Make them yeshivish

The mantra in the yeshiva world is to make yeshivish any Jew one encounters - Chassidim, Sephardim, Modern Orthodox, and especially Baalei Teshuva. Every yeshiva guy sees himself as a gadol when he's around BTs. He's not a gadol. He's not even a talmid chocham, and he feels bad about that since he operates in a society where nothing else matters. So when he's around a beginner he feels like he's the king. It's something an adult male might feel when playing basketball with his eight year old son. He becomes Wilt Chamberlain for an hour.

So there's the time a so-called "friend" of mine, who is really a kollel guy for whom I'm his pet baal teshuvah insisting on showing me words from Baruch Ber Leibowitz that Rav Hirsch was special but his words about secular studies were an emergency measure that only applied in Germany. This is a common line in the yeshiva world as if Rav Hirsch's approach doesn't apply even more in 21st century America. And besides that Rav Hirsch himself said that they were not an emergency measure, that they apply for all time. And then there's the time he disparaged Rav Soloveitchik. It was as if he felt it was his duty to say those things. He can't handle anybody not being yeshivish and I have to pretend that I am when I'm around him. Once we met in a public library and he expressed his discomfort over having "these nasty books" around him.

So there's a BT at the Shabbos table. He's wearing a tweed jacket. "You shouldn't wear that, people will think badly of you." So said a Yeshiva University Rosh Yeshiva to me once, which is ironic since he teaches at an institution that most yeshiva people disdain. Even some graduates of the place will say that they attended Yeshivas Yitzchok Elchanon, rather than say YU. And he's a Zionist too. But he's yeshivish when he wants to be and even though he also tried to talk excitedly about his love of Zionism while I was at the table he wanted me to dress as if I were from Lakewood. When you are around BTs, you don't have to be consistent. They don't know the difference. They'll just become copies of whatever Frankenstein mishmash of ideologies that you indulge in.

Then there's the time I considered moving to Cleveland. My yeshivish friends there pressured me to move to Cleveland Heights, the yeshivish area, rather than University Heights which is mixed. Got to be yeshivish. It's the only way.

Then there's another Shabbos table visit where my host said something to the effect of "Your problem is that you are not in the yeshiva world." I don't recall how I was dressed but I remember wondering what made him think that because when I go to yeshivish tables I am careful to appear yeshivish. [As for the tweed jacket at the YU RY table, I didn't think a YU rabbi would mind a tweed jacket, given that Rabbi Soloveitchik wore all kinds of sports coats and many YU students don't ever wear jackets] 

At yeshivish tables, I don't mention Rabbi Soloveitchik or the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I don't use polysyllabic words. I sit and look like a zombie so as to fit in. But it occurred to me that the impetus (that's a word I wouldn't use at a yeshivish table) for his comment was that he had asked me where I davened and I named a place other than the yeshivish one down the street. I went to that synagogue for a little while, but I found the rabbi so obnoxious and arrogant that I couldn't take it. The man is grotesque. I remember him once shouting at a full room of men, "Who dare challenges me. Who dares?!" 

Evidently, to my host middos don't matter much in shul choice. The only thing that matters is being in the yeshivshe oilam, whatever that means. I guess it means being around people who dress in ties and black suits and tell you what mesechta that they are learning. That sort of thing. Maybe an arrogant opinionated rabbi is preferred as yeshivish hashkafa these days consists mostly of disdain for everything that's not them. 

Now these people don't know baalei teshuvah so well (although the YU RY spent some time years earlier getting a free vacation at a kiruv yeshiva recruiting place), so I'll cut them a little slack. But Ohr Somayach in Israel has as part of its philosophy to convince all students to drop out of college. In other words, make them yeshivish.

I wish I could tell all these people that the #1 mistake of my very painful multi-decade career in Orthodox Judaism was trying to be yeshivish. Let me explain. Firstly, I don't hate gentiles. I grew up with gentiles. They were my friends. Some of them were very good to me. Harboring animosity to them for invisible reasons, not anything concrete, is unhealthy. Gratitude is a major function in Judaism. Moshe was grateful to the Nile in which his basket floated so he couldn't smite it. Aaron did that for him. It's not proper for me to convince myself to hate gentiles. The yeshivas can go ahead and convince my children of that. It's not right, but it's not as destructive since they didn't grow up with gentile friends.

Secondly, I do not hate secular studies. (Lots of hate required in the yeshiva outlook.) From the time I was five I was in school studying secular material, and much of it was enriching. No it wasn't all heretical, except for the time spent on evolution. Math was fine. Chemistry was fine. Physics fine. History was mixed, too much we are the good guy always, but the OJ world is even worse about that. I appreciated school. You can't convince me to hate secular studies. I tried that for forty years. It only confused me and numbed my brain.

Thirdly, I don't think of work just as parnassah to support yeshivas. I was raised with the idea of contributing to society and doing work that is interesting. I tried to be an earner for the yeshivah world and it nearly destroyed me. I can't live trying to become rich like they do in New  York. That attitude disgusts me. 

I can say more. The point is not everybody should be yeshivish. Gadolim understand this. Reb Yaakov Kamenetsky did. Rav Soloveitchik did. Rav Hirsch did. Rav Shimon Schwab did. He suggested to me to look into the writings of Rav Hirsch. 

Of course, many a yeshiva man told me that Rav Hirsch was a tzadick but offered his program only for 19th century Germans. That is the standard line in the yeshiva world and everything in the yeshiva world is a standard line. Obviously this is ridiculous. If his program applied to 19th century Germans it applies even more to 21st century Americans. Rav Schwab said that about 20th century Americans.

So did Rav Breuer:

"Anyone who has but a fleeting insight into the life and work of Rav Hirsch will realize that his Torah im Derech Eretz formula was never intended by him as a Horo'as Sho'oh....As for us let us do our best to promote and fulfill the Torah im Derech Eretz ideal in its true spirit and let us protect it from regrettable misuse and interpretation. A personal footnote: on the day before he passed away, my father told me: 'I am firmly convinced that the way shown by Rav Hirsch will be mekarev ha'geulah.' A sacred testament." ("The Relevance of the Torah Im Derech Eretz Ideal")

As did Rav Hirsch himself:

"Torah im Derech Eretz' is the one true principle conducive to truth and peace, to healing and recovery from all ills and all religious confusion. The principle of "Torah im Derech Eretz" can fulfill this function because it is not part of troubled, time-bound notions; it represents the ancient, traditional wisdom of our Sages that has stood the test everywhere and at all times." Collected Writings, Vol. VI, p. 221

I asked Rabbi Miller if I could be a follower of Rav Soloveitchik and he said that I could. 

See how different gadolim are from regular schmos?

There are others too. But middle management rabbis, guys who teach in chedarim and high schools and magidei shiur at YU (who are all called Roshei Yeshiva for historical reasons) aren't gadolim except when they are around BTs. That's when they try to mold you into little copies of themselves. 

Years ago I planned to move from Monsey where there were no shiduchim, no jobs, and nobody like me to befriend to Manhattan where all that existed. I found an apartment but a yeshiva rabbi talked me out of it. He of course had a family there, even his parents lived there, had parnassah there as he ran a yeshiva there, and there were shiduchim for his kids there. He was saying be me, but I couldn't be him. Was he going to set me up with his daughters? Not a chance. He caused me so much grief. And along with all the others, it's death by a thousand cuts.

I suggest that these people study the halacha because nearly everything they push on people sits outside the halacha. It's just contemporary yeshivist doctrine that serves only them.