I have watched many people take on a person as their personal leader, or rav, simply because the local synagogue committee appointed him to be the guy who sits in the front of the room, tell over a few brief thoughts on the parsha, and make minor decisions on shul decorum. It's the rare person we call rabbi that has any training in counseling. And it's just as rare for anybody who is called rabbi to have studied any more than a small portion of the Talmud. He could have gone to yeshiva for decades and worked only on a few chapters of a few tractates. The Talmud consists of over 5,400 pages. He might have looked superficially at 10% of it, and in many yeshivas they skip over the aggadata, the parts containing wisdom for life. Rather, they engage in abstract argumentation over the derivation of halachas, and don't even discuss practical halacha. He might have studied 15 minutes of musar a day, and he probably didn't even do that. You hear that he studied at the Mir and just assume that makes him a scholar. The MIr has 5,000 students who study by themselves with the benefit of a class a week. They sit at their schtenders and study a few pages of the Gemara on their own. How is he equipped to be in charge of your life? People assume if a Jewish man is employed as the rabbi of a shul or as a teacher in a school that he is a true talmid chochom, a student of Torah wisdom, and the typical person likewise assumes that whoever he is married to is qualified to be a rebbetzin or counselor of women. All he has to do is get people to call him rabbi or rosh yeshiva and he's got the authority. People fall to their knees when they hear those titles, but they are not necessarily deserved. Iin our generation, they do not automatically indicate qualification for mentorship or authority over your life. People just toss around the lingo, the popular phrases and sentiments that they heard in yeshiva and around town, and pose as authorities. The new baal teshuvah usually can't see through this. Even people who have been frum all their lives can't see through it. They have been beaten down for so long, told to obey, ordered to not question. They may have literally been slapped around when they were in school for daring to question, threated with gehennom. This is not uncommon. So because they follow, you follow.
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Monday, February 19, 2024
it becomes small
If you say that the Torah is big, but then submit yourself to someone who is familiar with only a small piece of it, then it effectively becomes small. Now if that person knows more than you or something that you don't, he can be helpful, but there's a difference between someone who is helpful to you and someone you look at as everything. Every soul is different. How can one person encompass another? Maybe it's different with the handful of Torah giants, particularly of prior generations. But the average person has access only to the average rabbi, who is not capable of encompassing other people. Today, many people think of a rav as a master. He is in charge of your decisions and your thoughts. You have to filter everything through him. And they are obsessed with this idea of "having a rav." It's the first question they ask you. "Do you have a rav?" I have heard more than one rabbi say to young women, "If he doesn't have a rav (a master) forget him." So this shomer mitzvos young man is suddenly discredited, outcast, and rejected because he doesn't have this one person to rule over him. It's a cynical notion. But it might be something worse. It might be a way of taking people away from the Torah. If every young man has to obey men who know a sliver of Torah, then you have torn them away from Torah and handed them over to conventional constructs. And if, as it is said, most rabbis in the era before moshiach are eruv rav, then you have handed him to erev rav. He's not even allowed to say that something violates the Tanach. No, you must listen to your rav, not to the Tanach, they'll say. Read this as, you must listen to the erev rav.
Friday, February 16, 2024
The yeshivists who aren’t as bad
Parasitic wasps inject their eggs into a host, often
accompanied by venom and a virus. Their larvae grow and emerge from the
unwitting host — usually killing it. Some wasps control their host’s behaviour,
effectively “zombifying” them to help the larva survive. (Jo Adetunji)
The yeshivists who aren’t as bad are worse. They are the
ones who won’t rage against the idea of a man getting a job or who might
reluctantly say something a tad positive about a very nice goy or who might
raise an eyebrow at a more ridiculous comment from a rosh yeshiva. These
not-quite-as-bad yeshivists are worse because they get you to lower your guard
so yeshivish poison can seep into your kishkes. Without them, you'd run and
find another way to be Torah observant. But they keep you around as they pretend
to be cool. But in the end, they are just as elitist, just as hostile to any
ideology other than their own, just as mocking and obnoxious, just as skilled
at the putdown, just as foolish about shidduchim and marriage and secular
interests and gentiles and Chassidim and Sefardim and every Torah topic there
is. They are no different where it counts and like parasitic wasps take over
your behavior and lead you to destroy yourself.
More on the topic:
A new study in the Journal of
Experimental Biology documents one such disturbing example of wasp larvae that
takes control of their unfortunate spider hosts.
The Japanese scientists behind the
study thought the host-parasite relationship between the wasp Reclinervellus
nielseni (most wasps have only a scientific name) and its orb-weaver spider
host Cyclosa argenteoalba could help us understand how parasitic organisms
alter their host’s behaviour.
The adult wasps lay an egg on the
outside of the spider’s body. The wasp larva hatches out and attaches itself to
the spider’s abdomen, where it feeds on the fluids within, while the spider
goes about its normal life. At a certain point though, the larva causes the
spider’s behaviour to change. It’s as though the larva takes control of the
spider and forces it to create the perfect environment for the wasp larva to
transform (or “pupate”) into an adult.
Under normal circumstances, this
species of spider spins two different types of web: a “normal orb web” that
looks like a typical spider’s web with a spiral of sticky thread that is used
for catching prey, and a “resting web” which lacks the sticky spiral that is
spun just before the spider moults its old exoskeleton.
But the parasitised orb-weavers spin a
web just before the wasp larvae transform into adults and kill the spider. This
“cocoon web” looks very similar to the resting web. In fact, the wasp larvae
had induced the spiders to build a modified resting web as it would create a
safer environment for the larvae to pupate – just as a resting web creates the
perfect conditions for the spider to moult.
To test their theory the researchers
observed spiders building webs with and without wasps for company, they
examined the structures of the webs and tested the strength of the silk fibres
within them. The wasp cocoon webs had similar strength and structure as the
regular resting web. They even had similar “decorations” of tiny fibrous
threads which reflect UV light which may help to prevent other insects and
larger animals disturbing the web, thus increasing the larva’s chances of
pupating successfully. They also found that the cocoon webs have extra
reinforcement to make them stronger, further increasing the likelihood of the
wasp’s survival.
The spiders are forced to abandon
their normal behaviour to create the cocoon web, either by altering their
normal orb web or by creating one from scratch. The spiders then sit in the
middle of the web motionless, until the larvae kill it.
The scientists suggest that this
control over the spider could be caused by the wasp larvae injecting hormones
into the spider which mimic hormones that control the spider’s moulting
behaviour. In effect, the spiders have been drugged by the wasps into doing
their bidding.
Mind-controlling
wasps enslave zombie spiders to build them a perfect nest (theconversation.com)
In
sum, the parasitic wasps inject the spider with chemicals that mimic its own
hormones and cause the spider to build a web that is used by the wasp to grow
other wasps that kill the spider.
-------------
Spider
Molting
What is Molting in Spiders
Molting is a biological
process in which spiders (and other invertebrates) shed their exoskeleton – the
flexible outer covering of their body – and form a new, larger covering during
their developmental stages.
Why do Spiders Molt
Spiders shed their skin
simply to grow in size. They have an exoskeleton, which is quite strong due to
the presence of various protein molecules, and a long-chain polysaccharide
called chitin. Although this structure is flexible enough to allow the spider
to move, it does not expand or grow as the spider’s internal organs do.
Therefore, spiders need to form a new exoskeleton and shed the old one so that
they can increase their size.
Spider
Molting: What is it, Why and How Does it Occur, Video
(spideridentifications.com)
---------------
pupate /pyoo͞′pāt″/
intransitive verb
1.
To become a pupa.
2.
To go through a pupal stage.
verb
1.
Develop into a pupa.
A pupa
is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature
and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are
holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their life cycle, the
stages thereof being egg, larva, pupa, and imago. Wikipedia
Thursday, February 15, 2024
Yeshivism and Christianity
Yeshivism and Christianity
5 Tenants of Christianity:
- Antinomianism – abrogation of the commandments
- Original sin – man is born sinful
- A man as god
- Redemption through faith to this false god
- Jews no longer chosen people.
Parallels to Yeshivism
- Torah is described relentlessly as the greatest mitzvah and is emphasized to the point where mitzvos are grotesquely minimized into near oblivion (“You gotta do what you gotta do,” as one yeshivist rabbi said). The term tzidkas as used almost as ridicule, only being a gaon is truly respected.
- Bochurim and baalei batim are described as having only yetzer hara, no yetzer hatov.
- Rabbis as are considered infallible and clairvoyant. You aren’t allowed to argue with them even with the arguments of other rabbis. Only they are allowed to do that. Go to them for all decisions even though they know nothing about the relevant issues.
- Have faith in the Torah. The Gemara is god some actually say. Redemption through Gemara pilpul.
- Massive condescension of anybody but yeshivish ‘gadolim’ and rabbanim. Baalei batim, Chassidim, Sephardim are looked upon almost as another class of people, like Gentiles to Jews.
The big difference between them is that Christianity preaches love and Yeshivism preaches hate. However, as yeshivish rabbis tell us constantly, Christianity actually resulted in hate. Don't picture American Protestantism but European Catholicism with all that burning at the stake.
Maharal Derus Al Hatorah 17:1 in Sefaria.org
Maharal Derus Al Hatorah 17:1 in Sefaria.org
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Neo-Hasidism
Neo-Hasidism, Neochassidut, or Neo-Chassidus, is an approach to Judaism in which people learn beliefs and practices of Hasidic Judaism, and incorporate it into their own lives or prayer communities, yet without formally joining a Hasidic group. Over the 20th century neo-Hasidism was popularized by the works of writers such as Hillel Zeitlin, Martin Buber, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Lawrence Kushner, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and Arthur Green.
Monday, February 12, 2024
Yom HaZicharon Reflections
I just returned from a Yom HaZicharon presentation with my Ulpan class. It was my first and I went with an open mind as I hadn't had breakfast or lunch and lacked the strength to project my own perspective onto it unless really provoked. Warning, these are not the kind of reflections you may be expecting.
A number of things struck me during the 45 minute ceremony which was held at a national religious school and conducted mostly by school boys. The first was how all the gestures seemed borrowed from somewhere else. The plethora of flags, the marching, the solder with the torch, the national anthem. It was all European/American military except for the national anthem not mentioning God. There was even an American military band marching song which very well could have been written by John Phillip Sousa.
The second thing was how little of it was religious considering that the school was National Religious and this was an event to commemorate the dead. We Jews are specialists in commemorating the dead. We have more prayers for that occasion than anybody. However, very little of that was employed.
At one point they started to sing Ani Me'amim whose theme of waiting for Moshiach was so contrary to everything else that it seemed out of place as well as borrowed from somewhere else. And that is the third thing. The event was confusing. It was as if they were secular Israelis in style but remembered that they were also trying to be religious even though the two clash thematically. I felt confused and they looked confused.
As I sat there I reflected on a tirade my Ulpan teacher had just made about the State of Israel being a place where Jews didn't have to be victims anymore. If my Hebrew had been better I might have interrupted her shouting to ask her to consider the fact that many more Jews have been murdered in the land of Israel since the founding of the State than outside the land even though for most of that period many more lived outside the state.
So something really started to bother me. I felt this expectation and felt that the school boys were being indoctrinated to identify with the State in memory of the deceased solders when it seems to me that the solders might only have died because of the existence of the State. I wanted to turn my head and share my thoughts with the person next to me but knew I'd never get an intelligible answer but only outrage as one of the prices we pay for this State is the development of extremely aggressive personalities that uphold their arguments with force of personality.
With this, the whole event started to seem surreal to me, like a big fake out, a big con, a big balloon like communism. I can only think that God is Who keeps Jews safe. Where would Israel be without American weapons and political support. Who has ever attacked us besides weak Arab nations? Israelis strut around as if they could conquer Russia and China combined when we have, Baruch Hashem, never faced an opponent any bigger than ourselves. Yet, we are quite small. Hashem has kept the challenges to scale. It is Hashem that has saved us all this time, not the State to which the people all around me were giving their allegiance.
And what does Hashem want from us? To keep mitzvos. But mitzvos and sin were not mentioned at this event. The reason we were sent into exile was not mentioned. All the thoughts seem to be focus on our military might and the solders who paid the price for our acquiring it.
I had never felt it so viscerally before that Zionism is an exercise in heresy. And Religious Zionism is a fraud, like a kashrus seal on traife meat. Here I was at Chardal school, the more religious of the Religious Zionist institutions, watching a military parade singing an atheistic anthem.
I walked out feeling a little sad but peaceful as well. You see, I really did walk in open minded. I was open to the arguments for Zionism and was suffering from my own confusion. I walked out with clarity. Zionism is not for me.
Friday, February 9, 2024
a verboten subject
I became Torah observant, but I had questions. People at shul said, you have to go to yeshiva for that. I was supposed to go for one year. I went but they wouldn’t answer any questions. We just studied Baba Matzia all day. [A tractate of the Gemara.] And then they wouldn’t let me leave. They treated leaving yeshiva as if that was the worst thing you could do, an act of near apostasy, as if it would be the end of my life. I’d be taken in by the world they said. “Why would you want to leave this beautiful environment,” they said, as if there was nothing else in life worth doing. They wouldn’t even talk about job training or any kind of careers. That was a verboten subject. I asked how I was going to earn a living. I was told, “You don’t need to, other people will give you money.” The rabbi who told me that lived in a house that is now valued at $850,000. I said, “Really? Is there someone who will pay for my medical insurance right now?” He told me that I didn’t need health insurance. If I got sick, the community would pay for my treatment. Well guess what, I got sick, and nobody was there to pay for it.
Shlomo
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
Jews without mitzvos
Who is the rudest celebrity you have met, and who would be the nicest?
Rudest: Milton Berle. [Runners up: Valerie Harper, Richard Dreyfuss.]
Nicest: George Wendt, Robin Williams (tie). Honorable Mention: Lynn Redgrave, Maurice Gibb, Sandy Dennis, Richard Kiley, William Conrad, Jack Guilford, John Astin, David Selby, Teresa Wright, Willie Nelson…
biggest mistake
The biggest mistake I made in become Torah observant was getting involved with yeshiva people because they are lunatics. They see the entire religion as being about Gemara lomdus. A baal teshuvah has more important things to do such as learn how to observe the mitzvos, learn about their meaning, get an understanding of some basic hashkafa, find a place to live, get a parnassah where they can keep Shabbos, and get married to a suitable match. Yeshiva people don't want to bother with any of that. They take it all for granted because it was all handed to them. At this point in their lives they are focused on Gemara study and they assume you are like them. They also operate this view that every problem in life can be solved with Torah study. You have an ingrained toenail, you need to study Tosfos. I'm exaggerating only a bit. They lack empathy. They lack sensitivity. And many of them are vicious. If you even hint at discomfort with anything they do, they become pit bulls. They spend so much of their day feeling superior to all of humanity and Jewry, that they can't turn it off. There are BTs with a gentile parent, gentile uncles and aunts, gentile friends. What do you want them to do, despise everybody they have known all their lives because you are going to become their family. But you are not going to become their family. You might sit and go over a Rashi with one of them once or twice. You want them to despise colleges? They spent their entire childhoods planning for college. Not everybody adores Gemara study and certainly not at the start and certainly not with the way its is usually taught, i.e. without any educational methodology. A Gemara is not a magic hat that you pull rabbits out of. But many yeshiva guys act like it is. Just open to any page and feel the wonder exploding from the page. That's what they think and they are fools. I'm sorry that I ever stepped foot into a yeshivish institution. My life would be completely different if I had never exposed myself to these people and by that I mean it would be incomparably better. I'd be more religious and much saner.
moshe
There was a time
There was a time, I looked away
I gave my fears the final say
Wish I could now, take back the day
There was a time, so long ago
There was a fire, there was a glow
And there was you, I didn't know
There was a time
And in that time, you looked at me
I wondered then if it could be
I didn't hope, I couldn't see
There was a time
There was a time, I looked away
I gave my fears the final say
Wish I could now, take back the day
There was a time
In photographs, I can see it now
I couldn't see it then
I want yesterday for my tomorrow
But it won't come again
In memory, I still hold
The sweet momеnt when free
There was a timе, I could've won
A life of love, a rising sun
But what should be, was not begun
There was a time
There was a time, so long ago
There was a fire, there was a glow
And there was you, I didn't know
There was a time
There was a time I could've won
A life of love, a rising sun
But what should be, was not begun
There was a time
Songwriters: Dion Di Mucci / Mike Aquilina
Dion - "There Was A Time" with Peter Frampton - Official Music Video - YouTube
Monday, February 5, 2024
Reasons not to move to Israel from the USA
Each person must decide for him or herself, but one should go with eyes open. There are aliyah salespeople who put out a lot of propaganda, making it seem that everyone should and must move to Israel, that it's some kind of Jewish paradise. To me, this is reprehensible. There are pluses and minuses to living here, like all places. Be informed. Some people prosper here, some get ruined. Some reasons not to move here:
1. The draft. I know that many Americans and British glamorize/idolize the Israel military, but the reality is that the 3 years of military servitude is a kind of hell for many people. I have spoken to numerous Israelis who have told me that they never recovered from the experience. Imagine an angry Israeli bus driver howling at you on a bus that you can't leave for 2 years and 7 months or whatever the ridiculously long military servitude is these days. They take young impressionable people and own them for that entire time. The indoctrination is intense when people are holding you in place with a gun - literally. The atmosphere even in the so-called Charedi units is not so religious. There's mixing of young men and pretty young women and a value system that says might makes right. I went to a shiva the other night for maariv. I saw then about 10 IDF kinds of guys, in t-shirts, no tzitsis, shorts, and sandals. All glared and tried to look so tough. It was the weirdest maariv I have ever attended. These are what they call the religious soldiers in the military.
I see the religious soldiers trudging through the streets on Friday afternoon, their faces in a knot, their walk stiff and arrogant. In my opinion, the Israeli military experience is one of the worst things to ever happen to the Jewish people. The only alternative to that is full time Gemara study, which is not for everybody. That's the only way out of it. There's no option of earning a parnassah. The primary cause of Charedi unemployment in Israel is the draft, as any kind of work, even a day's worth, nullifies the draft exemption. The system is problematic and by moving your family to Israel you subject your sons to this.
However, I must offer an alternative view that I have heard from some young men that they know people who enjoyed the military experience, that it gave them a chance to train in computers and some other skills, that it gave them discipline. I never met anyone like that, but I have heard about it.
But I wouldn't give the military so much credit for this. The reason these guys are so rough in the first place is because of the military culture in Israel.
I think the resolution is this, for hard core Charedim, it's not a good place to be. It's never going to be a truly religious environment. For sensitive and refined people, it's not a good place to be. For more rough types that don't want to be in yeshiva anyway, it might be a different matter. So it depends on your sons. What kind of people are they? If they holding very frum, forget about it. If they are not so frum, maybe that's different; although the experience could make them even less frum. That happens too.
2. High prices/low wages. You can buy a nice house with a yard in the frum part of Cleveland for $150,000. In Israel, you need $450,000 for a small apartment outside of Jerusalem. Food prices are just as high. Prices for furniture, clothes, and electronics are way higher for goods that are far less reliable. I bought itchy polyester pants for $50. In America, I could buy nice comfy cotton pants for $20. But the salaries are low by comparison, particularly if your Hebrew is weak. Americans who had jobs earning $200,000 a year in America earn $12 an hour in Israel in jobs that are borderline sweatshop. All the talk you hear about Startup nation is exaggeration. There is a high tech economy here, but it's not massive. It exists and I know people who work in it. But it's not like there are jobs all over the place. And the jobs are in the Tel Aviv area. Also, they are very stressful jobs and layoffs are common.
3. Fighting. Oh my gosh. Come to Israel if you want to long for what you had in America. People here fight constantly. The squabbles between groups, even religious groups, can be actually downright violent. They beat each other up. I have seen it. It's nuts. I know a few people who have been assaulted. And then there's all the fighting among individuals in the grocery store, at the government office, in the hospital. People here can be very angry, and arrogant. The concept of tolerance is not to be found. Come home to family the Zionist salesmen will say. This is not how families act. It's pathology.
4. Medical care. There is passable medical care, but it's not the same. There are many competent doctors. Some are quite good. But you want to wait 5 months for an MRI or mammogram? There are cities in the center of the country that are 1 hour from a hospital. Visits with the doctor last 5 minutes. On the good side, it is universal care, so everybody gets it and you don't wind up with $10,000 copays for surgery.
4. Safety. The violent crime rate is lower than America's in general, but it's still not safe. People talk about kids being independent on the streets. I know a little girl who was almost dragged into a car by a kidnapper. There are lots of robberies about which the police do nothing. I belong to a shul that's been broken into 3 times. My apartment building was robbed numerous times. There are way less police here and they don't do very much. And there are other kinds of dangers. The standards for other kinds of safety are low. Teenagers barrel down the streets in electric bikes. I was knocked over once. A little girl in my neighborhood was knocked over and bloodied. The teens weave in and out where children walk. There are near misses daily that cause hearts to miss beats. Also, you'll see open holes, weak fences, heavy wood leaning against walls. People blow cigarette smoke in your face. Smoking rates are very high here. The whole concept of safety has a different meaning here.
5. Extremism. People here tend to be extreme. They are either radical lefties or gun slinging right wingers. There's not much in the way of moderation. That's the secular people. Religious people are also very extreme. The Modern Orthodox/Dati Leumi are very modern. Oftentimes, you stare at them and look for any signs of religion. The only right-wing YU are people from America. The Charedim are also quite extreme with their views about secular studies, parnassah, and many other matters. It's quite hard to be a Hirschian in Israel. You walk alone.
6. Anti-religious government and press. America has a tradition of freedom of religion and respect for it. The government here is anti-religious and the press is even worse. You experience the hostility on a daily basis. It's nothing for an Israeli journalist to call Charedim parasites. They talk like Goebbels over here. Government ministers will do it too. If you walk with Charedi clothing into Kentucky, they bless you because "anyone who blesses a Jew is blessed." Here they give you hate stares. And how about a government that is trying to eliminate kosher phones? Read all about that here. When you come to Israel you say, wow I used to live in a country that respected religious freedom. Why didn't I appreciate that?
However, there are some very big religious neighborhoods, the kind you find in Lakewood or Brooklyn. And that can be a very nice thing.
7. Schools. The teachers yell a lot. The military culture extends to everything here and many of the teachers are like drill sergeants. If your children are delicate, don't subject them to it. The schools pound them with work. More than a few kids have gone off the derech from all of this. Yes, tuition is way lower, but the schools are not as good. You get what you pay for. I would say that Israel in general can have an abusive culture. There's a distinct lack of patience. I'm not saying that you'll never have nice encounters. There are good moments. Some of the people are charming. But there are so many bad encounters. You have to be able to deal with it.
The Charedi yeshivas are pressure cookers. The boys go from 7:30 at night until 9:30 PM. The pressure is insane. It's six days a week because they go Friday mornings too. The material thrown at them is way over their heads. They crush the students. The goal is to produce gadolim, which means 99% of students feel like they are failing. I would describe the atmosphere as inhuman.
The Beis Yaakovs and Seminaries (other than those for the real Yerushalmis) also go six days a week. The pressure is insane there too. In general, Israel is a pressure cooker.
8. Hebrew. It is not an easily language for Westerners to learn. I know you heard all about roots as if that makes Hebrew an easy language. That's the only thing easy about it. Most Hebrew here is written without vowels. You are always guessing how a word is said. Prefixes are attached to words so you don't even know how to look a word up. Hebrew is a Mideastern language, very different from English and French. And Israelis speak very quickly. Aliyah sales people will tell you that the children can understand by Chanukah and speak by Purim. This is a lie. They sit in school and stare at the walls. The Charedi schools don't even participate in the city ulpan. You really shouldn't bring kids over 10 here. The younger ones will learn Hebrew, but they might also learn to space out and to feel terrible about themselves. Adults have a much harder time. I haven't really seen anyone over 40 learn Hebrew. You are thinking that Ulpan is some kind of magic for after all it's a language program that has a special name. It's not magic. In fact, it's less effective than the language learning programs found in universities, where the instruction takes place in your native language. It's just more painful, like many things here. And know that all letters from the government and banks are in Hebrew. The rental car companies may have contracts in English because their primary client base is English speaking. The utility company isn't so kind. And Ulpan doesn't even teach you how to read bills. Rather, they hand you Zionist poetry.
9. Lack of derech eretz. Want a 100 stories of not only rude Israelis but heartless ones? The line is that they are rude but they'll give you the shirts off of their backs. This is a myth. Many of these people won't give you the shirt off of your back. I could tell you so many stories like that of bus drivers who kick families off the bus at 12 midnight because they don't want to finish their routes, like a bus driver who wouldn't let a girl off the bus even though she needed badly to use the restroom. She wound up peeing all over herself on the bus. Another story, a bus stopped short and my friend's kid went flying into the post. He was bleeding all over the place. Driver didn't stop for medical care and didn't care at all. And it's not just the bus drivers, it's pretty much anyone who has power over you : clerks, nurses, doctors, and especially police. Not every one of them, but a very high percentage. For a visual, I'll show you what an Israeli company has to do to attract clients:
Tells you what you need to know about the Israeli style.
However, on the plus side, Israelis are not pretentious or long-winded. Monday morning you don't have to answer the question "How was your weekend?" 400 times. You don't have to feign smiles all day long or say have a good day. You can get away with grumpiness.
10. Cramped living conditions. The line is that the apartments are small but the kids play outside. Actually, they can get bullied outside. There is lots of bullying here. The kids all play in the same parking lots. The boys play soccer and little girls get balls smashed into their heads. The boys -- not Chassidisheh or Yerushalmi boys -- but the Dati Leumi, Litvish, and Chiloni boys are really wild and brazen. Girls get kicked, punched, knocked to the floor, sexually propositioned. The parents do nothing about it. It's not happening every second, but it happens often.
I'm not saying it's pure hell living here. It's a functioning society. The bus system is very good even if many of the drivers zoom around like maniacs. You can live without a car here, and cars are dangerous. The land is lovely, so is the sea. The universities are decent. There are some important academics here like Benny Morris. There is much corruption but show me a country that isn't very corrupt these days. It's a weak democracy. The current Prime Minister received 5% of the vote. What kind of democracy is that? The same people run the country decade after decade. But Biden stole the election -- in my opinion. And the US government put people who wandered around the Capital on Jan. 6 in prison for a year and a half without a trial. So America has a weak democracy these days too. The independence of the courts is superior in America. During the COVID hysteria, judges did limit some of the government actions. That didn't happen in Israel, which is really a single branch system.
You are under no obligation to live in Israel. God did not command us to move here as he did the Jews in the midbar so don't compare me to the spies. As Rav Soloveitchik and the Lub. Rebbe said, live where you can do the most good. Even if living in Israel is some kind of mitzvah (kiyumis according to Rav Feinstein), you don't wreck your whole yiddishkite and life for an optional mitzvah.
Ah, you want to tell me about the Ramban? The Ramban didn't move to Israel until the last 2 years of his life. What it was dangerous then? It's not dangerous now? Every day they tell me we are surrounded by enemies, most notably Iran. If it's not dangerous, why do they have a universal draft. I don't know anybody in America who was ever stabbed. Here I know a guy who was stabbed and I know of several that were killed by terrorists. Not dangerous? And would the Ramban have moved to a country run by heretics? It was run by religious Arabs in his day.
The Gemara says that we should not ascend Israel like a wall and should not take the land by force, which is exactly what the Zionists did.
Not in order to shine as a nation among nations do we raise our prayers and hopes for a reunion in our land, but in order to find a soil for the better fulfilment of our spiritual vocation in that reunion and in the land which was promised, and given, and again promised for our observance of the Torah. But this very vocation obliges us, until God shall call us back to the Holy Land, to live and to work as patriots wherever He has placed us, to collect all the physical, material and spiritual forces and all that is noble in Israel to further the weal of the nations which have given us shelter. It obliges us, further, to allow our longing for the far-off land to express itself only in mourning, in wishing and hoping; and only through the honest fulfilment of all Jewish duties to await the realization of this hope. But it forbids us to strive for the reunion or the possession of the land by any but spiritual means.' Our Sages say God imposed three vows when He sent Israel into the wilderness: (I) that the children of Israel shall never seek to re-establish their nation by themselves; (2) that they shall never be disloyal to the, nations which have given them shelter; (3) that these nations shall not oppress them excessively (Kethuboth, III, I). The fulfilment of the first two vows is confirmed in the pages of history; about the third, the nations concerned must judge themselves.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Horeb 608
Ascending like a wall has caused enormous problems, most notably a militaristic society and much callousness.
Living in fantasy can bring you to great harm. Your first obligation is to do what's best for your family, not to live out fantasies. My advice, don't move to Israel if you live in the USA. But you should make your own choices. Just know, that it's not Disneyland. Know what you are getting yourself into. Once here, leaving is very complicated.
There are some good things about the place. People are less materialistic even though many of them are dishonest. There is a kind of kiddushah in the air, in frum areas, not in chloni ones. But that's true in Lakewood, Monsey, Williamsburg too. You will find some special tzadickim walking around, particularly in Meah She'arim. Maybe you'll see that as reason enough to come. I doubt that's reason enough (Chutz has tzadickim too), but if you do come, do it with eyes opened.
Now all of this applies to moving from the USA. Canada and Oceania (Australia and NZ) are another matter because those counties are verging on dictatorship. American could get there too -- Biden is trying -- but America has a better political system with three branches of government that keep some check on one another. Plus the USA has 300 million guns, which are the best defense against tyranny. Here's some interesting data for you:
So America is one thing. The former colonies of the UK, and maybe the UK itself, are another matter.
Sunday, February 4, 2024
“Power
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
Part 3, Chapter 3
Another reason not to make aliyah
Boys have two choices - the army or yeshiva. It's a Sophie's choice. Pick your tyrant. In America, you have many other options.
settle!
I figured out fairly early that the yeshiva world was not for me. Actually, I deemed it unhealthy for anybody, but that's their business. The problem was sex. The Modern Orthodox world is a world for women. Over there, every breath that's not for Zionism is for Feminism. Women are catered to on every level. It's not just the obsession with what they call agunas, which 95% of the time are women who throw their husbands out of their houses for ridiculous reasons, it's nice fulfilling careers for women while the men go out and make money and obsess over money, it's lowering modesty standards in every way they can, it's young women sleeping until noon and married women getting maids and big houses, it's husbands quitting their jobs so their wives can go to graduate school for theater (I know an actual case like this). It's husbands moving an hour from their workplace so their wives can live across from graduate school (I know a case like this.) The Modern Orthodox world is not a safe place for any man with religious aspirations or commitment to halacha. But the Yeshiva world isn't a safe place for any man with creativity, individuality, or religious yearnings because it's a concentration camp. Makes you want to live in the forest. But you need sex, and the Torah is very strict about how you get it. So back into these horror shows you must go and figure out a way of finding one woman who doesn't tear your life to shreds. It ain't easy. You go back into those Yeshivish shuls and the rabbis crush your mind and your self-esteem. It's brutal. You go back into the MO world and drown in the secularity and focus on the welfare of women. Either way, you lose yourself. But I'll give you a tip, don't be picky. If you find a decent hearted girl who you are marginally attracted to, don't let her go. They all become homely after fifty anyway and not so great after 40. Don't worry how many kids she can have. Don't worry about how charming she is or isn't. If she's a decent hearted shomer mitzvos woman who doesn't hate men and doesn't see the Torah as patriarchal, hold on to her. If you are a BT, particularly if you are a Cohen, settle!
Thursday, February 1, 2024
Grand Rabbi Gershon Chanoch Henech Leiner of Radzyn
Gershon Henoch Leiner
at the age of sixteen, the Rebbe had already formulated a spectacular idea: he would compose a "gemara" of a sort on the mishnayos of Seder Taharos, as there is no Talmud Bavli on those tractates. In order to accomplish this, he gathered all the relevant material from the whole Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi, and all other Braysos etc., and presented them in chronological order in a sefer he called Sidrei Taharos on Maseches Keilim. He later did the same with all the other tractates of Seder Taharos. However, only his works on Keilim and Oholot were published, as Sidrei Taharot. (The other tractates were lost during the Holocaust.) The task took him ten years to complete.
I'll stick with Chabad.
In the past few years, I wrote 5 letters to rabbis complaining about something they said or did. Two were Litvish/Yeshivish, two were Modern, one was Chabad. The Litvish fired back angrily and accused me of being disrespectful. The Modern gave some twisted answer that attempted to say that what they did isn't what I thought. The Chabad rabbi apologized.
I'll stick with Chabad.