Wednesday, January 18, 2023

How the isolation begins


They tell you that you don't need the world, don't need secular studies because everything is in the Torah. They walk you into a room full of books and say "Look at all these. You don't need anything else." Since the books are in a foreign language, you really can't investigate the truth of the claim. This applies not only in the beginning but after years because they don't teach you the language. The strange characters, running right to left, are exotic. They look like art. They kind of spin your mind around, and you find yourself saying, "I guess everything is in there. I don't need anything else."

But then they don't study the entire Torah. They disparage almost of all it and focus exclusively on a few pages of the Gemara which they approach in a chaotic, abstract manner. Where's all that everything-is-in-it stuff? Oh, you don't need that. Just learn this. It's magical. It will change you. 

What, it's not changing you? That's because you are not trying. It's due to your yetzer hara. It's a new phrase for you. It really means the devil. Those Xtians who tell you that the devil is inside of you, the ones who run religious cults. It's the same here. They just have a new phrase for it so you don't realize what they are doing to you. Meet the new boss. It's the same as the old boss.

Then they tell you that you must replace your interests and hobbies with mitzvos. Hobbies are foolish. Mitzvos are from God. They will enrich all of your life.

But then they disparage mitzvos. That handful of Gemara that they study, the 1% of the Gemara, is better than all those silly mitzvos. You hear this over and over until you don't really respect the mitzvos that replaced your life. You just fear getting eternal damnation for not doing them. They don't call it eternal damnation. That's so Xtian. They call it gehennom. They call it busha in olam haba. These are new words, but they mean essentially the same thing - eternal damnation.

What about your heroes? They are bums - Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Shakespeare, Mozart. I have heard all of them disparaged. So have you. Most rabbis won't even utter their names. You replace them with gadolim.

That's another new word. All of these new words have a power over your mind because you don't know what they mean. It's easy to manipulate people with new words -- every demagogue uses them -- because you attach magical meanings to them. The mind gets confused.

So who are these gadolim? Oh, we don't show them to you. They are very busy. It wasn't until a few years ago that videos of people like Moshe Feinstein even became available. Still, there aren't many videos of such people. There are no interviews. Most of them never even wrote any books. Your knowledge of them comes strictly from average guys, some below average, who claim to have been "close" to them. That's who you try to get close to, the below average guys who claim to have been close to the gadolim that you don't really know anything about. 

What you question all of this? How dare you. Who do you think you are? 

Oh, they don’t talk to you like that at kiruv camp. There, they are polite and patient. But once they get this idea of eternal damnation in your head – oh sorry, gehennom – that’s when the fist lands in your face. You don’t realize it, but you have been trapped by the Child Catcher.

Who’s that? He’s that scary guy from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Wearing colorful clothing, he approaches children with candy. He says, get in the truck for more candy. He's a little odd, but his clothes are fun and he's waving candy. What child can resist?




You step inside. And then this 

 


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

What you are waking up? But it's too late. If anybody catches you talking like this, you kids won't get shiduchim. They'll spend their lives lonely and frustrated like you were. Better step in line and obey. They got you.

Here's what happened to you.

Kiruv part 1

Kiruv part 2

Not saying here the Torah itself is the candy snatcher. It's contemporary frum culture, particularly the manalist culture. 

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