Will you mochel?

I'm always suspicious of Yinglish and shall we call it Ivrish. Words become cliches when you don't speak fluently in a single language, when you insert foreign words. Those words lose their meaning or take on narrow strips of meaning. The word mochel falls into that category. 

Let's say that person A hurt person B, let's say he hurt B very badly. He should feel bad about that. He should feel guilty. He should feel shame. He should question himself. How could I have been so selfish or careless or lazy or egotistical or ignorant? There's much soul searching to engage in. 

It seems to me that people in the OJ world don't do that. Rather, they ask for mechilah, which means, they seek exoneration from Divine punishment. How do you get that exoneration? You get it by getting the other party to say "I mochel." With those magic words it's all over. It's like putting a paper ticket in a parking lot machine and the gate that blocks the road is lifted. You can drive out of the lot now. It's all over.

But is it really over? Is person B not still in pain? Has person A changed the parts of himself that caused such hurt?

Frum people don't think about that, not usually. They are so focused on schar and onesh that they see life in technical terms. They see schar and onesh in technical terms. There is little sense of quality to anything. It's more like how many daf did you 'learn' (pardon the Yinglish). Did you bentch? (pardon the Yinglish) I ask, did you learn something when you learned? Did you feel anything when you bentched? To get mechila, people put on a nice guy act, much like that with kiruv, to elicit the magic words, and then once the words are uttered it's wham bam thank you maam. Topic closed. 

They even go so far as to insist that the matter not be brought up again. You gave me mechila. You are not allowed to bring it up again. Yes, there is a halacha like that, but I believe we approach that overly technically.

If I hurt somebody, and they forgive me but want to bring up the matter again, I hope that they will because they are still hurting. And whose to say that my apology was totally sincere? I don't know if bringing it up 1,000 times is healthy for anybody, but a few times might be called for depending on the seriousness of the issue and the strength and sincerity of the apology. 

Even after the mechila, even if A never mentions the subject again to B, should A let it rest? Has he fixed himself? Did he ever feel bad or did he just fear punishment? Why would punishment come if he didn't do anything immoral? Is this the god who likes to punish for violation of arbitrary rules or the God of justice? 

I think for most people, it's the former, and that is no different from idolatry. The wind god will blow down your farm if you don't appease him. He wants an animal sacrifice. Who knows why? Today we have the boss, the CEO, the cop. Whoever has power over us. We appease him out of fear. People do this all the time in corporations, in government, in the military. They fail to operate from a moral code. They just appease the one in power. 

That's what most people do with mechila. And those are the ones who even seek it. Many people don't even do that. But the ones who do often act as if they are appeasing an irrational god. Getting that mechila means appeasement. What about that person you hurt? Oh that's over. He said the magic words. 

But is it?

What is the message here?

From the Shapell's newsletter. Nearly all of this newsletter consists of letters from students. And every letter is built around Oct 7 and the alleged anti-Semitism that is swarming America. And on top of that there is Torah study-- Gemara for the men and Rashi for the women. 

This one just has to tell us that he is becoming a doctor, something all doctors seem to need to tell everyone, and then it's right to Oct. 7 and defending Israel, the country that is. 

This one is from a female, so Gemara is replaced with Rashi who is employed to understand those nasty campus protests. 

And that leads us to the grand prize, the soldier.

So what's my point here? These are new BTs. Shouldn't they be excited about finding G-d, who barely gets a mention here, as well as a life plan of mitzvos? Why is Oct 7 and defending Israel the main thing and textual studies the next thing after that? This is Modern Orthodoxy today: anti-Semitism, Israel, and Gemara, and by Gemara they always mean lomdus. It's not a far cry from the Reform Jewish Hebrew school Holocaust and Israel. It's that with a little Torah study on top. 

For me this is banal. I hesitate to criticize the students. Their accomplishment in becoming frum is monumental, and if this is the way the works for them then they should go for it. But I suspect that the school is shaping their minds, as several of them write here, and to what is it shaping them? Secularity for the most part. 

As for the antisemitism, somebody should tell them that America continues to be the least anti-Semitic country in history. The Congress continuously passes laws criminalizing antisemitism and the administration is instituting policy that denies visas to anybody who criticizes the state of Israel, which is not antisemitism, particularly given the government's conduct over the last 20 months. Campus protests and encampments are not anti-Semitic. Half the protestors are Jewish and they are protesting actions of the IDF. So let's drop the crybaby bit. But they can't because Zionism has been fueled by obsession with anti-Semitism since Herzl and even when there isn't any, they imagine it. That's really the god that they worship.

In short, Shapell's is a Zionism training ground, even though most of the rabbis walk around in black suits. How confusing. 

temperaments differ

This is the statute (chok) of the Torah. (19:2)

One of the seemingly irrational aspects of the Poroh Adumoh is the fact that it is metaher teme’im and metameh tehorim (purifies the impure and makes impure the pure). People’s natures and

temperaments differ from each other, as do their shorshei haneshamos (“sources of the souls” or inborn spiritual makeup). For this reason, the path adopted by one person in his avodas Hashem may be perfect for him, but totally inappropriate for another person with a different emotional makeup and spiritual level.

Each person has to engage in introspection to determine his specific character traits and positive qualities. This way, he will be in a position to know what his specific duties are in this world, and

what types of avodas Hashem will assist him specifically in fulfilling his purpose in life. Hashem did not create us to be clones of each other, and the Poroh Adumoh teaches us that what serves as a source of taharah for one person may potentially be a source of tumah for another, based on each person’s specific circumstances.

פ' חקת תשפ"ה Based on droshos by Maran HaGaon Rav Moshe Sternbuch shlita, Gaavad of Yerushalayim. To receive these weekly divrei Torah email ravsternbuchtorah@gmail.com  

South Florida

A repair man just came by. He was perfectly punctual. The second hand of my clock had just reached the 12 when I heard a gentle knock on the door. Very pleasant American sounding guy, so I just had to ask about his origins. Born in South Africa but raised in South Florida from the age of eight. When I told him that I was from New York, he commented on the culture clash that he felt visiting New York. The subway in particular threw him.

I told that him it's a mistake that BTs are so often directed to New York, and that in general it's problematic that OJ culture today is shaped by New York and Israel, as these are such intense places. It gives a picture of Judaism that doesn't have to be. He nodded in agreement. Maybe he was just being polite. After all, he is from Florida. 

break free

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You cross that line

When you are feeling out Orthodox Judaism you still have free choice. Everybody is being so warm, even if in a pushy sort of way, promising paradise. (Well maybe not everybody, but enough of them.) At some point, you cross the line and you accept it upon yourself. In a flash, the candy truck turns into a cage, like in the scene with the child snatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. You start hearing the word mechuyav all the time. Along with that comes the word gehennom. The idea of choice fades away. Now you have no choice, and any considerations of your individuality, desires, dreams, and predilections cease to matter. You must run all decisions by a stranger that goes by the name of the rav. You are threatened with hell. Your life is snatched away. 

Here comes the kiruv man.

You step inside the candy car. And then this 

 

He sheds his colorful cape and reveals his black coat as he howls and drives you away. 

Kiruv part 1

Kiruv part 2

Guaranteed

One of the most important lessons I have learned over the decades is that as a frum Jew you have to make choices that help you to be happy. This is a hard religion. The whole country is jet skiing and you are sitting in your suit and tie in the same old musty shul with the same old people muttering the same old prayers for three hours and hearing a reading of that mostly incomprehensible Torah portion once again. After that, you go to a kiddush where you eat some greasy kugel and hear a rabbi tell you how important it is to study Torah, just like he did last week and the week before and every week of the year before that. Then you sit at a Shabbos table for three hours and eat baked chicken and say a short vort that might interest you and might not. Then you sit in your apartment for four hours and try to read. Then it's off to afternoon davening. It really can be drag.

It certainly would help if you were living in a place that suited you, earning your parnassah in a field that interests you, pursuing a religious derech and studying the parts of the Torah that speak to you, and being married to somebody who is a match for you.

I have never met a yeshivish rabbi who grasped any of that. To them, you stay in yeshiva and engage in Talmudic pilpul on yeshivish mesechtas as long as you can, grab any parnassah that earns you the most money so you can support Torah study, marry the most fertile and wealthy woman who is machshiv Torah study, and live near a yeshiva where they engage in Talmudic pilpul. Maybe to them that's happiness. It's the only life they have ever known and I suppose they became rabbis because they enjoy it on some level.

They take a big gamble assuming that every Jew is the same way. I know numerous people who have fallen away who might not have if they had perused the religion and the life that supports it with some eye toward suitability to the individual.

Modern Orthodox rabbis are no better, at least not for men. Lots of flexibility is employed for the women, but the men are treated much the same in the Modern Orthodox world as the Yeshiva world. I once told a Modern Orthodox rabbi that I can understand all the efforts to make the religion more palatable for women, but that I would like to see the same effort applied to men. He said, "I don't know what you are talking about," and walked away. In the MO world, any pressure to study more Torah than is reasonable is replaced by the pressure to move to Israel and be slaughtered in the army. It's all pressure. If you are unhappy they mock you for it, which is not a solution. 

It's not that I need rabbis to direct me to suitable endeavors. It's that I'm told to defer to them for my life decisions and every f'ing time that I have done that, they have nixed my plans. My plans are not outlandish. But these guys are so narrow minded and so ignorant about the world, that everything that doesn't match exactly their life experience sounds outlandish to them.

Happiness isn't just about attitude. It's also about choices, about environment, about life style. Would you be happy working in a coal mine if you just adjusted your attitude? Part of the art of life is coming up with creative solutions and putting in the work to make them happen. I did that many times. Rabbis ruined it every single time.

The unhappiness of parents affects children. They start to see life and the Jewish religion through that lens. I'll bet that there are scores off off-the-derech children that were raised by parents who were disappointed with their lives, but didn't have to be. However, rabbis got in the way.

I don't go to them anymore. The famous music artist Bob Dylan said that if you have a dream, you have to keep it yourself, because if you tell somebody about it, they'll kill it. 

He wasn't talking about rabbis. If he only knew. With them dream murder is guaranteed.