Remind you of anyone?

We have been hearing this month about death cults. That’s when a group destroys life allegedly for the sake of some imagined after-life.  I’m not saying there isn’t an after-life, but must it be one that works in opposition to the life we are living now?

Does this not describe the yeshivist world? There life is lived for the afterlife, for mysterious prizes that are earned through one activity – Brisker lomdus on the Gemara. Nothing else matters.

Have you heard that phrase uttered before? I have seen it in articles about dead rabbis. The articles are called literally “Nothing Else Mattered”. What matters is Torah study, by which they mean Gemara study, by which they mean abstract argument on a handful of chapters of the Gemara – not the aggadata, not the halacha (both of which are guides for living) but rather abstractions about Talmudic principles that underlie the halachot. It’s a kind of game of chess.

For this you drop everything. You don’t get career training even though the Gemara says “teach your son a trade.” For this, you delay marriage until your mid-twenties even though the Gemara says to marry at sixteen. For this you ignore people even though the Tanach and the Gemara say to do chesed and to be a light unto the nations. For this you turn away from all secular studies, mocking them, even though the great Talmudic scholar Maimonides says to find God in the study of nature. For this you deprive yourself of sleep, eat whatever junk appears before you, and pretend that your body doesn’t exist even though the Torah tell us “Guard your health very much.” None of that is Brisker lomdus, and nothing else matters, right? Your life doesn’t matter. You are told to turn your life into Brisker lomdus by which you earn some kind of equivalent of 70 virgins in the afterlife.

But even madmen must bow to reality a bit. So at some point you do marry if only because the females, who don’t study Gemara, don’t know what to do with themselves. So we give them babies that will be told that nothing else matters but Brisker lomdus. We indoctrinate them to give up their lives for Brisker lomdus. We are so proud when they do that.

Does all this remind you of anyone? It is said that only Jews can draw down the divine flow, and the world is influenced by what we do. Could a death cult like Hamas exist in prior generations that didn’t have such a warped view of Torah, that didn’t turn themselves into a death cult that destroys life for the sake of some imagined afterlife?

But do such wild people really have the self-discipline to engage in sacrificial action? Or is the thrill of destroying life their real motive? Murder gives an ego rush. One usurps a divine privilege by taking life. It’s a perverse thrill.

So they really aren't interested in the real after-life. Their conception of it is entirely worldly. They are interested in the ego rush of today.

Likewise, our version of that. What fun it is to mock the world. What fun it is to hate everyone. What a rush you get when you deem yourself smart enough to sum up all of life with one sentence – study Torah! And the weirdos that engage in this aren’t exactly pleasant to be around. They are crude, insensitive, undisciplined men and women. Does that remind you of anyone?