same time. I sat at a family table with the son-in-laws of all of my cousins and surprise, surprise, they all were in Kollel in Lakewood. Follow me here...they are all nice people and I enjoy their company, but what the hell are we doing here? I could not help but wonder who was going to pay for the weddings of their children?

Does anyone realize the kind of crisis we are creating? Please have some vision. NEVER BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE HAVE WE HAD SO MANY PEOPLE IN KOLLEL. This is not a good thing. Who will pay for them if G-d forbid they lose their parents-their only source of income-section 8 and the Independence card/WIC notwithstanding? WHERE ARE OUR LEADERS TO STOP THIS??? Can we actually rely on a group of rabbis who CALL THEMSELVES gedolai hatorah? Does anyone in a rabbinical leadership position have the guts to stop this? I think not and I am ashamed of my people. The leadership today has spit on the graves of Pinchas and Mattisyahu, the Rambam, the Ramban, Rebbi, Rebbi Akiva, Shimshon Raphael Hirsch--all the men who stood up for what was right and took on the wrongs in their communities even when they were dressed up as Torah. WHERE ARE YOU????????????

I'll end today with a small story in case you think that only our sons suffer from mis-information overload. A friend of ours has a daughter who had planned for years to go to law school when she came back from Israel. All was well and good. She became engaged and went back to Israel whereupon she met up with her Rabbi who told her a lawyer-is that really what you want to be? Is that what a bas Torah should be? So she has come to the conclusion on his urging to be a paralegal. Huh? Instead of being her own boss as a lawyer, this brilliant rebbi told her to be a paralegal-in other words work for a lawyer who needs you at a moments notice and that will be easier on her family than working for yourself?? Did he get this insight from Ruach Hakodesh? Is his das torah power taking over?

We are in crisis and need to open up the eyes of all the naive parents who have bought into this broken system and have been sold a bill of goods that has no basis in Halacha...if it sounds frummer, it must be...

On that note...have a great shabbos.