Zealots and Hypocrisy…

Let’s start with a story.  Once Rav Shalom M. Hedayya, when he was a very young man, asked Rav Yehuda Petayya if Rav Aryeh Levine was one of the 36 hidden Tzadikim upon whom the world is supported.  Rav Petayya said, “Yes, sometimes.”  Rav Hedayya at first was a bit taken aback.  Rav Petayya, continued and said, it is written that there is no Tzadik that does only good and does not err.  In those times when he errs he is not one of the 36.  It is a given concept within Kabbalah that there is no such thing as a Tzadik M’beten.  That a Tzadik is made, not born, and that even Moshe Rabbeinu at points in his life sinned.

I was teaching the Shaar HaKavvanot on the Shema the other day.  There is a bit where the Rav states that there are two more or less super-Tzadikim who are ultimately responsible for the world receiving all of it’s spiritual sustenance.  One of my students, someone I would call a Kanoi(Hebrew for Zealot), asks which one is the greater?  Not really sure myself, because I’ve never really cared, I said, that it seems to me that they are equal.  Said Kanoi responds that his Gadol of Choice(GOC from now on) was definitely one of them.

Now personally I am far from convinced that being a Torah sage automatically makes one righteous.  In fact given the Ramchal’s introduction to Mesilat Yesharim, Rav Chaim Vital’s Shaarei Kedusha 2:1 and numerous other places I am actually quite sure that it does not guarantee that one is a Tzadik, just that one is wise.  There is a lot more I could say on this issue, but for the sake of Lashon Hara, I will remain silent.

Coming back to my Kanoi, not wanting to be argumentative I said, “sometimes”.  His face went through about 12 shades of red, and then finally he sputtered something along the lines of how dare I speak lashon hara about GOC.  I said I wasn’t speaking Lashon Hara, and related the above mentioned story.  He felt fairly strongly that unless I was on the level of Rav Patayya I couldn’t say such a a thing.  My response was that I certainly could because the principle is written in holy books.

He circled back to his Lashon Hara argument.  At about this point I had had enough.  So my reply was to ask why he was so bothered by this supposed Lashon Hara, of saying that GOC is no better than Moshe Rabbeinu, while he speaks Lashon Hara every day.  When he looked shocked, I replied that ever since the elections announced there hadn’t been a day where he didn’t find a chance to say everyone who votes for Meretz is a Sheretz.  That never bothered him, but to say that GOC is not a greater Tzadik that Moshe Rabbeinu or David HaMelekh suddenly that is inexcusable.

That is when it hit me.  For Kanoim, halakha is just as subjective as it is for those they so readily accuse of destroying the Torah.  When it is something that they want to do, suddenly it has to be super strict.  When it is not, any loophole can be utilized.  In other words hypocrisy.

A Time to Fight

In all the considerable time I have spent in various Chareidi Yeshivot, I have heard one consistent message.  We do not go off to fight pointless battles in the IDF our place is learning Torah.  We are the “Black Legion.”  That is the rhetoric that is most often touted about to the delight of some and the dismay of others.  Nothing new there.

What has always followed that statement, though has been less reported, “The day they attack Jerusalem is the day we lay down our Gemarras and pick up rifles.”  I heard that from Rav Eliashiv, I heard it from Rav Kanievsky,  I have heard it from Rav Deri, Rav Hillel, Rav Ovadia and countless others.

What I am about to say, may well be unpopular with some, but what my heart tells me is this.  Erev Shabbat and then again just a few minutes before I began writing this post, the nebulous “they” attacked Jerusalem.  Unsuccessful attacks maybe, but they attacked Jerusalem none the less.  The inviolate holy of holies has been violated.

For the first time in 42yrs Jerusalem itself has been fired upon.  I don’t know how many, if any of those Rabbis meant what they said.  After all, an attack on Jerusalem was always thought to “impossible.”  The Palestinians would never do that, right?  It would be national suicide right?  I don’t know if they will stand by those words now.  I hope they will.

What they will or will not do however, at this point is of little importance to me.  I took their initial message on board.  It’s time to fight.  It is time to send our sons off to war.  I still can’t countenance sending our daughters off, as, to put it lightly, the IDF is no place for religious women, we can find other places for our daughters to serve, but it is time for our sons to fight.  There will be time enough for praying and learning when the fighting is done, when Jerusalem is at peace.  However, after this, any resistance to the draft seems to me to be unconscionable.

It’s a Matter of the Heart

I was talking with a friend today, for whom I have written a pair of Shimusha Rabba tefillin(those worn by mekubalim, and many many Sephardim during Mincha).  Somehow we got around to whether or not they should be worn when away from his primary minyan or a minyan of mekubalim.  My response was, of course they should.  His rejoinder is that it would be a prideful act.

I am sure that part of his statement is simply a reflection of Judaism’s increasing emphasis on external appearances, but I was in part taken aback by the statement.  My reasoning, putting on Shimusha Rabba Tefillin even in a kollel filled with mekubalim could just as easily be a prideful act.  If you think that you are somehow better than those who do not put them on, yes that is a prideful act.  The donning of Shimusha Rabba Tefillin in and of themselves is quite a neutral act.

Whether it is a prideful thing(or conversely a humbling thing) is all entirely a matter of the heart.  Ideally one would be convinced within themselves that this minhag is correct and appropriate for them, and thus feel a personal spiritual elevation through donning them.  Again whether that leads to pride is a personal matter, not in and of itself connected with the actual act.  In fact one could argue that not putting them on is also a prideful action, as you find yourself amongst a group of people that are beneath your spiritually exalted state and thus to cater to them, you decide not to.

Our Rabbis, as the Ramchal explains in his first chapter of Mesilat Yesharim, said that the reason the Torah did not stipulate actions or measure for positive middot is because it wouldn’t work.  There is no action that could make a person humble or proud, it is strictly an internal matter of the heart.  If we applied the same logic to say Moshe Rabbeinu, he would never have gone up the mountain to get the two tablets.  He would have been too concerned that someone would think that he was acting in pride to think that he could be the prophet to the entire Jewish people, especially after they had all just heard the Ten Commandments.  But instead he went up the mountain.  Why?  Because pride or in the case of Moshe Rabbeinu humility is just a matter of the heart.

Death Atones…

Probably one of the most misunderstood passages in the Gemmarra is a piece from Mesechta Yoma that says there are certain sins for which only death atones(from the Soncino):

R. Matthia b. Heresh asked R. Eleazar b. Azariah in Rome: have you heard about the four kinds of sins, concerning which R. Ishmael has lectured? He answered: They are three, and with each is repentance connected — If one transgressed a positive commandment , and repented , then he is forgiven, before he has moved from his place; as it is said: Return, O backsliding chiidren.  If he has transgressed a prohibition and repented,then repentance suspends [the punishment] and the Day of Atonement procures atonement, as it is said : For on this day shall atonement be made for you … from all your sins.  If he has committed [a sin to be punished with] extirpation or death through the Beth din, and repented, then repentance and the Day of Atonement suspend [the punishment thereon], and suffering finishes the atonement, as it is said: Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with strokes.  But if he has been guilty of the profanation of the Name, then penitence has no power to suspend punishment, nor the Day of Atonement to procure atonement, nor suffering to finish it, but all of them together suspend the punishment and only death finishes it

The misunderstanding is that this means a pre-mature death.  I even heard someone recently say this about those who died in the 9/11 attacks.  However, as I have already said this a horrible misunderstanding of what the text is trying to say.

First let’s start with a basic, human mortality is a punishment for sin.  Thus Judaism teaches(Gemarra<don’t remember the tractate>, Midrash Yalkut Shimoni Yehezkel 367, Derekh Erez Zuta, and Shaarei Kedusha Part 2) that there were between six and eight people who didn’t die, but ascended to Gan Eden alive.  Meaning that they were righteous enough to rectify their sins, so that they never tasted this punishment.  They are Enoch, Eliezer(servant of Avraham), Bithiah(daughter of Pharoah), Elijah, Ebed-Melech, Hiram King of Tyre, and Jaabez Son of Yehuda HaNasi(Those in bold are found biblically, those in italics are not found in the Gemarra).

In the third chapter of Lev David Rav Haim Vital specifically discusses this idea of death atoning for our sins.  There he makes it exhaustively clear that this does not necessarily mean an unnatural death.  After 120yrs asleep in one’s bed, when HaShem requires your soul, then that will atone, so to speak.  This idea that every pre-mature death is somehow a sign(l’havdil) of HaShem’s judgement, is both wrong and also hurtful.  There is no need to suggest that a terrorist event such as 9/11 was caused by anything other than a group of homicidal sociopaths, dressed up in the guise of religion, to whom HaShem had given free will.

The Lessons of Mishneh Torah: Rabbi Yaakov Hillel on the Parasha

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Last Day…

It’s the last day of Zman.   It is also a Thursday.  So when I drag my normally exhausted Thursday self out of bed not only do I get to look forward to the soon commencement of Shabbat, but the knowledge that for three weeks, my load will be lighter.

There is no true “Bein HaZmanim” at a Yeshiva HaMekubalim.  We learn straight through the year.  However, there is a reduced learning schedule.  Mostly because the majority of Averiechim simply will not show up in any case.  So we go down to learning in one, slightly extended, seder from the three normal sedarim.

I know I shouldn’t necessarily feel happy about the break, after all we are supposed to take joy from learning Torah, but I am, guiltily a little happy about it.  I am happy that I am going to get more time with my kids.  I am happy that I will have a bit of a breather to prepare shiurim for the coming Elul Zman.  I am happy that I would have to fit my writing(safrut) in here and there between the sedarim and can actually whip out some ultra-mehadrin mezzuzot.  Did I mention that I am happy that I am going to get to spend more time with my kids?

The kids are really what does it for me.  I know that even if I were working a 9-5 in the US I wouldn’t see them any more, and possibly less, then I do now.  However it still pains my heart to watch the years slip by.  My son is coming up on his second birthday(didn’t I just do his brit yesterday?) and my oldest on her fifth(wasn’t that crazy first birth, just a few weeks ago?).  It is the curse of fatherhood that we miss so many of the “firsts.”  First step, first word, first… well you get the idea.

So for three weeks I am planning on spending and enjoying everyone of their waking moments with them.

Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

I am counselling a couple of couples right now, no I am not going to give any details.    Essentially I am pulling some old skill sets out of cold storage and putting them to use. I was at one point trained in Rogerian psychotherapy, lots of observed counselling hours and everything.  Then I decided not to make a career out of it.  Mostly because I found its methods to be ineffective.

Somewhere in there was also my time with the Russians and cognitive behavioral therapy, which I learned in principle but not in practice.  Then a few other various techniques all of which ultimately conflicted, strongly, with my initial “total unconditional acceptance” indoctrination under the Rogerian crowd.

Then I also became a Rabbi with a whole series of responsibilities that came with that.  Primarily to keep the treatment, and the hoped for solutions within the bounds of Torah.  Which adds a whole list of new ingredients to the stew.

End result… Rogerian method lasted approximately two sessions, with either couple.  What came after was a synthesis of a whole bunch of other stuff that I learned more or less built upon a Rogerian foundation.  What can I say, first principles are hard to break entirely free of.

Then I thought of my evolution in Torah.  No, not the Mattisyahu sort of evolution, but the evolution that happens within the four Amot of Torah.  That which is shaped by life experience, Rabbis, and simply what seems logical to the individual, and I realized that it was not all that different.  I did Teshuva through Chabad, which as part of Chassidus, is more or less a mystical movement, though it does value, highly value, textual study.

Though I’ve been through litvish and Sephardi Yeshivot, and thus had my Torah outlook fundamentally changed so that I no longer fit into a purely Chabad model, once again first principles are hard to break away from.  Meaning that ultimately my view of the world around me, at least the Torah world, is shaped largely by Chabad, whether I like it or not.

Take my stance on the Agunah issue.  The Lubavitcher Rebbeim, at least since the Tzemach Tzedek have been very… well… pro-agunah I guess is the term.  They were cool with forcing a divorce to free the hapless female.  In that entire issue, those were first principles.  I can still remember watching a maamar by the Late Lubavitch Rebbe in which he described how we hired thugs to go and beat the living day lights out of a guy until he said he would give a divorce, then we instruct the thugs to double their efforts so that not only is he wiling but he really wants to give the divorce.  I wasn’t even married the first time yet, so that was the first I was hearing about Gittin issues.  First principles.

Though I understand now that his approach isn’t widely accepted, I still  read the various texts more from that light than any other, while having made a synthesis with other things I have since learned.

What is Truth: Part II

I keep getting questions as to whether I am going to shut my blog down, give up internet, or only have internet outside of my home.  The answer is a big NO on all three.  Yes I know that the various agencies have issued their rulings, and for the moment I am choosing to ignore them.  Here is why.

First I have a five year Teuda(certificate).  Which means I don’t have to get rechecked for it for another five years.  I got said Teuda before the various agencies issued their first(sudden) change in policy which required all sofrim to have a filter on their internet(which I already had).  Granted I didn’t buy the one that they were pitching at the Asifa, I have the one that comes with Norton, because it is superior.

Second I have a heter from my Rosh Yeshiva to have internet in the home for the reasons of Kibud Av V’Em.  In short neither my wife nor I have any family to speak of here in Israel.  Our parents, and my children’s grandparents are all in the US.  Phone bills to the US can be quite astronomically expensive.  However via Skype(or in our case ooVoo) not only are those calls free, but my children can speak face to face with their grandparents for free, and daily.

Third in keeping with the rulings of Rav Eliashiv ZTzUK”L, Rav Ovadia Shlit”a and Rav Shternbuch Shlit”a, American Olim should continue to follow the leniencies that they were accustomed to when they lived in the US.  Since the Roshei Yeshivot of the Mir and Lakewood, as well as Rav Katzin decided to permit internet(filtered) in the home in the US before I made Aliyah, and that was my custom there.  There is no reason to change it now, especially given the other mitigating factors.

Fourth in order to get a certificate one needs a letter of recommendation from a Rav(or other certified sofer).  My own came from my Rosh Yeshiva who as I stated above, has given me a heter for internet in the home.  His words when I discussed this development with him were that I need not worry about their latest Chumrot until it was time to renew my Teuda.  I fulfilled their requirements when they gave it to me, and they have no right to change those ex-post facto.  Much like Rabbinut Semikha, despite it being made increasingly harder to obtain, they cannot impose those new requirements on those who have already attained it.

Finally I have five years.  In short hopefully by then I will be able to pass the Rabbinut Semikha exam on Safrut and thus not need to worry about an outside agency to grant me legitimacy.

Protesting Plesner II

I have given my initial reasons why I think a conscript army is bad and thus why I think compulsory national service should be done away with.  Second to that is my personal reasons that I do not want my children to enter national service/IDF.  Put simply I don’t want my children to raise their hands against other Jews unless absolutely and unavoidably necessary.  That is one of what I would call the core values of our family.

Unfortunately such is not the case in IDF service where we have seen the IDF deployed not to defend Jews and protect them in their homes but to drive them from their homes.  Whether it was the Gaza disengagement which fell on the day after Tisha B’Av in 2005, or Migron, or Armona or… well the list just continues.  You have Israeli soldiers being forced to raise their hands against their fellow Israelis, and commit what many would call crimes against humanity.

Yes I know the excuse that they are supposed to follow orders even if they conscious decries them.  However, that is a defense that has never worked.  It didn’t work in the US Civil War.  It Didn’t work in WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan or Iraq.  Even making that claim spits in the face of the Nuremburg trials.  How many Nazis have Israeli’s chased across the world to bring them to justice claiming, rightly, that following orders was not an excuse for committing human rights violations.

Simple question:  What happened in Migron then?  MDA wasn’t even allowed to enter to make sure that those who were beaten by the soldiers as well as the infants and children could receive the care that they needed.  It’s amazing though that Israel won’t stop the Red Crescent from entering combat zones, often carrying weapons and resupply of ammunition in their ambulances.

In short so long as the IDF is used against Israeli’s civilian population I will do my best to see that my children don’t spend a day in the uniform.

What is Truth?

I got a bit of a shock today, I am no longer a certified sofer.  What is more I am not qualified to become a certified sofer, and my writing is of questionable(and I am being generous) kashrut.  Why?  I have internet.  Apparently in a very recent decision(like the past three days) Mishmeret STaM, Yad Rafael, and Mishmeret Sofrim, the three primary certification agencies, have decided to revoke the certification of any sofer who has or, and this is the kicker, USES the internet in ANY way even to simply send email.

One is advised by these three agencies to clarify with the writing sofer before purchase whether he uses internet in anyway and if he does, even to simply send email, not to purchase from him, as he is to be considered an apikorus who does not follow the spirit of Torah(I will try to update this later with a picture of one of the anouncements from one of the agencies saying this), and thus his kativa is to be considered possul.  Oh and I checked, what kind of filter or Rabbinic heter you may have for using the internet does not matter, such a person can no longer be a kosher sofer.

Yes I know that the Jerusalem representative of Mishmeret Stam has a website and he even runs part of a blog.  I have been unable to clarify how he got an exemption as I have been told that there are none.

Which brings me to my personal moral quandry of what to do.  I cannot simply get rid of the internet, a significant part of my parnassa is obtained through the internet, and that may soon increase even more so.  Also there is the issue of Kibud Av V’Em(honoring one’s father and mother), my kids cannot talk on the phone, they are all way too young, however they can skype with their grandparents(which is free by the way) and thus that is the primary way that my wife and I stay in contact with our American families.  So do I play the don’t ask don’t tell game(one Rav advised me to do that).  But then that doesn’t seem very honest at all.  So I don’t know what to do.