Sunday, April 30, 2023
nedarim 32a
תַּנְיָא רַבִּי אוֹמֵר: גְּדוֹלָה מִילָה, שֶׁאֵין לָךְ מִי שֶׁנִּתְעַסֵּק בְּמִצְוֹת כְּאַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ, וְלֹא נִקְרָא תָּמִים אֶלָּא עַל שֵׁם מִילָה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי וֶהְיֵה תָמִים״, וּכְתִיב: ״וְאֶתְּנָה בְרִיתִי בֵּינִי וּבֵינֶךָ״.
dogs
I see many dogs on my mail route. I'll bet there's not one type of mutt or mongrel I haven't run across. If you ask me, they have no business living amongst us. Vile, USELESS BEASTS . .
Thursday, April 27, 2023
shimusha shel Torah
[Parallel to the obligation to study the Torah, there is an
ideal called shimusha shel
Torah,
which in this context means a total and loving involvement in everything that
the Torah stands for.]
“The study of Torah and shimusha
shel Torah are
not only of equal importance, but in our generation we have clearly seen the
tremendous moral deficiency that results from abstract study alone. Even in the
eyes of those who cherish the text of the Torah, and believe in its holiness,
it is like a body without a soul. Thus, Chazal
have said that sometimes shimusha
shel Torah outweighs the study itself, since it is specifically shimusha shel Torah that
upholds the study.”
The Frierdiker Rebbe then speaks of the importance of shimusha shel Torah that
is communicated through chassidishe
stories and at chassidishe
farbrengens,
and the superiority of genuine feeling (regesh)
over understanding. He then concludes:
“Even the external honor of the Torah with its great beauty and
the multitude of people can arouse the feelings of the soul, like all matters
of beauty and splendor. Besides this, the glory and honor of the Torah arouse
the pintele Yid
that is present within every man and woman. This arousal is precious in itself,
and can spark an arousal of teshuva
that will bring a person to choose the ways of Torah and mitzvos.”
(אג"ק אדהריי"צ ח"ו ע' עג
ואילך)
No Bad Questions - Freidom Fighter - Mockery Will Set you Free
No Bad Questions - Freidom Fighter - Mockery Will Set you Free
No Bad Questions
The kiruv world prides itself in its open-mindedness.
“Ask us anything! We will change our views in a heartbeat if you convince us! Sure you can ask about sex, and no, we don’t use a hole in the sheet, we’re super progressive!”
But ask yourself, have any of the really difficult questions that plague you (and you know what they are), been replied to with one or more of the following bullshit textbook answers?
• God knows what’s best for us
• Mashiach will come and we’ll all have clarity
• There’s a Kabbalistic reason for that
• Don’t judge Judaism by the Jews who practice it
• We have a rich tradition of handing down bullshit verbatim from one generation to the next, so it must all be true
• God is true. God wrote a book. Deal with it.
• “You could never lie about a million people being around a mountain if it didn’t actually happen.”
• “The Rabbis knew what was best for us.”
• “People were way smarter back then.” See also: “Our generation sucks.”
• “That’s a very good question you’ve asked! Many smart people have asked that too!”
• Not to be confused with its condescending inverse: “You’re not the first person to ask that question, you know…”
• “We can’t use fallible human logic to understand such profound ideas.”
• Which is the exact opposite of: “Those are just guidelines, you’ve still got to use your head to figure out what’s right”
• “You can’t use your heart, use your mind!” But also: “You can’t use your mind, use your heart!”
• “The truth is, both opinions are correct! Both are the word of a living God!”
And so your questions have gone unanswered, because those weren’t answers.
Those were justifications.
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Die Trying by Shalom Tzvi Shore
Die Trying Tales and Tantrums from a life lived religiously by Shalom Tzvi Shore
This is an autobiography by a guy who was raised it seems in the Old City in an Aish insider family. He seems to have gone to a Rappaport school which are those places where they go through all of Tanach and Mishnah before starting Gemara. That sounds like a good idea except as is the rule in the frum world they screw it up with megalomaniacal inhumanity such as doing nothing but memorizing and having only 1 day off a year. Oh yeah, they have zero sense of humor too.
The book is so well written that I feel as though I'm listening to the Beatles sing harmony or watching Larry Bird play basketball. This guy was way too smart for the Aish scene or possibly any Orthodox Jewish scene because face it, we are bunch of anti-intellectual clods at best and abusive pricks the rest of the time.
Here's the book. Die Trying by Shalom Shore - Freidom Fighter - Mockery Will Set you Free
You will love it if you are a normal person. And if you are a frum person you'll hate it and that will give me joy because I want to see you suffer since you made me suffer.
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
estrangement
According to one distraught mother who calls herself Broken Hearted, outreach people cause this intentionally. In a comment to another person, she wrote:
If you are able to remove your blinders long enough to see through the haze of your new life, you may one day realize that a well funded, highly organized, well oiled kiruv machine did this TO you. They followed a tried and true method of recruiting and indoctrination. Objectors, like your parents, are systematically removed from BT's lives. Nothing special here, it's how they operate. If you ever decide to leave, I hope your family is there for you.
In fairness, let us note that several baalei teshuvah responded to this comment with accounts of how they still are connected to their families. For example, a woman named Cynthia wrote, “I am writing from the perspective of someone who did maintain close family relationships, even when we became more religious.” Nevertheless, there are many cases of estrangement in what seemed to have been reasonably normal families.
love bombing and the lure of wealth
Websites and marketing aside, there's also
deceptive recruiting via love bombing and the lure of wealth. As one man wrote
The outreach people come at you with an
overabundance of artificial friendliness that is temporary. You get besieged
with Shabbos invitations that also go away once your brain has been switched
over to fear of hell for failure to comply. Much of the outreach takes place on
college campuses which are billion dollar facilities that the outreach people
pretend to be their own. My first Shabbosim were spent in million dollar homes,
one after the next. Yet within two years they had me sleeping on a basement floor,
prohibiting me from getting a job in order to buy some food because it would
interfere with my Torah study.
None of that is from the Torah which demands
authenticitiy and frowns on flattery and genevas daas. The latter term is
translated as stealing of the mind, meaning creating false impressions.
Certainly, we should be friendly but not unnaturally so and not with ulterior
motives. People who didn't stay with Orthodoxy have reported to me how the same
people who gushed at them with interest refuse to even look at them now. As for
earning a living, the Torah actually tells you to get a job and not rely on
others for support. So, we say again, yes there is all kinds of funny business
going on with kiruv, but none of it is sanctioned by the Torah, none of it is
proper Judaism.
Monday, April 24, 2023
everything is fear driven
"It's a harsh environment because everything is fear driven, so you are living in a constant state of fear and you are taught that God exists only to be feared and you are always afraid of punishment and always afraid of doing something wrong." Deborah Feldman
Unorthodox: Deborah Feldman's escape from Brooklyn to Berlin | DW Interview - YouTube, 4:53
Saturday, April 22, 2023
regrets
In his first interview since withdrawing from the Miami Open over visa issues, Djokovic said he has “no regrets” after ceding the world No. 1 ranking to Carlos Alcaraz and having to also miss Indian Wells in the United States this month.
“No, I have no regrets,” Djokovic said in an interview with Anderson. “I’ve learned through life that regrets only hold you back and basically make you live in the past. And I don’t want to do that. I also don’t want to live too much in the future. I want to be as much as in the present moment, but of course think about future, create a better future.
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
More alleged Litvacks with Chassidishe roots
Gedalyahu HaLevi Schorr (27 November 1910 – 7 July 1979),[1] also known as Gedalia Schorr, was a prominent rabbi and rosh yeshiva. He was regarded[2] as the "first American Gadol" (Torah giant), an expression coined by Rabbi Aharon Kotler. Indeed, Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the famed rosh yeshiva of Chachmei Lublin, remarked that Rabbi Schorr had the most brilliant mind he ever encountered in America, and one of the most brilliant in the entire world.[1] He said this when Rabbi Schorr was only nineteen years old. Schorr was born in Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland, [Yiddish: Istrik] a shtetl near Przemyśl, in 1910, the sixth of Avraham Halevi Schorr's seven children. He was named after his paternal grandfather, Gedalyahu, a highly respected scholar and close Hasid of the Sadigerer Rebbe, a descendant of Yisrael of Rizhin.
all 4 ry's of lakewood have a chabad connection, m kolter through the kolter family (that's why his father was named schneur) shustal through marriage to r schneur's daughter and the other two through marriage to r aaron's son in law r schwartzman whose mother is from chabad.
Yerucham Olshin is an Orthodox rabbi and a member of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of Torah Sages).[2][3] He is one of the four roshei yeshiva (deans) of Beth Medrash Govoha,[4][5] an Orthodox yeshiva located in Lakewood, New Jersey.[6] The other rosh yeshivas are Rabbis Malkiel Kotler, Yisroel Neuman,[7] and Dovid Schustal; they divide up the times they present shiurim (Torah lectures) to students on the Lakewood campus.[5]
Olshin's works about Jewish holidays have been published under the title Yareach L'Moadim. Olshin was a student of Rabbis Eliyahu Moshe Shisgal (son in law of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein), Abba Berman, and Shneur Kotler. He is married to Shalva, the daughter of Rabbi Dov Schwartzman,[1] who is a granddaughter of the founder of the yeshiva, Rabbi Aharon Kotler.
Schustal married the daughter of the previous rosh yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha, Rabbi Shneur Kotler,[5] who was the son of the founding rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Aharon Kotler.
Yisroel Tzvi Neuman (born April 1947 in Baltimore, to his parents Jaye and Sarah (nee Silverman)) is an Orthodox rabbi and one of the four roshei yeshiva (deans) of Beth Medrash Govoha (the Lakewood Yeshiva) in Lakewood, New Jersey. He shares this post with Rabbi Malkiel Kotler, Rabbi Yerucham Olshin, and Rabbi Dovid Schustal.[1][2] He is married to the daughter of Rav Dov Schwartzman,[3] who is a granddaughter of the founder of the yeshiva, Rabbi Aharon Kotler.
Schwartzman was born in Elul 1921 in Nevel, Soviet Union, to Rabbi Yehoshua Zev Schwartzman, a graduate of the Slabodka yeshiva.[3] In the 1930s, his family fled from Soviet Russia and immigrated to Tel Aviv, where his father was a rabbi. Schwartzman studied at Yeshivas Bais Yosef Novardok under Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, known as the Steipler Gaon.[1] In 1933, at age 12, he transferred to the Hebron Yeshiva in the Geula neighborhood of Jerusalem [3] His mother descended from a prominent Lubavitcher family. He was named after his maternal grandfather's brother, Dovber HaYitzchoki, who was the father of Reb Zalman Moishe HaYitzchaki, a devoted follower of the Rebbe Rashab.
Monday, April 10, 2023
authentic
"I finally realized that cool is also just being authentic. And that is powerful."
Henry Winkler on how he was not like the Fonz, didn't ride a motorcycle, etc.
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
the usual - guest post
I went to a Manalist yeshiva fundraising event recently. It wasn't called a fundraising event of course. It was titled an evening of inspiration with a special goyish kind of food that I won't specify here in order to protect the identities of the guilty. But at the end one of the main donors gave it away when he said, the purpose of this night is to support the yeshiva. Was that the purpose? It's not what the invitation said.
The entire program was all about how bachurm need lots of help, infinite help (because they are "clueless") with their middos and this yeshiva has this special program to help the bachurim develop their middos. And you should give your money "to have a share in it". The usual pitch. It's good to work on middos so I'm not complaining about that. (Side note, a baal teshuvah thought of the idea. What FFB yeshiva man invents a program about middos?) What I didn't care for was the dishonesty of it. As with deceptive recruiting, it's not just that a little dishonesty is necessary to bring people in (the excuse), it's that starting everything off with a lie enables more lies because once you allow the lie, your brain goes soft. And much of the night was a lie.
Here was the main lie and the repeated message of the night. Rabbis are smart. Baal habatim and bochurim are dumb and since intelligence is everything, the latter are nothing. However, their money is good and is in fact the only way to give their life purpose. On the donor card was written the following:
Explains the Radak, that Hachzakas HaTorah brings bracha in this world in all areas; Parnassa, Shidduchim, Shalom, et. The Saintly Chafetz Chaim Ztz"l says, based on Chazal, that there are two ways to attain knowledge and status of a Talmid Chacham: Either by continuously toiling in study for many years, or by providing the needs of a Torah scholar..."
After the mysterious ellipsis came a list of donation options. The Chofetz Chaim himself didn't give the donation options, but he might as well as because that's how he's being used here. And you are not allowed to question it.
Let's unpack this. You know that you are not capable of studying Torah continuously. (Side note, neither is the Rosh Yeshiva. Hardly anybody actually does that anymore.) So if you want parnassah and shiduchim, you'll give us your money. You thought they only held shiduchim over your head when you were a bachur. No, that goes on all your life. Torah says no sex or companionship without marriage and if you want either of those, it will cost you. And since you need those to stay sane, you'll give us your money. Maybe you are married, but what about your kids and grandkids? Give us your money.
Example of how dumb baal habatim are. Guy goes into gadol and says I have a cure for the politics in Bene Brak. Gadol: Is it a simple cure or a complex one? Guy: simple. Gadol: Then what makes you think I haven't heard of it?
What's the message? Gadol is so much smarter than you. (If he's holier, they didn't say. Who cares about that? In fact, the talk was chock full of laitzanus and strange stories about how the speaker cheated on exams during his school days.) It's all about being smart, and better yet, a genius (a word we heard several times during the night).
Guy goes to another gadol with a problem. A married pair of crazy BTs became extreme and moved to Meah Sha'arim. They were quite frum except that the woman continued to smoke on Shabbos. Gadol says, check her yichus. They check it and her maternal grandmother had a reform conversion. This lady got a real conversion and stopped smoking.
Guy says to this gadol, such ruach hakodesh. Gadol says it wasn't ruach hakodesh. (Speaker adds, but it probably was that too.) It was hasgacha pratis. Her smoking enabled her to get a real conversion and if she had kept full Shabbos, she would have been chayuv misa.
Let's unpack this. You have to unpack every story because they all are so manipulative. Message of story is, gadol is so smart and you must go to them to solve all your problems. Also, BTs are crazy and full of yichus problems. Such schmutz. And goyim are icky and have no feeling for the really holy matters of life. Also, intense punishments await. Would she really have been liable for misa when she didn't know that she was a gentile? I highly doubt it, but why pass up a good threat?
So that's the baalei batim are dumb part of it. Then we heard all about how bachurim don't have a clue how to behave, how to give a complement for a meal, how to act on a shiduch. "They know nothing about anything." The rabbi straightens them out of course, the rabbi who was doing laitzunus the whole night, who mocked secular studies and gentiles as well.
Rav Elyashiv, Rav Steinman were mentioned as a matter of course. One chassidic rebbe was mentioned but only for musar he gave. And chassidim were criticized at one point. The story was like this. The Alter of Slobadka came to Israel surrounded by talmidim. A Chassidic Rebbe saw this and said, I see you have your own chassidim. Said the Alter, no, I am trying to make them into rebbes. "Two different world views" said the speaker who started with this story that insults Chassidim and is misleading besides because nobody turns people into slaves and robots more than the Litvacks.
So what a night it was. Gemara, gelt and guilt. The Gemara wasn't so explicit this time but it's always there underneath because the fundraising really goes to Gemara study. The money that goes to the program goes to a rebbe at the yeshiva who runs the program, which has no programming costs other than his labor. It's a way of paying him. Then there's the guilt about giving money and the relentless putdowns of baal habatim and chasidim.
It is relentless abuse in that world. It's a kind of indoctrination. They promise to make you great and then pound on you relentlessly, giving you the feeling that you need their abuse in order to get into heaven. It's like an abused woman with crushed self-esteem walking around with the delusion that she deserves the beating.
Hashem wasn’t mentioned of course, not until a BT who has studied kabbalah stood up. He mentioned Hashem. The reasons he spoke I won't get into here, but suffice to say that's very unusual.
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Advice for getting married
I just read a screed about dating from an FFB rabbi that kind of turned my stomach. #1 on the list was health screening. You should look for health he said. Yet, I know a man who married a diabetic and is happy. I know a man who married a wheel chair bound woman and is happy. He literally puts her in the chair. But he loves her, so it works. In the frum world, dating is a meat market and they are proud of it. They turn people into commodities. It is foolish and it is gross. In my view, this is a reflection of their inhumanity and warped Judaism.
Here's my list of what to do:
1) Watch for the hashkacha pratis. God helps you but you must see it. He sends people to you. The writer Kurt Vonnegut said, "Love is where you find it. It's foolish to go looking for it. And it can be poisonous" The kind of people who are right for you are the kind of people you'll be meeting. You want this or that, but the people in your class, level, values etc. are the ones in your life right now. You want to meet a British princess like Kate or a movie star like Kate? Have you met any? Probably not. It's not in your social circle, so forget it. People who scheme their way into alien circles cause so much trouble. You hear that Meghan? You want a Meah She'arim girl. Do you know any? Forget it. Go with what is sent to you. Don't pass up the one that comes easy because it seems too easy. That's God helping you. I know a guy who had limited possibilities who passed up on a decent girl because she looked too much like his sister, not that his sister was unattractive. It just freaked him out. Bad move. He had limitied possibilities and needed to seriously consider this one.
2) Find somebody who likes you. People have likes and dislikes. It's hard to explain, hard particularly when you are young and lack the vocabulary and self-awareness. Your marriage will go much better if you spouse naturally likes you. Get somebody who likes you. Don't pine for the one who doesn't.
3) Find somebody you like. You just like him or her. It's your kind of person. You like their style, their responses to things, their energy, their humor, the quantity that they talk, their look. All of that matters. You just feel a liking toward the person. Some people make you uncomfortable. You can't explain it. Move on, unless everyone makes you uncomfortable. That's a different problem.
4) Find someone in your religious ball park. Not another left fielder, just someone in the stadium.
As for health, don't worry about that. If a person's health condition is too much for you, you won't be interested. It will give you the willies. And if you like him or her, you'll be willing to deal with it. Love is very powerful. It happens naturally. It's like nature's lock down for sickness. A person who feels sick doesn't want to get out of bed. There's no need for government lockdowns as we saw with COVID. People can spread disease only when feeling sick and sick people stay in bed naturally. So for health, you don't need to hire a private detective to raid hospital files. I remember one shadchan doing an intense search into my health background. It was so offensive. She didn't do any other kind of work for my shiduch. Just that. Nut job that she was.
As for fertility don't worry about that. Nobody knows what will be. I know guys who married 38 year old women and had four kids. I know men who married 20 year olds and didn't have any. Obviously, younger is better but are you young? So maybe don't say yes to a shiduch with a woman 10 years older than you. And probably you won't be attracted anyway. But somebody your age? Yes. Just go for who you like and chances are that person is in your age range anyway.
As for baby obsession, I see 50 year old guys wanting more kids and looking for 38 year olds. This is nuts. You don't need more kids. You need a wife that you like. You are 40, you can marry a 40 year old if you like her. You don't have kids? Well, you may have missed your chance this time around. First thing is to get a wife, not to turn women into fertility objects. Likewise ladies, don't turn men into frumkite objects. So he doesn't have a chavrusa - whatever. Don't come with a crazy list of how he should be religiously. You probably are just obeying some check list that some nutjob gave you along the way. He has to do this, do that. No he doesn't as long as he's trying. Find somebody you like and work it out. Same goes for wealth. You want rich? Are you rich? Do you live in Lawrence and see a guy at shul? Or do you live in Canarsie and want a rich guy from Lawrence. Love is where you find it! It's foolish to go looking for it.