Rav Aharon Feldman on the Attack on Torah in Eretz Yisroel

R’ Yaakov Menken at Cross Currents wrote up this important talk from Rav Aharon Feldman discussing the governmental anti-Torah atmosphere in Eretz Yisroel.

Shabbos Parshas Chukas was the annual “Shabbos of Chizuk,” when leading Rabbis at the Ner Israel Rabbinical College (which is located in Baltimore County, about 5 miles north of the Orthodox neighborhoods of Northwest Baltimore) spend Shabbos in the community, speaking to encourage Torah study and learning. The Rosh Yeshiva [Dean] himself, HRH”G Rav Aharon Feldman, shlit”a, spoke at the Agudath Israel of Baltimore after mincha.

I was surprised that he chose to speak about the situation going on now in Israel, on a Shabbos talk intended to strengthen learning and attachment to the Yeshiva. But the Rosh Yeshiva explained that this discussion is critical. The situation is very serious, and many American Jews don’t understand the extent to which this is so. People think, what is wrong if Orthodox Jews serve in the Army? And what is wrong if they study math and science, like American students do?

The following day, I wrote up my best recollection of the Rosh Yeshiva’s remarks, for his corrections and approval before publication. But even better, the Rosh Yeshiva was invited to deliver an improved and expanded version of his remarks to a larger audience in Toronto, via video. With appreciation to the Rosh Yeshiva and the organizers, the following is excerpted from both addresses.

One must begin with history. At the founding of the state, the Zionist establishment needed to show that all of Jewry was under their umbrella. The state and religious Jews, though, had diametrically opposed definitions of what it means to be a Jew. The Zionist definition is a nationalist one. According to the religious definition, a Jew is part of a nation that received the Torah at Har Sinai, adheres to its laws, and believes that it is a nation because of the giving of the Torah.

Some Jews chose not to back the state. Our Gedolim felt that they could join with the state, on condition that they be granted autonomy. They would have their own education system, and other autonomous rights. This was the basis of the status quo agreement. Whatever took place before the formation of the state would continue in the same manner: the laws of marriage, Shabbos as a day of rest, and religious Jews would have an autonomous education system.

Soon after the founding of the state, Ben-Gurion went to visit the Chazon Ish to persuade him that religious Jews should be drafted into the Army. Ben-Gurion said that the state could not survive without it. The Chazon Ish countered that the Torah could not survive with it. The Torah has a 3500 year record of survival, while Zionism was a nationalistic theory with no real ideology — and the latter must yield.

The Chazon Ish knew that Torah learning could not flourish, and Gedolim could not develop, if youngsters spent three of their most formative years in the Army. But even more important, Ben-Gurion wanted the Army to be a melting pot for immigrants from all over the world, to forge them into a new nation. Charedi Jews did not, and do not, want to be melted down. Living in an environment of chilul Shabbos, rampant immorality, and questionable Kashrus is toxic for our youth.

What Charedi parent in the United States would send his son to dorm in a co-ed secular university for three years? There are parents who do this, but we also know the tragic results. This is why we have separate schools, separate newspapers, no television, no unfiltered Internet. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on education systems that isolate our children from secular culture.

The politicians’ promises to the Charedim are like all promises of politicians. You don’t need to be a general to understand that a general cannot issue a command to march tomorrow, call up the commander of the Charedi unit, and have the other say “wait a minute, tomorrow is Sukkos, I have to ask my Rav if we’re allowed to march.” You can’t run an Army in that fashion, and the Army itself says so. Benny Gantz, Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, told Shas Knesset member Nissim Zeev that it is simply not practical to have large numbers of charedi-only units. An Army must be integrated, and at the most they could handle one more battalion like Nachal Charedi.

The Hesder model is not truly separate, and the results are predictable; a large proportion of them are lost to Judaism. According to Rav Eliezer Melamed, Rosh Yeshiva of the Religious-Zionist Yeshiva Har Brachah, 20% come out completely secular. Those who return to Yeshiva are weakened in their commitment to Torah. When I moved to Israel, the Religous Zionist party had thirteen seats in the government, and today they have five. This is in no small part due to the secularization of their youth in the Army.

Even were it true that it had the status of pikuach nefesh, which it does not, Charedim cannot serve in the Army. Spiritual pikuach nefesh is of no lesser importance than physical pikuach nefesh. We should have the status of conscientious objectors in any democratic society.

So they say that instead, students should leave Yeshiva and stop learning Torah for “public service.” How absurd! Learning Torah ensures the survival of the Jewish people; it has done so for thousands of years, and, as we have seen before our eyes, it rejuvenated American Jewry after the Holocaust. Learning Torah should not be considered on a par with changing bedpans in a hospital?! How outrageous that this should be suggested in a Jewish state! Without Torah, there would be no Jewish state, no claim to the land of Israel. How can learning Torah not be considered a valid public service?

Now let us turn to the attempt by the government to introduce secular subjects into our educational system. We may wonder, why do we object to introducing the same subjects taught in American Torah high schools? But we cannot judge Israel like the United States. The problems and challenges are different, and the ways that we must respond to those problems are different.

Lapid’s party says that they have to impose these changes on the Charedim, because they will not do it otherwise. How helpful! Did he ask the Charedim what they want? Shouldn’t the natural leaders of the Charedim be consulted before making such changes?

One of Lapid’s cohorts, who is a Rabbi, has said that the Gedolim are against any changes in their society for “corrupt” reasons. This is the word he used. He obviously never came into contact with Gedolei Yisroel. According to him, only Lapid is uncorrupted, only he does not care for power and fame — he whom Time magazine describes as “walking with the swagger of someone who expects to become Prime Minister.” Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman shlit”a, Rav Chayim Kanievsky shlit”a, Rav Shmuel Auerbach shlit”a, cannot be trusted to care about the Charedi community… only Lapid, the television host turned politician, son of perhaps the most rabid charedi-hater in Israeli history.

Nowhere in the world would they act so paternalistically towards a minority. Imagine the United States government telling the Amish, “you are not productive enough, and this is why you are poor. Therefore we are enacting laws to force you to stop using the horse and wagon. Oh, but we’re not doing this out of discrimination or lack of respect for what you’re doing, but for your own benefit.” What an uproar would sweep America!

Why does this happen in Israel? In truth, it doesn’t happen in Israel either, except with the Charedim. Do you know how they teach arithmetic in Israeli Arab schools? “Ten Jews are standing at a bus stop. A suicide martyr kills seven of them. How many Jews are left?” Yet we dare not interfere with their educational system.

Even from a secular standpoint, the primary purpose of education should not be to expand a government’s tax base, but to educate young people to be human beings. Thank you, Mr. Lapid, but we don’t need your help. We don’t need the assistance of a morally bankrupt society, in which you can buy nearly everything with bribery, in which two presidents and seven ministers have been indicted. We don’t have 60% of our children coming to school with weapons. We don’t need abortion clinics or drug rehab centers. Our students are educated not to lie, cheat or steal, but to love Jews, love Judaism, honor their parents and respect authority. If anything, the secular education system, which is producing a decadent society, should be copying our system, not trying to interfere.

Moreover, Gemara prepares a person for modern technology more than even math and science. When our students enter job training, they score higher than their secular counterparts, because their minds have been developed. A recent United States Department of Education study concluded that in order to deal with the computer-based society of the next decade, education should not emphasize facts, but critical and logical thinking. And this is what Gemara does to a mind.

The real reason why they want to change our educational system is not our purported poverty, but to secularize us. They are afraid that we will outnumber them in 50 years, and they are trying to “solve the problem” at its root. Stanley Fischer, a secular Jew who is Governor of the Bank of Israel, said that unless the situation changes, Charedim will constitute the majority in another several decades — and something must be done. Ephraim HaLevi, a former head of the Mossad, said that the Charedim are a greater threat to Israel than Iranian nuclear weapons, and Naftali Bennett, head of the Bayit Yehudi party, said something similar.

In Lapid’s words, “we have to break down the ghetto walls,” and this is “an historic opportunity to bring the Charedim into our worldview.” This is the real issue. And although Lapid and his cohorts deny it — depending upon the audience they are addressing — the question is whether we will be permitted to maintain our lifestyle.

This is why there is such demonization of religious Jews, especially since Lapid was elected. In the newspapers, you can see caricatures of religious Jews no different than those in the most anti-Semitic journals. Television hosts and nightclub comedians serve up a constant flow of ridicule. When a crime is committed by a Charedi Jew, the newspapers invariably report that it was a “Charedi crime.” Would the American press report a criminal as “black” in similar fashion?

One of the slogans that brought Lapid to power was “sharing the burden.” The claim is that the Charedim take billions from the government in welfare, and do not pay taxes, thus they must be forced to work and pay taxes. This is sheer demagoguery. Even those in Kollel have wives who work and pay taxes. Every item purchased in Israel carries a 17% and now 18% VAT except fruits and vegetables, and the Orthodox, with their large families, are the largest block of consumers. Half the cost of an apartment in Israel is taxes.

Why should the government take their tax money, and put it into services they don’t use? Why should they pay one billion dollars annually for television, plus for sports stadiums, university buildings, and even police and prisons that their population rarely needs, if ever?

The Charedim bring in more tourists than any other sector. There were over 250,000 people Lag B’Omer at Meron. El-Al would go bankrupt if not for the Charedim. Every year, 20,000 students come to Israel from the United States and Europe to study in traditional yeshivos and seminaries, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars a year into the Israeli economy.

We support our Kollelim; the government gives minuscule amounts. We put up new buildings with our money to which they contribute nothing. How dare they take our taxes, use the money for services of no use to us, and then claim that we are not “sharing the burden?”

Please be advised, Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Lapid, that we do not feel that we can survive as a nation with your proposed laws.

I will give myself as an example of what is going to happen. I moved to Israel with three small children 50 years ago, with tremendous difficulty. I wanted to study Torah and experience the Kedushah of Eretz Yisrael. I only moved there because I was assured that we could raise our children as religious Jews, without government interference and without them having to go into the Army. This might not be true any longer. If you pass a law saying that it is criminal not to enlist in the Army, then although I love Israel no less than I did 50 years ago, and have for 50 years built up my entire family structure in Israel, I will nevertheless do everything possible to pull my family out. The dedication of my future descendants to Torah is more vital to me. We will pack our bags, as Jews have done many times throughout our history, and escape from this danger. Spiritual danger is more devastating than physical danger. It is tragic that a Jewish state will force me to do this, but it is no less dangerous for me and my future because it is a Jewish state.

Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Lapid, don’t try to wreck our lives as Jews, and don’t tear apart this country. Because that is what you are doing with your misguided efforts to change our way of life.

Read more: http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2013/07/04/wake-up/#ixzz2YPPxzTAV
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

What Ramifications Have You Found in People Having Different Spiritual Levels?

Michtav Mi’Eliyahu, Mesillas Yesharim and many other Torah seforim discuss different spiritual levels.

A ramification of this idea is that different people will be effected by different degrees to various activities such as going to a busy beach, watching TV, or walking through parts of Manhattan. Some people will avoid these activities and some are comfortable with them. In my neighborhood, certain respected Rabbi’s will not enter a mixed gender Kiddush. Many people feel that going to a secular college will be detrimental to their children’s spiritual growth.

What examples have you seen of people on different levels following different practices?

Have you experienced any changes in the things and places you avoid as you’ve grown spiritually?

Have you met or read writings of people who don’t seem to believe that different people are effected spiritually by different situations?

Some Life Questions for BTs (and FFBs)

1) Do you have a Rav with whom you can discuss life issues?

2) Does your spouse have someone to talk to?

3) For men – do you have a learning seder of some length every day?

4) Are you still focused on growing in your Yiddishkeit?

5) Are you integrated into your community?

6) Do you participate in communal chesed (which increases your integration)?

7) Are you active, by making calls and networking, in your children’s shidduchim?

8) Are you putting effort into choosing High Schools for your children?

9) Are you thinking about post High School choices for your children?

10) Are you working on improving your Tefillah?

Major Problems Facing the Jewish People – 2008 and 2013

This post is from 11/18/2008. From the comments back then it looks like we’re facing many of the same problems. Which is not so surprising, since 5 years is not really a long time from a Jewish History point of view.

What are the Major Problems Facing the Jewish People?

Choose up to 3 and list your own.

A greater than 50% intermarriage rate in the US.

The threat of nuclear Iran.

A focus on materialism.

The tuition crisis.

Assimilated Jewry.

Inadequate education facilities.

Ignorance about Judaism.

Apathy about Judaism.

Potential curtailing of religious freedoms.

The anti-Israel sentiment on American campuses.

Islamic terrorism.

The division between observant and non observant Jews.

Anti-semitism.

A fractured Orthodoxy.

The Pain of Being Attacked

It seems there’s a bigger cultural war going on between Torah Observant Americans and the Israeli Long Term Learning community, than there is between Non-Observant Israelis and the Israeli Long Term Learners. On the blogs and the comments we’ve been reading, the attacks both ways have been relentless and often vicious.

As BTs we’re often subject to a more subtle type of attack, it’s often not in your face, but it’s there and painful nonetheless.

In a question of the week from 2008 we asked “Are BTs Treated as Second Class Citizens?“. Many of us from BT friendly neighborhoods like Kew Garden Hills, Passaic and out of town communities did not feel particularly mistreated.

But some of the comments revealed a different story. A story of how painful and dehumanizing attacks of any sort can be. Here’s 2 comments combined from that thread, which hopefully will cause us to pause a bit before entering full attack mode, and possibly prevent us from blogging or commenting with vile and contempt against those with whom we disagree.

Here’s the comment from the Second Class Citizen thread:

There are deep-seated attitudes that run against BT’s. First of all, you can never ever breathe a word that the FFB world isn’t perfect – that could be lashon hara – but they write articles about BT’s in Mishpacha all the time that run with the assumption that you can say *anything* you want about BT’s.

Once they ran an article about how BT’s struggle as mothers because they weren’t raised in large families themselves. They interviewed a few (3 or 4) BT’s who spoke about their struggles as mothers. I wrote a letter about how unfair this was – that they should have balanced the letter with storied from BT’s who are great mothers, and FFB’s who struggle. They never printed that letter.

About a year later, they printed an article about divorce. In the article, they mentioned that in Israel 15% of divorces involve at least one partner who is a BT. Then they went on to say, “You would think that divorce is a problem confined to the BT community, but…”

I wrote back a letter – which they did print this time. In my letter I mentioned both articles above. I mentioned how if 15% involve at least one BT, then some of those divorces also involved an FFB – and 85% involved no BT’s at all, so why would we think divorce is confined to the BT world?

Also, if at most 15% of divorces are BT – that doesn’t mean 15% of BT’s get divorced – just as it doesn’t mean 85% of FFB’s get divorced. It means among people who get divorced, these are the proportions. So since some BT’s are married to FFB’s, we could say it’s really 10-15%. Well, if 10-15% of the chareidi world in Israel is BT, then you would *expect* 10-15% of divorces to involve a BT. The statistic is meanless unless we know the proportions of BT’s in the population. So, for example, if 20% of chareidi Israelis are BT’s – then a BT is LESS likely to get divorced than an FFB.
Read more The Pain of Being Attacked

The Ramchal on the Yomim Tovim

[5] The Highest Wisdom also decreed to give Israel additional sanctity by granting them holy days other than Shabbos, when the Jew receives various levels of holiness. None of these holy days, however, have as much Influence and sanctity as Shabbos.

The degree to which a person must abstain from worldly occupations on these days depends on the level of their Influence. Various types of work are therefore forbidden on many of these days.

Yom Kippur is the highest of these holy days, and therefore the prohibition against work is the most severe.

Below this are the other festivals, and on a still lower level, their intermediate days (Choi ha-Mo’ed).

Lower yet is the New Moon (Rosh Chodesh), when only women abstain from work.

Finally, there are Chanukah and Purim, when work is not curtailed at all. On Chanukah thanks are offered, and in addition to this, Purim is a time of joy. All these levels depend on the particular sustenance granted, which is the spiritual Light that shines on that particular day.

[6] Besides the sanctification that exists to various degrees depending on the holiness of each particular day, there is another concept that is specific to each one.

On each of these special days, something happened whereby at this time a great rectification was accomplished and a great Light shone. The Highest Wisdom decreed that on every anniversary of this period, a counterpart of its original Light should shine forth, and the results of its rectification renewed to those who accept it.

We are therefore commanded to observe Pesach with all its rituals to recall the Exodus. At the time of the Exodus, we experienced an extremely great rectification, and therefore, on the anniversary of this event, there shines forth a Light that parallels the one that illuminated us then. Since the results of that rectification are renewed in us, we are obliged to keep all these rituals.

Shavuos likewise involves a great rectification, since it is the time when the Torah was given.

Sukkos involves the Clouds of Glory, as it is written (Vayikra 23:43), “That future generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in sukkos Even though this is not celebrated on the anniversary of the Exodus, the Torah set a time that is appropriate for its commemoration.

Chanukah and Purim also involve this same concept. The is true of the days mentioned in the Scroll of Fasts (Me. Ta’anis). These were annulled, however, because the could not abide by them, and were therefore exempted commemorating them to stimulate their original light.

Translation from the Way of G-d – Feldheim

Here are the dates and approximate year of the Yomim Tovim

3924 BCE – Creation of the physical universe

3924 BCE – Creation of man: – Rosh Hoshana (1st of Tishrei)

3924 BCE – Rest from Creation – Shabbos

1476 BCE – Exodus from Egypt – Passover – 1st day (15th of Nissan)

1476 BCE – Splitting of Red Sea – Passover – last day (22th of Nissan)

1476 BCE – Receiving Torah at Mount Sinai – Shavuos (6th of Sivan)

1476 BCE – Golden Calf & Breaking of 1st Tablets- (17th of Tammuz)

1476 BCE – Second Set of Tablets – Yom Kippur (10th of Tishrei)

1476 BCE – Return of Clouds of Protection – Succos (15th of Tishrei)

Are You Still A BT?

In common parlance, a BT is someone who became observant later in life. By that measurement, once a BT, always a BT. This usually means that we have to handle delicate situations with non-frum relatives, have lived a more secular life at some point, and we made a clear choice to become Torah Observant.

Another factor that makes you a BT, is that a some point you were deficient in Torah knowledge. This deficiency can be overcome, and it’s always a marvel to look at Rabbi Akiva and the 24 years he spent learning intensely, on his road to becoming perhaps the great Halachic Authority in the past 2,000 years. Of course we don’t need to learn exclusively for 24 years, but if we want to learn at high levels of Torah understanding, we have to make great efforts and put in a lot of time.

The third BT factor that comes to mind is integration into the community. To some, the ability to make people think you’re not a BT, as long as you don’t talk in learning, is a great worthwhile accomplishment. Others feel that as long as you’re a well functioning member of your community, it doesn’t matter if people know you’re a BT. Whereas others are proud to be a BT with all the accomplishment and positive growth orientation it brings. They’re not looking over their shoulders worrying about what others think.

So, are you still a BT?

Will you be comfortable if you’re known to be a BT your entire life?

Are you working on diminishing any aspects of your BT-ness?

Have You Ever Read or Recommended “This is My G-d” By Herman Wouk?

Although dated February 21, 2012, we just recently stumbled upon this article, Modern Times which describes the publication of Herman Wouk’s wildly popular This Is My G-d in 1959.

Rabbi Yitzchak Kirzner zt”l recommended this book for a first exposure to Judaism and after giving it to a friend, he exclaimed that this was the first book you gave me that I could actually get through.

Have you ever read the book?

Have you ever recommended it?

What did you like or not like about it?

Links for 4/25 – Successful Shul Dinners, Studying Orthodox Education, Koreans Love the Talmud

Running a Successful Shul Dinner: Between getting an honoree, a caterer, a journal, and short speeches, it’s not easy, but it’s a great event for fundraising and achdus.

Orthodox Schooling: What Do We Know?: YU’s Azrieli School of Jewish Education begins studying how the experiences of observant life play out in the context of families, schools, Israel programs, and campuses.

Samsung Korea VP Visits Yeshiva to Help Koreans Learn Talmud: The South Koreans believe that high academic Jewish achievement is linked to Talmud study, and are increasingly adding it to their education curriculum.