If it walks like a duck

I just spent a Shabbos with hard core yeshiva guy, and while he has goodness at heart, and his religious energy is inspiring to some extent, I recall it as a pretty oppressive ordeal. Firstly, the elitism is palpable. His operating principle clearly is that the truly yeshivish people have the truth. The gentiles and secular Jews have only "lies." The Modern Orthodox are traifing up the religion. "They offer nothing to their children." As for the Sephardim and the Chassidim, they are cute, but unlike us, they don't have real talmidei chochamim. They just run around eating cake or chumas while we soar to the heavens with our schtarkite. Even the baal habatish people, the yeshiva light, are laughable in his eyes. He says all this as close to openly as one can.

And what about those talmidei chachamim in the yeshiva world? You must follow them. They have the daas of the Torah, meaning they are pure truth. You must bend your will to their incredible knowledge and genius. They are the only ones. Even shul rabbis are not reliable. "I wouldn't go to a shul rabbi." The disdain was palpable. You need the Rosh Yeshiva, the mythical figure. As I once heard a RY say, the only place to find truth is in the yeshiva. Of course, he wasn't saying that you get it from the bochurim. He wasn't even saying that you get it from the books because shuls have books. He was saying that you get it from him and him alone. This is a common outlook. I suspect to some extent it is built on the reputation of RYs of yesteryear. But that year is long gone.

I remember now when I got out of yeshiva how this mentality affected me. I felt as though I had been wrapped in chains. The BT who finally sneaks his way out of yeshiva, or bolts for the door, re-enters a world that is now seen as poison. You need to earn a living in order to get married but it's all goyim out there, and besides that you are not "in learning" anymore, and since that's the only worthwhile activity in life, what are you now? 

Remember how the kiruv guy told you that "whatever you do now you'll be better at"? Then he shipped you off the Ohr Somayach where they told you that any activity other than pilpul is narishkite. You are allowed only pilpul, lest you be punished in this world and the next. I was told that literally by a kollel rabbi that the cook at my yeshiva sent me to because he was going to be caring unlike the rabbis at my yeshiva. "He loves you already," I was told. As I walked in the room he hit me with his first of many negative remarks. I was carrying a book called "Bleak House" by Charles Dickens. His first words to me: "Why do you want to read a bleak book like that?" The love that I was promised never materialized.

They are so aggressive about it all, and judgmental. This young man  walked over to my china closet where I keep photos of gadolim and said, "I notice there are no living ones here." Actually that wasn't true and besides that all but one were alive in my lifetime. They passed away. I am in my sixties. This kid is 22. He shouldn't be commenting in another man's house, and he didn't think.

And they are punishing too. There's this sense that if you disagree about any point of it, then you are out. They sniff out the smallest whiff of questioning of anything. No shidduch for you or your children if you ever have any. While I knew from many experiences that they were never going to allow me to marry one of their daughters, nor would their daughters be interested in me, I held hope for a while that if I turned myself into enough of a robot, my kids would be able to enter that world. All of that is laughable now.

Most of these guys don't offer much in the way of explanation. They mostly overwhelm with confidence and insults and bold statements. They talk over you. They steamroll you into submission. This is a cult technique called personality breakdown. The best they can do is take vague statements of Chazal like "Make for yourself a Rav," and "Esav soneh Yaakov" and assign yeshivish meanings to them, ignoring commentators. "It's obvious what it means," they'll say. 

My guest spoke non-stop over the Shabbos, but I do not recall him ever citing a Torah source, a commentator. It was all opinion.

He also didn't mention HaKadosh Baruch Hu even one time. They replace devaikus Hashem with devaikus opinion. And since that's junk food, you need to stuff yourself with it to feel full.

This may sound strange but I wound up in Israel in part because of these people. They all promote study in Israel, which gets you here in the first place and puts you around aliyah evangelists. According to this bochur, all the American bochurim come to Israel to study for a year. While they don't usually promote moving to Israel, they do promote hypereligiosity, that every moment of life must be consumed with religious fervor, which for them amounts to their narrow form of Torah study, conspicuous chumros, and lots of disparagement of the world, mainly disparagement. That's their avodah. Hating everything, feeling superior. They can't seem to chill out ever, or just have a laugh. If there's any laughter it's mockery at someone else's expense. They don't even seem to enjoy children.

I tried that life and couldn't do it. It's so stupid. But the feeling of hyperreligiosity stayed with me and got converted over to aliyatism where the view that every waking moment of life must be crazed with religion took the form of living in Israel. In other words, religion means being miserable all the time, being uncomfortable, scared, and supercilious.

Can we call this a cult already? Because is fits the model, and leaves you lost, terrified, consumed with self-doubt, and faithlessness, ironically. And even though some of its followers can be likeable when they are love bombing, it's still a cult. I have met Moonies who are likable on some level. Don't be fooled by that. It's part of the cult technique.  If it walks like a duck....

The Schar Machine

The Mishnah don't serve the master in order to receive reward. But the yeshivah world, ie  the contemporary one, never saw that Mishnah, because that's all they do. I'm not talking about the Pilpulists because they don't even do that. They just enjoy the svara and being known for giving good svaras. But one generation earlier for them everything was schar. You get that in three ways. By doing lots of lomdus. By becoming rich and giving your money to lomdus. By having lots of children and sending them to yeshiva so the boys either study lots of lomdus or earn lots of money for lomdus, and the girls marry lamdanim or rich kids. Rinse and repeat.

Nothing is done for Hashem, to make the world a dwelling place for Him, to sanctify oneself. It's all for schar. It's like a mad dash for money. No doubt, half the Torah world being based in NY has been a tragedy because the NY obsession with money affected everything. In Israel, conquest is the problem. It's just as bad.

So you wind up being a freak, marrying a freak, associating with freaks, getting sicker and sicker because your mental health, your middos, and the practicalities of life were never considered. Only schar and getting lots of it via lomdus, money, and babies. 

Is it hard to be a Jew?

Rav Moshe Feinstein used to advise people not to say that it's hard to be a Jew. Certainty, it's not something to tell children.

And I say, it doesn't have to be so hard, but we make it hard. So I'll modify the statement a bit. It's not hard to be a Jew, but you will make it hard if you are not careful.

How so? Well, by not following the Torah. The Torah says marry young. Many people marry older, sometimes because their rabbis keep them in yeshiva too long, sometimes because they are looking for romantic perfection or money or looks or yichus or some other kind of demand that is far above what they are bringing to the table. Many make dating too difficult, mostly by making it rigid and terrifying and by making the men do all the work and then judging them for every appearance of a misstep. So dating becomes painful and marriages start with baggage and start with people who are set in their ways.

The Torah says to teach your son a trade, but the schools don't teach them a trade, yet require full dedication. Yeshivas won't let bochurim go to trade school or college or do apprentice work. They enter marriage broke and inexperienced and then immediately crank out kids.

The Torah says to be frugal, yet the OJ world has $80,000 weddings, and people fly to Israel twice a year, and install granite countertops in their oversized kitchens, and buy $400 dresses and suits, and go to restaurant after restaurant. Many people insist on living in New York where houses cost a million dollars when they could move to much more affordable parts of the country. 

The Torah says that you can live anywhere, best to live in a good community. It does not say to live in Israel. But aliyah evangelists push people to move across the world to a pained country that is run by atheists who are trying to draft every yeshiva bochur into their army, where small apartments cost $800,000, and jobs are not available for Haredim. Want to make your life difficult? Want it to be hard to be a Jew? Move to Israel. That's the best way to ruin yourself.

The Torah says to study what the heart desires. Yet yeshivas have every bochur spending day and night attempting lomdus on yeshivishe mesechtas of the Babli. They do almost nothing else. And while the Babli was written down in the local language, and the Rambam's commentary on Mishnayos was written in the local language, yeshivas study in Aramaic and Hebrew without teaching grammar, which is necessary for learning a language properly. So the bochurim have a poor grasp of Hebrew but are told to study night and day in Hebrew.

The Torah says that a woman must obey her husband. Many rabbis teach the men to obey their wives. Many of them, like whoever wrote the Artscroll commentary on Siddur, tell the women that they are superior to their husbands. Nobody is going to obey their inferior.

The Torah teaches all about mitzvos. People who claim to teach Torah don't teach about mitzvos, their meaning or value, or their rules. They just make abstractions about their derivation and threaten you with hell if you violate them.

The Torah talks about G-d. People today do not.

These are some of the ways that people make it difficult to be a Jew. There are many more. What's the result, marital problems, financial problems, religious confusion, and kids going OTD in droves.

It has become difficult to be a Jew. But it didn't have to be. 

Torah, Torah, Torah, again

 I was sent this supposedly “moiadika piece” that’s all about, you guessed it, Torah study. I bolded the key words. Nothing here about mitzvos. Hashem is only mentioned to say that He arranged the seasons for the sake of Torah study. Nothing about serving Him, connecting to Him. Rather, He serves our Torah study. This is the contemporary yeshivish, ie yeshivist mentality. It's a new religion. And it not useful at all to the baal habayis who is working 10 hours a day. Also not useful for anybody who cares about HaShem. If this were sent only to bochurim I could live with it. Actually it's sent to baalei batim for fundraising. It goes along with many emails which say that you can share in the schar of Torah learning by sending your money.

 

שיר השירים פרק ב' פסוק י’ - יג’ ענה דודי ואמר לי קומי לך רעיתי יפתי ולכי לך. כי הנה הסתיו עבר הגשם חלף הלך לו. הניצנים נראו בארץ עת הזמיר הגיע וקול התור נשמע בארצינו. התאנה חנטה פגיה והגפנים נתנו ריח קומי לך רעיתי יפתי ולכי ללך. 

My beloved raised his voice and said to me, 'Arise, my beloved, my fair one, and come away. For behold, the winter has passed; the rain is over and gone. The blossoms have appeared in the land, the time of singing has arrived, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree has put forth its green figs, and the vines with their tiny grapes have given forth their fragrance; arise, my beloved, my fair one, and come away. 

The medrash as Rashi brings it, is - “the rain has passed, the difficulty of cultivation - the hardship of Mitzrayim - the sprouts have appeared in the land. Moshe and Aaron are here to fill all your needs, the fig has sprouted its leaves, the time has come to bring forth the first fruits” - referring to bringing the Bikurim in the Beis Hamikdash. 

The pshat according to Metzudos is - “The sprouts - the flowers of the tree - are already visible. In the summer time the birds chirp and sing in the evening - and passers-by enjoy these. And the vines with their tiny grapes have given forth their fragrance - and humans delight in seeing them”

We can explain; Klal Yisroel were on the way to becoming Geirim - a new entity - and to be receiving the Torah, starting a whole new beginning. That required a total revamp of previous mentality and assumptions. In addition, toiling in torah requires clarity of mind שמעתתא בעי צילותא.  Therefore, Hashem arranged the seasons that after Pesach is when the trees bloom, the birds sing, the rain has passed and humans enjoy the surroundings.  All this is for our benefit to refresh our minds for our new beginning and receiving the Torah on Shavuos when Matan Torah is replayed. 

Rabbi Baruch Ber and the Brisker Rav once met at a summer retreat and were walking and talking in learning. Rabbi Baruch Ber said, "There is fresh air here" The Brisker Rabbi asked; Rabbi Baruch Ber, “Since when are you an expert in the air?”. Answered Rabbi B.B. טראכטצאך דא אנדערעש, I think well in learning, and this is a clear symptom that there is good air. 

בראשית ברא אלהים, בשביל ישראל, ובשביל התורה, שנקרא ראשית, for the sake of the Torah who's called First, for the sake of Klal Yisroel who's called First. All of creation is designed for the success of Bnei Yisroel and for the study of Torah. 

There was once a discussion in the Yeshiva World regarding the Trans-Siberian train that crossed all of Russia built by the Tsar which employed hundreds of thousands of laborers, and many thousands died from the work, and people wondered what was the purpose of that project. The Roshei Yeshiva zt”l explained that the benefit is to make it convenient for bachurim to travel from their hometowns to the yeshivos. A sharp witted student asked Rav Chaim Brisker that if so, why is the road from the train station to the entrance of the yeshiva still full of mud. The Gra”ch answered that the reason for that is, so that a bachur who wants to run away from the yeshiva will have a hard time, this is also for the benefit of the Torah!  

At the beginning of summer zman and in preparation of Matan Torah, there is freshness, fresh air, the trees are blooming, the birds are chirping, and all this is for our benefit to start summer zman with a refreshed mind and soul. 

-------------------------

While the author of this piece thinks that he has inspired people, and maybe he has inspired a few, it leaves me literally depressed. It feels so secular to me. If this is Judaism, I want no part of it. How is this different from graduate school in math? Nothing about emotion, action, people, or even God. It's all brilliance and svara. I tried this approach to life and it left me flat. It killed my mitzvah observance and left me just trying to earn lots of money to support Torah study and maybe retire someday so I could learn Torah. It killed off my interests, anything that gave me life.

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. 

gentiles without mitzvos

 

Is Tim Allen a jerk in real life?

About 15 years ago Tim Allen lived in a farm like place in Michigan with a barn. A friend of mine was summoned to go to his address, not knowing who owned the place, to do some home repairs. My friend knocked on the door and introduced himself and the purpose of his visit. Then he realized it was Tim Allen and blurted out his name as a question. Tim said, it is me and showed him what he wanted done. Then he asked my friend if he liked cars, and my friend said, “I’m a Detoiter, of course I do”. So Time walked him to the barn and showed him around the collection of cars. My friend was enthralled and grateful. Then Tim said he had some things to do, so he was leaving. He then told my friend if he finishes up early to take a ride in his choice of cars, the keys are on a rack near the door and he left.

My friend finished in just a couple hours, did a great job as he always did and went for a ride in two different cars. Like my friend said, “I was in heaven”. As he was putting things away in his truck and cleaning up a bit more when Tim came back and asked if he had a chance to drive anything. My friend said, “Oh yes, I drove the flathead Ford and the Corvette”. Then he thanked Tim a lot and went on his way.

I’d say Tim Allen is a great guy in real life.

Allen was born in Denver, Colorado, on June 13, 1953. He is the third oldest of six children of Martha Katherine (née Fox), a community-service worker, and Gerald M. Dick, a real estate agent.^[1][2] Allen has two older brothers, two younger brothers, and a younger sister. His father died in a car accident in November 1964, colliding with a drunk driver when Allen was 11.^[1][3] Two years later, his mother married her high school sweetheart, a business executive,^[2] and moved with her six children to Birmingham, Michigan, to be with her new husband and his three children.^[4] Allen has said the move meant going from "being in a cool group at one school to being at the bottom [of the social hierarchy at another]."^[5]

Core problem

The core problem facing my entire life was not being on the right track religiously. That problem didn't go away when I became Torah observant, but rather it became worse because most of the Jewish world today is crazy and arrogantly so. Whatever little religious feeling you have they hijack and utilize for their various cults, at your expense. You have to put up quite a fight to get back on track.