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.
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