Bad rabbis are the problem

As the blog title suggests, we are trying to do things differently here. And by differently, I mean as differently as we need to do. For me, being Torah observant has been a miserable experience. Somehow I have stayed, sort of. I know a slew of people who have left and I'm often on the fence too. But I'm willing to take drastic action to keep things going.

Interestingly, by drastic action I don't mean formulation of a whole new halacha. I know people who try that. Could be that's a way to go but frankly I don't even care enough to try that. Requires way too much work. I'm not looking for a new high, for maximal impact, for vibrancy, for something updated to better match the era. I don't even have enough hopes for the thing to want to do that. What I'm talking about is a different outlook because the one I have seen is negative and destructive and degrading. And I don't want to live like that anymore. I can't. 

To me, the fundamental problem is bad rabbis. Yes, things like washing before bread to stay in practice for Moshiach is really weird. But whatever. I can live with it. Same with not swimming on Shabbos because I might come to make a raft. So is the length of niddah day counting. It's too much. Length of birchos hamazon is too long. I know one guy who is trying to change that. Have fun trying. I'll just say it. I'd have to be much more knowledgeable to know where to change all that and I really don't enjoy halacha study enough to even begin to think about it.

But there's one thing I will change and that is the role rabbis play in my life. Now for many that's the most radical change of all. For most people, it's more unacceptable, shocking, horrible to say that rabbis can be pricks than it is to stop keeping Shabbos. Because rabbis have become the religion. They are the avodah zarah, the idols. 

Do they see themselves as idols? I think so in many cases. But largely the bad ones just like power and due in large part to the sickness that is called zionism they have no other way of earning a living except off of you. In israel boys are not allowed to work lest they lost their draft exemption. The real cause for unemployment of Charedim in israel is the israeli government - may its ministers spend eternity in hell - and the utter worship of the military there. So an entire culture of learning too much Torah has taken hold. By too much I mean people learning when they should be working. And the result of that is too much power for rabbis. It's a long schmooze. Let's just say that there's idol worship everywhere today - worship of rabbis, worship of the state of israel, worship of soldiers, worship of the military, and worship of the Torah. Idol worship. It's all idol worship. It's not subtle. It's so overt that it has become the culture. You might not notice it because it's so common, like a Roman polishing his statue.

So what about rabbis? Let's put it this way, an extremely high percentage of my encounters with rabbis were depressing and degarding. Who the heck are these people? Do they all go to obnoxiousness school? I know one rebbe at a local school who is generally nice to me, but he is a rarity. There is something very sick about rabbinical culture today.

I am not talking about the Moshe Feinstein's of the world. I never met him. Never met anyone from that generation; although I did see Shlomo Zalman Auerbach walking down the street once. And he seemed cool. I saw the Lubavitcher Rebbe a few times. No complaints. He was cool. Not talking about those people. Rav Soloveitchik, Rav Kamenetsky. Not talking about them. I have heard nice stories. And I will believe the stories.

I'm talking about the two seconds before Moshiach generation of rabbis, the pricks who only seem to seek to ruin you, to lord over you. I don't know what they are drinking - probably Brooklyn and Israeli culture ruined them all. Ever see the movie Saturday Night Fever? That's Brooklyn culture. It's low class, coarse, aggressive, profane, greedy, and selfish. Israeli culture is even worse. And unfortunately the frum world is dominated by those two sick places. Maybe that's the whole problem, that plus the two World Wars and Communism erasing what came before. 

So I could give you the long history, how nearly every piece of advice I ever got from any rabbi (much of the time it was not requested but voluntary delivered) just completely screwed me up. I'm talking about major life decisions, minor life decisions, and even decisions about how to look at life.

But I have journals for that. I won't bore  you with it. I ask you to look at your own life. Were rabbis ever helpful? I mean, could be. But I have heard many really scary stories.

Want to hear stupid? In a certain city in the mistake of israel, the charedi schools do not participate in the city ulpan because the influence is deemed negative. Only Chabad has enough sense to realize that if you don't teach the kids proper Hebrew you are going to drive them to insanity. Is the city ulpan so bad? Nah, it's alright. Biggest problem is the screaming israeli teachers. But that's standard in the mistake of israel. And what about these schools that don't participate. We have learned all about them in the last year, how utterly secular they are with their plays and their government this and that and tests and their honoring of secular politicians and their forcing every child on the Internet. They are so traife but too frum for ulpan. All these schools have rabbinic advisors and may even be run by clowns with the title rabbi before their names. None of them are really rabbis. It's all erev rav and just Brooklyn and israeli animalism.

Rabbis are not always the solution, sometimes they are the problem, that's my experience. Again, I'm talking about this era. What does every rabbi have in common -- in my experience, heartlessness. They are all opinions and smug certainty, and it will rub off on you. The irony is it's easy to get away from rabbis. In 35 years there was only one time a rabbi ever called my house to say hello and none have ever visited me. This includes when I moved into small towns and one shul towns. These people don't even know you exist so you can stay away from them easily really. Oh yeah, you'll hear their names. They'll speak between mincha and maariv. Here's a trick. Go to a yiddish speaking place where you won't understand anybody.  Protect your brain.

Rabbis today are an intelligentsia. Read Tom Sowell's book Intellectuals and Society. It talks about how intellectuals screw up the world with their crazy notions. Today's rabbis operate this way much of the time, maybe not absolutely all the time, but even a stopped clock is accurate twice a day.