What was Rav Soloveitchik’s halachic position regarding electricity?

 https://613tube.com/watch/?v=TeMrYf4d7ek

then ignore it

 You don't have to out argue them. If what they are saying seems wrong to you, messes you up, then ignore it. 

Jews without mitzvos

 

What actor was a nightmare to work with?

…..Zero Mostel….

Got to the point no one wanted to work with him……producers were shunning him…..

As an actor…..no one could touch him……as a human being……no one wanted to touch him….

https://www.quora.com/What-actor-was-a-nightmare-to-work-with

get your tin hat

 Don't let the aliens take your brain.

Magic Jesus

 Journalist Chris Hedges, who himself is an ordained minister, criticizes the Christian right which he deems nationalistic and even fascistic. He says that the billionaire class funds them because they don't make economic demands. 

"With magic Jesus, you don't need labor unions. With magic Jesus, you don't need healthcare. Because magic Jesus is going to give you a Cadillac and make all your dreams come true. And that is that shift, from a reality based world, into the world of magical thinking. And once people shift into that world of magical thinking, you can't reach them through rational argument." 

He adds that these people don't like discussing the Bible because they don't know it. They know enough to buttress their theology. 

[Democracy doesn’t exist in the United States: Chris Hedges | UpFront, 22:02, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EDKRGkgLsI, Al Jazeera English]

Isn't the Haredi world a bit like this? Just study Torah. It's all you need. The Gemara is their magic Jesus. And it's like the Modern Orthodox too. Israel is their magic Jesus. 

If middos matter

I had four yeshivish bochurim over my house for Shabbos. They were decent American kids and it went well for the most part. But over time, arguments developed, at times they got fierce, even nasty. They were not hearing each other, not learning from each other. Each was locked in a position. The goal was to defeat the other. 

One of them didn't join in the arguments. He even said to me privately that he appreciated hearing my perspective as he hadn't heard it before. What was different about him? He was from Los Angeles. They were all from the New York area, Lakewood and Monsey.

I think back on that NY rabbi who told me not to live in Los Angeles because it was tuma par excellence. He didn't tell me not to live in New York. 

We don't see our own flaws. We don't see the shortcomings of our group and our city.

At the end of Shabbos, the guy from Los Angeles apologized to me if he said anything to which I could take offense. I told him, "I can't think of anything. In fact, I was thinking this guy is so thoughtful in what he says to people. Those are the ones who apologize."

New York frummies see New York as the best place to raise children, the most religiously devoted place. I beg to differ. If middos matter then New York might be the worst place. 

Rabbi Melamed on the Divine Spark in other religions - Alan Brill

 

Read on blog or Reader The Book of Doctrines and Opinions: Read on blog or Reader Rabbi Melamed on the Divine Spark in other religions By Alan Brill on June 30, 2025 Continuing my discussion about Rabbi Melamed on Other Religions. I started with his statements on Hinduism and will now look at his broader premises- see “The Divine Spark among Other Religions” and here “Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook on Different Religions.” Once again, I will use the posted selective English translation because it is accessible; however, I do have the Hebrew original marked up with marginal notes and a full response. For Rabbi Melamed, all religions have a spark of the divine, some of the light of the divine, and help the world advance toward its moral perfection. The religions of the world educate towards the moral foundations, “each religion according to its level.” Through accepting these points, Rabbi Melamed removed any stigma of other religions as needing to be negated or the need to call other religions as demonic, entirely false, or to teach a restrictive exclusivism where only Jews have religion. Rather, for most people in the world, Melamed thinks that “it is right for every person to continue in the faith of their fathers, because with the loss of faith, moral corruption increases.” Rabbi Melamed also thinks that the religions of the world are progressing toward deeper and more abstract forms of understanding their religions, thereby removing “the dross of the crude material elements within it” allowing them to elevate their souls “to higher faith and morality.” Jews should not follow these religions; however, the religions of the world “serve as a moral and faith compass for all peoples.” Rabbi Melamed acknowledges that religious ideas are evolving and progressing to deeper understandings, the ancient and medieval forms of the religion that most people know from textbooks do not reflect current ideas in those religions. He has spoken with many people and read many books to overcome the essentializing of religions in ancient forms. I am always surprised at people who think other religions are where they were in 500 CE or even 1700 CE, but at the same time have a modern understanding of Judaism. continue

Limited experience

I was home alone this week and needed advice on how to warm up the cholent. I went to one neighbor and asked how high should the flame be on the blech. She said she didn't know because she uses a hot plate. I asked her should the crock pot be on auto or low. She said that she doesn't know because she uses the hot plate. I asked if the bag that the kishka comes in is edible. She said, she doesn't know because she doesn't make kishka. So here's a frum woman, a Haredi woman, and she can't answer questions about cholent cooking. She knows only her exact way of making it. She directed me to another neighbor. This lady also knew nothing about crock pots, but she does use a blech and told me to put the flame on the lowest level, and then to keep the pot off the flame. I said, what about if you use a tin, which we do, how high should the flame be then? She said she didn't know as she doesn't use a tin. She did know about the kishka bag.

Moral of the story, most from frum people are very limited in their life experience. Even when it comes to cholent. Not only are they not curious about the world, they aren't even curious about the frum world. I'm not talking about their knowledge of Paris here. They only know exactly what they know about cholent! So usually you can't rely on their advice. They just push you to be like them, and that does not necessarily work for the BT.

Another example, an old lady in Brooklyn reacted in shock when I moved out of there. Why would you leave Brooklyn? Why? Because the houses cost $1.2 million. She doesn't  know that her husband bought their house in 1956 when it was affordable. She doesn't know that her house now is worth $1.2 million and that translates into a deposit and mortgage that few people can afford. 

She also doesn't consider that I don't have relatives in Brooklyn. Where was she that day? She was at her daughter's house. I don't have family in Brooklyn. So on Shabbos I'll be all alone. Frum people in Brooklyn visit their families. Thus, it is better for me to move to a friendly and less expensive place like Detroit or Memphis. 

She might say how can you move to those places. They aren't as frum. Many New Yorkers have this view of out of town. It's not necessarily accurate. You can be just as frum in Cleveland or Toronto as New York and your middos will be better. which is a major part of being frum. But I asked one rabbi about moving to Cleveland and he said to me, you want to be in a place that's growing. 

Do I? I think that's a New York sentiment. It's part of the relishing of wealth. They want to see construction.

I don't need all that. What I need is a shul and a mikva. I don't need 100 shuls and 100 mikvas. 

What I need is a friendly place that I can afford. And he was wrong on another count, those places are growing. He didn't know all that because he has limited life experience. He never left Monsey, even for weddings he wouldn't leave. He'd never been to any of those cities. It doesn't matter that he learned lots of Torah. He didn't know the practicalities of life outside of New York. 

Another example. When I became frum, two rabbis pushed me to study in Israel. I resisted. I had no interest in that. I felt that I was going through enough changes. They didn't understand that because they never went through such changes. And Israel was too much for me in the end. I was very damaged by my time there. 

But not only that. These are yeshiva men and to them having a rav is essential. Those were the days before the Internet and before cheap phone plans. Even mail was expensive. We used to send this thin blue envelopes. So even if I had found a rav in Israel, which I didn't because the yeshiva I attended was a nut house, what would happen when I left? These men don't think about that because their kids have rabbanim from their yeshiva days in New York. They go to Israel for a year and come back to their families and their rabbi. They didn't consider that my situation was entirely different. They only know theirs. And what was I coming back to? I gave up my apartment. Am I returning to live with non-frum relatives 100 miles from kosher food? They didn't consider this because their kids go to Israel and come home to stay with them. They only know their limited life. They didn't stop to consider that my situation as a BT is entirely different. 

It's not just advice, but even their assessment of people can be entirely inappropriate for others. There's a rabbi on my street, a yeshivish rabbi, who made the ridiculous but common statement that Americans don't move to Israel only because they can't give up their luxuries. I immediately suspected that he must come from money because there are families all over Lakewood, Williamsburg, Monroe, Borough Park who have no money, live in broken down places, get food stamps, Medicaid, and HUD housing. He doesn't know these people because he came from money probably and many rabbis only deal with wealthy baalei batim. Those are the only houses that they ever enter.

This rabbi started a shul in a basement of another shul, but this week opened a huge new building, gorgeous. The aron kodesh cost probably $150,000. And I don't know of any fundraising drive that he did. Whenever that happens, the guy comes from a wealthy family, and that's where he got the money from. That's why he made the statement about Americans and luxuries. Not that his relatives need to move to Israel, but they don't necessarily need big houses. And I have been in the big houses of several American rabbanim and their siblings. There's a whole class of kollel people and rabbis that come from money. It's not all of them, but there a lot like that.

So if some naïve BT takes his statement as guilt to move to Israel it's a problem because his statement applies to his rich relatives. He is talking to himself, as most people even rabbis do.

I can give you 100 more examples. This goes on all the time. The lesson, BTs must think for themselves and go for advice only to people who understand them. And I doubt that there are 10 of them in the world.

more praise of the Midwest

Actor Bruce Willis started as a page at NBC in New York. One of his jobs was to fill M&M plates for the actors on Saturday Night Live. After he became a megastar, he told actor Bill Murray, you and Gilda were always nice to me.

Bill Murray was born on September 21, 1950, in Evanston, Illinois, to Lucille, a mail room clerk, and Edward J. Murray, a lumber salesman. He attended Loyola Academy, an all-boys Jesuit school in Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago.^[5][6]

Gilda Radner was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Jewish parents Henrietta (née Dworkin), a legal secretary, and Herman Radner, a businessman.^[1][2]

Raise your kids in the Midwest. It's the best bet for developing good middos. 

I heard somebody say the other day, the primary reason not to live in Israel is that the kids become Israelis. Your mitzvah is to live where you can be the best Jew. 

Jews without mitzvos

 

Why did James Caan never become a huge movie star after The Godfather?

Question: Why did James Caan never become a huge movie star after The Godfather?

He was….briefly.

Why didn’t it last?

1. His box office draws were terrible - Excluding The Godfather films, Caan’s most profitable film was Eraser, he wasn’t the star of it, and it was 20 YEARS after The Godfather. Caan was a great actor, but he just didn’t make anybody any serious money.
2. He had a talent for turning down films that became blockbusters - M*A*S*H*, Kramer vs. Kramer, Close Encounters, Apocalypse Now,etc. Basically if Caan rejected it, it was almost ensured to be a hit.
3. His talent for picking sh*t films - Funny Lady, Freebie and The Bean,Another Man, Another Chance, Mickey Blue Eyes,etc. demonstrated that Caan could pick sh*tless films almost effortlessly. While he earned sizable paychecks for them, they did little to enhance his reputation in Hollywood.
4. Cocaine - Basically, Caan had a decade or so long cocaine problem. He made a great deal of money in the 1970s but apparently between his wives (4) and his cocaine addiction he ran through MILLIONS of dollars and he received a terrible profile in Hollywood and in the media. His drug abuse, and the time he lost because of it, lowered his profile.
5. He made some seriously poor decisions - Beyond his turning down films, Caan was in films which could have been franchised, and yet he declined to do so despite the potential to revive his career and introduce himself to a new generation of fans. Alien Nation could have been a springboard for Caan into either a lucrative film or television series franchise, and yet he turned up his nose at the concept. Even his turn as Philip Marlowe on HBO in 1996 was supposed to be the lead off into a series of such projects featuring him, but Caan nixed that.
6. He was a major league a8shole - Very few of Caan’s costars will disparage his work ethic and his abilities. MANY of his costars will tell stories of what a d*ck that he was and how they wouldn’t work with him again because of it. Even though re-pairings of him and Al Pacino, Kathy Bates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Marlon Brando could have earned Caan millions, none of those individuals wanted to work with Caan again after they did. Between his drug abuse, his abrasiveness, and his excessively high opinion of himself and his talents, he just couldn’t attract stars that wanted to work with him; or retain those who had.

James Caan had the world on a platter following his appearance in The Godfather.

He could have done ANYTHING that he wanted, he was offered a staggering array of high profile projects that he turned down, and he worked steadily throughout the 1970s. He was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood at the time and yet he was unable to do much with it but squander it.

Like his peers of the era Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern, John Savage, Michael York,etc. Caan’s personal life and unstable box office led to his profile dropping until he returned to the character roles that launched him in the 1960s.

Great actor…not so great guy:

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-James-Caan-never-become-a-huge-movie-star-after-The-Godfather

Caan was born on March 26, 1940, in The Bronx, New York City, to Sophie (née Falkenstein; 1915–2016)^[3] and Arthur Caan (1909–1986), Jewish immigrants from Bingen am Rhein, Rhineland, Germany.^[4][5][6] His father was a kosher meat dealer.^[7]

Career choice

The Duties of the Heart says to choose an occupation that suits one's nature. However, the frum world today says to run all decisions by rabbis and rabbis have no clue about careers. To them, the male portion of the Jewish world is divided into two groups: rabbis and baalei batim. The latter are these slobs whose job is to make lots of money and give it to rabbis. Some make more money. Some make less. There's no conception of suitability to a profession. All professions are narishkite anyway. The whole world is a joke to rabbis, unless a dentist or repairman is needed. If a young man even talks about choosing a profession he is steered back into more Gemara lomdus for as many more years as he can stand. Career choice is a verboten topic. Any musings about it are repressed, stamped out. It is regarded as a type of sin.

Yet, the moment the young man is done with yeshiva, if only because the wife that he was finally allowed to obtain, demands it, he now plunges into the working world without training. In Western societies this is a problem, because work is specialized and often requires skill and knowledge, and it is very demanding. You can't support yourself pushing around a milk cart anymore. Works requires dedication and concentration. And that's hard to do if you aren't interested in the work. The Duties of the Heart anticipated all of this. If only rabbis listened to him.

It annoys me when rabbis ask, "What do you do?" And they all ask. It annoys me because when I was in yeshiva I was not allowed to ask, "What will I do?" I wasn't allowed to get any job training. I was talked out of continuing in graduate school. One rabbi even tried to talk me out of getting a job cleaning a shul a half hour a day so that I could eat and maybe go on dates. Now they all want to know, "What do you do?" Read: Do you have money that you can give me?

The moment you walk out the yeshiva door you are expected to be a millionaire. I was once at a parlor meeting and the rabbi of the local shul approached me asking me where I lived. I pointed to the small condos across the street. I kid you not, he turned away, showing me the back of his head and walked away. He wants to hook up with the rich baalei batim only. How they got that way, I cannot say. I suppose usually it's through family money. It wasn't through careful planning and training as advised by a rabbi because rabbis are clueless about ways of earning a parnassah. They know only how to spend it. 

Will you mochel?

I'm always suspicious of Yinglish and shall we call it Ivrish. Words become cliches when you don't speak fluently in a single language, when you insert foreign words. Those words lose their meaning or take on narrow strips of meaning. The word mochel falls into that category. 

Let's say that person A hurt person B, let's say he hurt B very badly. He should feel bad about that. He should feel guilty. He should feel shame. He should question himself. How could I have been so selfish or careless or lazy or egotistical or ignorant? There's much soul searching to engage in. 

It seems to me that people in the OJ world don't do that. Rather, they ask for mechilah, which means, they seek exoneration from Divine punishment. How do you get that exoneration? You get it by getting the other party to say "I mochel." With those magic words it's all over. It's like putting a paper ticket in a parking lot machine and the gate that blocks the road is lifted. You can drive out of the lot now. It's all over.

But is it really over? Is person B not still in pain? Has person A changed the parts of himself that caused such hurt?

Frum people don't think about that, not usually. They are so focused on schar and onesh that they see life in technical terms. They see schar and onesh in technical terms. There is little sense of quality to anything. It's more like how many daf did you 'learn' (pardon the Yinglish). Did you bentch? (pardon the Yinglish) I ask, did you learn something when you learned? Did you feel anything when you bentched? To get mechila, people put on a nice guy act, much like that with kiruv, to elicit the magic words, and then once the words are uttered it's wham bam thank you maam. Topic closed. 

They even go so far as to insist that the matter not be brought up again. You gave me mechila. You are not allowed to bring it up again. Yes, there is a halacha like that, but I believe we approach that overly technically.

If I hurt somebody, and they forgive me but want to bring up the matter again, I hope that they will because they are still hurting. And whose to say that my apology was totally sincere? I don't know if bringing it up 1,000 times is healthy for anybody, but a few times might be called for depending on the seriousness of the issue and the strength and sincerity of the apology. 

Even after the mechila, even if A never mentions the subject again to B, should A let it rest? Has he fixed himself? Did he ever feel bad or did he just fear punishment? Why would punishment come if he didn't do anything immoral? Is this the god who likes to punish for violation of arbitrary rules or the God of justice? 

I think for most people, it's the former, and that is no different from idolatry. The wind god will blow down your farm if you don't appease him. He wants an animal sacrifice. Who knows why? Today we have the boss, the CEO, the cop. Whoever has power over us. We appease him out of fear. People do this all the time in corporations, in government, in the military. They fail to operate from a moral code. They just appease the one in power. 

That's what most people do with mechila. And those are the ones who even seek it. Many people don't even do that. But the ones who do often act as if they are appeasing an irrational god. Getting that mechila means appeasement. What about that person you hurt? Oh that's over. He said the magic words. 

But is it?

What is the message here?

From the Shapell's newsletter. Nearly all of this newsletter consists of letters from students. And every letter is built around Oct 7 and the alleged anti-Semitism that is swarming America. And on top of that there is Torah study-- Gemara for the men and Rashi for the women. 

This one just has to tell us that he is becoming a doctor, something all doctors seem to need to tell everyone, and then it's right to Oct. 7 and defending Israel, the country that is. 

This one is from a female, so Gemara is replaced with Rashi who is employed to understand those nasty campus protests. 

And that leads us to the grand prize, the soldier.

So what's my point here? These are new BTs. Shouldn't they be excited about finding G-d, who barely gets a mention here, as well as a life plan of mitzvos? Why is Oct 7 and defending Israel the main thing and textual studies the next thing after that? This is Modern Orthodoxy today: anti-Semitism, Israel, and Gemara, and by Gemara they always mean lomdus. It's not a far cry from the Reform Jewish Hebrew school Holocaust and Israel. It's that with a little Torah study on top. 

For me this is banal. I hesitate to criticize the students. Their accomplishment in becoming frum is monumental, and if this is the way the works for them then they should go for it. But I suspect that the school is shaping their minds, as several of them write here, and to what is it shaping them? Secularity for the most part. 

As for the antisemitism, somebody should tell them that America continues to be the least anti-Semitic country in history. The Congress continuously passes laws criminalizing antisemitism and the administration is instituting policy that denies visas to anybody who criticizes the state of Israel, which is not antisemitism, particularly given the government's conduct over the last 20 months. Campus protests and encampments are not anti-Semitic. Half the protestors are Jewish and they are protesting actions of the IDF. So let's drop the crybaby bit. But they can't because Zionism has been fueled by obsession with anti-Semitism since Herzl and even when there isn't any, they imagine it. That's really the god that they worship.

In short, Shapell's is a Zionism training ground, even though most of the rabbis walk around in black suits. How confusing. 

temperaments differ

This is the statute (chok) of the Torah. (19:2)

One of the seemingly irrational aspects of the Poroh Adumoh is the fact that it is metaher teme’im and metameh tehorim (purifies the impure and makes impure the pure). People’s natures and

temperaments differ from each other, as do their shorshei haneshamos (“sources of the souls” or inborn spiritual makeup). For this reason, the path adopted by one person in his avodas Hashem may be perfect for him, but totally inappropriate for another person with a different emotional makeup and spiritual level.

Each person has to engage in introspection to determine his specific character traits and positive qualities. This way, he will be in a position to know what his specific duties are in this world, and

what types of avodas Hashem will assist him specifically in fulfilling his purpose in life. Hashem did not create us to be clones of each other, and the Poroh Adumoh teaches us that what serves as a source of taharah for one person may potentially be a source of tumah for another, based on each person’s specific circumstances.

פ' חקת תשפ"ה Based on droshos by Maran HaGaon Rav Moshe Sternbuch shlita, Gaavad of Yerushalayim. To receive these weekly divrei Torah email ravsternbuchtorah@gmail.com  

South Florida

A repair man just came by. He was perfectly punctual. The second hand of my clock had just reached the 12 when I heard a gentle knock on the door. Very pleasant American sounding guy, so I just had to ask about his origins. Born in South Africa but raised in South Florida from the age of eight. When I told him that I was from New York, he commented on the culture clash that he felt visiting New York. The subway in particular threw him.

I told that him it's a mistake that BTs are so often directed to New York, and that in general it's problematic that OJ culture today is shaped by New York and Israel, as these are such intense places. It gives a picture of Judaism that doesn't have to be. He nodded in agreement. Maybe he was just being polite. After all, he is from Florida. 

break free

 https://x.com/i/status/1939081959356907917

You cross that line

When you are feeling out Orthodox Judaism you still have free choice. Everybody is being so warm, even if in a pushy sort of way, promising paradise. (Well maybe not everybody, but enough of them.) At some point, you cross the line and you accept it upon yourself. In a flash, the candy truck turns into a cage, like in the scene with the child snatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. You start hearing the word mechuyav all the time. Along with that comes the word gehennom. The idea of choice fades away. Now you have no choice, and any considerations of your individuality, desires, dreams, and predilections cease to matter. You must run all decisions by a stranger that goes by the name of the rav. You are threatened with hell. Your life is snatched away. 

Here comes the kiruv man.

You step inside the candy car. And then this 

 

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

Kiruv part 1

Kiruv part 2

Guaranteed

One of the most important lessons I have learned over the decades is that as a frum Jew you have to make choices that help you to be happy. This is a hard religion. The whole country is jet skiing and you are sitting in your suit and tie in the same old musty shul with the same old people muttering the same old prayers for three hours and hearing a reading of that mostly incomprehensible Torah portion once again. After that, you go to a kiddush where you eat some greasy kugel and hear a rabbi tell you how important it is to study Torah, just like he did last week and the week before and every week of the year before that. Then you sit at a Shabbos table for three hours and eat baked chicken and say a short vort that might interest you and might not. Then you sit in your apartment for four hours and try to read. Then it's off to afternoon davening. It really can be drag.

It certainly would help if you were living in a place that suited you, earning your parnassah in a field that interests you, pursuing a religious derech and studying the parts of the Torah that speak to you, and being married to somebody who is a match for you.

I have never met a yeshivish rabbi who grasped any of that. To them, you stay in yeshiva and engage in Talmudic pilpul on yeshivish mesechtas as long as you can, grab any parnassah that earns you the most money so you can support Torah study, marry the most fertile and wealthy woman who is machshiv Torah study, and live near a yeshiva where they engage in Talmudic pilpul. Maybe to them that's happiness. It's the only life they have ever known and I suppose they became rabbis because they enjoy it on some level.

They take a big gamble assuming that every Jew is the same way. I know numerous people who have fallen away who might not have if they had perused the religion and the life that supports it with some eye toward suitability to the individual.

Modern Orthodox rabbis are no better, at least not for men. Lots of flexibility is employed for the women, but the men are treated much the same in the Modern Orthodox world as the Yeshiva world. I once told a Modern Orthodox rabbi that I can understand all the efforts to make the religion more palatable for women, but that I would like to see the same effort applied to men. He said, "I don't know what you are talking about," and walked away. In the MO world, any pressure to study more Torah than is reasonable is replaced by the pressure to move to Israel and be slaughtered in the army. It's all pressure. If you are unhappy they mock you for it, which is not a solution. 

It's not that I need rabbis to direct me to suitable endeavors. It's that I'm told to defer to them for my life decisions and every f'ing time that I have done that, they have nixed my plans. My plans are not outlandish. But these guys are so narrow minded and so ignorant about the world, that everything that doesn't match exactly their life experience sounds outlandish to them.

Happiness isn't just about attitude. It's also about choices, about environment, about life style. Would you be happy working in a coal mine if you just adjusted your attitude? Part of the art of life is coming up with creative solutions and putting in the work to make them happen. I did that many times. Rabbis ruined it every single time.

The unhappiness of parents affects children. They start to see life and the Jewish religion through that lens. I'll bet that there are scores off off-the-derech children that were raised by parents who were disappointed with their lives, but didn't have to be. However, rabbis got in the way.

I don't go to them anymore. The famous music artist Bob Dylan said that if you have a dream, you have to keep it yourself, because if you tell somebody about it, they'll kill it. 

He wasn't talking about rabbis. If he only knew. With them dream murder is guaranteed. 

Yes, we're all different

 

You have probably heard more than one rabbis say that each of his children is different from the others. Yet strangely, recognition of the differences between people is barely acknowledged on any practical level in the yeshiva world. Women are allowed slightly different choices in wardrobe (striped shirt versus solid) but they are all to be kollel wives living in Lakewood. Men aren't allowed any choices in wardrobe other than color of tie. Is your mind different from that of other people? Ask your rav about that, they'll say. Think what he tells you to think. 

I recall my days in yeshiva as an extended stay in a pressure cooker of conformity. It wasn't just that the rabbis didn't value individuality, they seemed to relish extinguishing it, as if they were stamping out evil. We are going to teach you the yeshiva way. That was essentially the attitude. What is the yeshiva way? To them it meant that there's no you. When there's no you, you have attained it. 

Many rabbis try to sniff out any traces of original thought or feeling. They do this not to cultivate it but to crush it. They see their job as talking you out of anything you want to do. Even if you want to study Baba Matzia they'll say, "Why not Kiddushin?" If Kiddushin then "Why not Baba Matzia?" If you say, "I want to start shiduchim." They'll say, "Why not 'learn' more?" If you say, "I want to 'learn' more," they'll say, "What about shiduchim?" 

I put question marks at the end of those sentences, but they aren't really questions. They are edicts delivered with shame. The question marks are ridicule marks. They indicate questions that you aren't allowed to answer. If you try, you risk a slap of some kind. 

Dump your friends, stop talking to your family, drop out of college, study Torah but not kabbalah, not chassidus, not halacha, not grammar, not history, not even Mishnah as its own subject. We'll allow a tiny bit of commentary on Chumash. 15 minutes at the most. Study Gemara, but only certain chapters and with certain commentators. Crazy as it sounds, that's what it was like.

If you stay long enough under a regime like that you can lose yourself completely. You lose the ability to make decisions, which is a big problem because life is full of decisions.

Where you might dream of meeting a really cool woman who inspires you to flee from all this, shiduchim generally makes the problem worse, at least for men. The rules for shiduchim are set up for the woman. She likes restaurants, but not parks. She likes parks, but not restaurants. She wants to be called three times a week. She wants to be called once a week. What? You didn't know the rules for this particular woman? Shame on you. Obviously, you aren't one of the good guys. You might even be a potential wife beater and get withholder. The man becomes a car service and waiter, tending to the client. He may lose his sense of whether he even likes the woman. His entire focus is on keeping the customer blissful. Many a marriage follows this sick precedent.

I know BTs who approach the entire religion as a death threat. Do this, don't do that or you will be punished. 

Is that why you chose to join? Is that what the kiruv person told you? Certainly not. There it's all love bombing and fantasy talk, much like army recruitment. "Be all that you can be." "See the world." "Learn a trade and get paid for it." Then they ship you off to Iraq. Kiruv works similarly. One minute you are having dinner in the biggest house in Monsey hearing talk from a successful lawyer about the joys of Shabbos and how "anything you do well now you'll be even better at." The next you are in a hovel in Jerusalem being told to obey your rav.

It doesn't have to go this way. It's up to you to be brave and fight for your life. 

Brill interviews Shapiro

13) How would you answer those who critique your position on studying Jewish thought by saying that only halakhic authorities should decide such issues?

Rav Kook identified a significant problem: There are individuals who possess great halakhic knowledge but lack a deep understanding of Jewish thought. As a result, these individuals tend to adopt a “stringent” stance on matters of Jewish belief. They assume that everything they believe is a principle of the Torah, and if anyone expresses a differing opinion, they regard that person as a heretic. Therefore, even if one argues that halakhic authorities should be the ones to decide such matters, it is crucial that they also be well-versed in Jewish thought—a combination that has historically been quite rare.

In general, however, I do not accept the premise that halakhic authorities can "poskin" on matters of Jewish thought the way they decide questions of kashrut or Shabbat. I also do not believe that a view "accepted" years ago can now be ruled out of bounds. While some more recent Orthodox authorities adopt this position, Maimonides rejected such a conception, and I believe it lacks logical sense. I discuss this issue in my article, "Is There a ‘Pesak’ for Jewish Thought?" available here.

https://kavvanah.blog/2025/06/19/marc-shapiro-interview-renewing-the-old-sanctifying-the-new/

What is Judaism?

The goal of Judaism is to become a mensch through observance of mitzvos, all in the service of G-d. The goal is not to earn schar through pilpul. Study of Torah is a mitzvah and teaches about the other mitzvos. So it is very important. That's the meaning of kneged kulam. The meaning is not that Torah study is superior but that it leads to observance of mitzvos. The essence of Judaism is observance that improves you and the world. Schar is part of the picture, but is not the goal that should consume our days and nights. It is a motivator, but shouldn't be everything. Becoming a better person is the focus.

Since each person is unique and his situation is unique, the way to go about this differs from person to person. This is why a good mentor, a rav, can be helpful, because it's hard to figure all this out when you are young and when you are in the midst of the battle. However, a good mentor is nearly impossible to find. Nearly every rabbi that you will meet is Yeshivist. He doesn't see a unique individual. He knows little about people and life. He knows only the Yeshivist doctrine of Gemara, gelt, and guilt, ie engage in pilpul, make lots of money, and see mitzvos only as these things you gotta do or be punished.

Yeshivism in our times cares only about study. It doesn't care about improving the person and has a negative outlook on the person, who is seen as evil. Yeshivism throws away the mitzvos and produces a Christian like worship of study. Yeshivists want you to devote yourself to study as Christians devote themselves to JC. 

Generally speaking, rabbis do only harm. Of the hundreds of encounters that I have had with rabbis, I can count on one hand the times I was told anything helpful that I hadn't thought of myself. 98% of the time they will confuse you and thwart good plans. Thus, it's better not to talk to them at all because they do more harm than good. They are nearly all products of Yeshivism.

Was Machon Shlomo in the 1980s a cult?

Was Machon Shlomo in the 1980s a cult? Let's look at the primary features of a cult. The four stages are deceptive recruiting, isolation, personality breakdown, and reprogramming.

Deceptive recruiting: That's Moodus. Sports and barbeques on a 22 acre resort in the hills of Connecticut. Lots of people coming and going, including rabbis and yeshiva students who are on their best behavior as they get a free vacation for the family. The atmosphere is light. Rosenberg is a distant figure on the premises. Waiters serve your meals in a spacious dining room. At the head table was Rav Schwab, the venerable leader of the Breuer's community, an elderly Jew with a distinguished bearing from Germany. Promises are made of an Ivy League yeshivah experience in the Holy City. I don't recall if this was promised then, but Machon Shlomo now claims falsely that it's graduates occupy the highest positions in finance, law, etc. and that it has a close knit community. I remember then feeling as if I had entered a highly affluent inner sanctum of some kind. It was intoxicating. Let's examine all this falsehood as we look at the next stages of a cult.

Isolation: Machon Shlomo was situated in a few small apartments located in one four story apartment building on the outskirts of Jerusalem. There were no basketball or shuffleboard courts and volleyball nets as there were in Moodus. There was no view of the forest, but rather of a Har Menuchos cemetery. There weren't rabbis and yeshiva students coming and going. The tiny staff of six was mostly off limits. 4 of them were Gemara teachers, one for the handful of second year students only as he never spoke to first year students, and three for each of the levels. You only dealt with one of them, and even then just for the shiur. Before that he prepared. After lunch (at which time the rabbis sat at a separate table) he left. Other than the one Gemara rebbe were Rosenberg and Gershenfeld. That was the staff. It was quite a contrast from Moodus. 

It's also a contrast from Ivy League schools as they have large staff  of distinguished faculty, reams of class offerings, and lovely campuses. 

Neither Rosenberg nor Gershenfeld were around very much. Rosenberg had an apartment in Jerusalem. Gershenfeld came in only in the afternoon for his Chumash shiur. Before the shiur he prepared. After the shiur, he left. For most of the day, there were no rabbis around. Even today, if you visit Machon Shlomo, as I have done numerous times, you won't find rabbis on premises.

Worse still, Rosenberg and Gershenfeld did not qualify as rabbis. Rosenberg had been an insurance salesman and before that had a one year stint as a teacher, and a two year stint as a principal of a tiny out of town yeshiva day school in the 1960s. The job no doubt was secured by his father, who was a well-known rabbi, not necessarily a scholar but one who set up institutions in America. Rosenberg was not learned. He was not articulate. He was even anti-intellectual. He once told me that there's no such thing as intellectual depth, only emotional depth. Gershenfeld was a 29 year old baal teshuvah (when the place started) who came from a highly assimilated background. When I got there, he was 35. Neither of these two who ran a so-called Litvish yeshiva were capable of giving a Gemara shiur. They had hired hands for that. Their job was to control the message, to be the only ones to introduce the students to hashkafa and halacha.  The rest of the staff had been instructed not to talk to us. One of the promises made to me was that a student gets lots of personal attention at Machon Shlomo. This was utterly false. I spoke to Gershenfeld on four brief occasions in 2 years. Brief means under a minute, and I'm not shy. I'm a person who goes right on up to teachers and talks to them. 

Also there was no Rabbi Schwab. We had nothing to do with him and never talked about him. They didn't encourage our contacting him even when we were back in America. He had been used as a lure. 

The isolation was manifested also in the location on a development site. MS was the first resident in an area that was accessible by dirt road. There was no Jewish community there. Rosenberg told me that he chose this isolated spot intentionally so that he could have full control over the students. Thus, we never went to bar mitzvahs, weddings, brisim, shalom zachars. None of that. We never met anyone who could present a perspective different than that of R and G.

The isolation occurred also in the absence of a library. There was only a small shelf of books, maybe a dozen of them. Even today there are no books in the MS beis midrash, just bare white walls. No other yeshiva is like this. Remember also that this is before the Internet. There was no going on line for a different perspective. 

We were isolated also via the persistent condemnation of all other schools for BTs. We were told again and again that they all did things the wrong way. They were bad. We had nothing to do with any of them. Students referred to those schools as the enemies. The conditioning against them made it harder to leave. Gershenfeld once told a student, "Anybody who leaves here fails in life."

We also didn't see visitors in the beis midrash other than a neighbor or two who came for Maariv.

We also never met other rabbis. Guest speakers were not allowed. We were never taken to see gadolim. 

We never went on any trips to see Israel, not even Jerusalem. We also didn't have warm get togethers, just a small party before Chanukah and before Purim. The latter was preceded with a depressing speech against bochurim getting drunk, nothing about the meaning of Purim. 

Personality breakdown: This occurred in numerous ways. Rosenberg and Gershenfeld were obsessed with teaching the boys not to be arrogant, not by example of course because those two were quite far from humble. Putdowns were regular. You don't know anything. Your accomplishments don't impress me - that sort of thing. 

Personality breakdown also occurred through control, through treating us like children. We weren't allowed to lead davening, to choose our own seat, study partner, or dorm room, to wear black hats, or to date. We might be ready in a few years. They'd tell us  when, which of course they never did. The subtext there was that we'd need to earn their approval by adopting their view on life.

We also couldn't choose what shiurim to attend because there were no choices. There were only 2 classes: Gemara pilpul and Chumash. There was no Mishnah, Gemara bikiyus, halacha, Hebrew, Nach, Machshava, or history. There was no class in mitzvos or the calendar. Let me clarify there was a twice weekly 1/2 hour long halacha shiur given by Rosenberg who knew nothing about halacha. Example question and response: What's the bracha on pizza? I don't know I don't eat pizza. His main activity was to rant about baalei teshuvah who were audacious enough to think they knew halacha or could poskin. Everything with him was a polemic. I don't count this as a halacha shiur. 

Moreover, the Gemara and Chumash classes had the function of breaking people. Gemara was not introduced. We heard nothing about its background, language, or strange style. We just opened up to page 2 and started. I was cast into the highest shiur when I didn't even know the alphabet. We studied a few pages of Gemara from morning till night. We used all kinds of commentators even though we were beginners. And it was all done in a competitive atmosphere with the snobs in the highest shiur not talking to those in the lower ones. All of this overwhelms the mind. Gemara can break you if you care about your intellect and you are overdosed with pilpul.

Chumash consisted of Gershenfeld reading the text to us. Machon Shlomo cares about the text they said even though they didn't study the language of the text which is Hebrew. His idea of adhering to the text was to read every word. It was a like a laning from a guy who didn't pronounce Hebrew very well. Most of the shiur was him reading.

This is not the way to study Chumash. It's the way to terrify people, because Chumash is terrifying with its stories of betrayal, murder, infanticide, kidnapping, rape, war, genocide, slavery, and punishment, punishment, punishment. The nation is always failing, and that's how R and G made us feel about ourselves, that we were always failing. Chumash needs commentary. You need a rebbe to study Chumash, need a guide. Without that, you learn to be terrified of God, Judaism, the world, and yourself. Even the Ramchal says that you will not learn emunah from the plain meaning of the Chumash. So essentially everything about Machon Shlomo was designed to break you, even the little Torah that they offered. 

Questions were mocked. Why do you need to know that, was a common response. You are trying to show off with that question. That's very arrogant of you to ask that.

Reprogramming:

Machon Shlomo is not only the best yeshiva for BTs but the only one. Over and over again we heard that even though the place was brand new. They acted as if they had a long-standing reputation. I can only think that R and G thought so highly of themselves that their little school with 15 students automatically achieved value through their value. 

Your task is to go out and be a high earning corporate professional while being some kind of Litvack baal habayis. You cannot get smicha. You cannot become a rabbi. You cannot become Chassidic or Modern Orthodox. Yet strangely, one guy there who was a big masmid was criticized for his plans to go to medical school after MS. 

The Machon Shlomo derech, as it was contrived, was to be a non-questioning, non-spiritual, corporate worker who looked down on everything, and saw his identity as being a Machon Shlomo guy, which means mostly to shut down the mind and hate the world. It is quite a trick making your identity a school when that school has no alumni communication or gatherings. They never contacted us after we left even if we contacted them. They taught you to fear the world and yourself and then sent you on your way back to America alone. So, yes, another lie (and cults are in the habit of lying) was that there's a tight alumni network. There was none. They never contacted us, not a single time. Another lie was that nobody who ever went to Machon Shlomo left the religion. Firstly, they have no way of knowing that because they didn't keep in touch with anybody. Secondly, it simply isn't true. Guys from my year left the religion. I have met many since then.

So there it is. All four stages of cult indoctrination. No other school for BTs operates this way. Others deceive in their recruiting, but not like this, not black and white. They might isolate you to the yeshiva world, but not within it, not to two crazy and unlearned guys and nobody else. Other schools have guest speakers and meet gadolim. Other schools were located in frum neighborhoods not on a barren hill. Other schools offer a variety of types of classes and have libraries. Other schools can do some yeshivish type control of the students, but they don't assign your seat and ban you from dating. Machon Shlomo in the 1980s was a cult. I can say much more. But I've leave it at that. Write me for more if you suffered there and are still recovering.

The place has changed some since then. Rosenberg is dead. Har Nof is now a real neighborhood. There's a tiny library, still not much. It's in a storage room, and it's a mess. But it's more than we had. There's more staff now, and from what I hear students can speak to them. However, they still have the same schedule of six pages of Gemara and Gershenfeld and his Chumash shiur. When you have the secret sauce why change? That's the attitude over there. I suppose they think that they have never made mistakes. There's nothing to change. They are in the same set of apartments, which now look old and cruddy. They still have the same no dating rule, even for Cohanim. I don't know if it qualifies as a full fledge cult anymore but it's still a very unhealthy place, in my opinion.