Orthodoxy.....ad nauseum
We have lost our minds....from our leaders(whatever that means)to the regular jew in the street.
Everything has got a label,from where we do not know.
Everything has big money involved,from kashrus to Daf Yomi gatherings.
Public lectures are given by people who are ignorant on the topics they are supposed to be experts on.(of course there is an entrance fee)
Offspring of yesterday's rabbi's are cashing on on their family name.
Ignoramuses are publishing books.
Most American yeshivas are run by below average wannabee rabbis,and in the most cases are family businesses.
Lay leaders are the guys with the biggest mouths and too much free time on their hands.
Give me one truly religious and honorable Jew,and I will give you one hundred thousand who do not have a clue.
More to come.......
Everything has got a label,from where we do not know.
Everything has big money involved,from kashrus to Daf Yomi gatherings.
Public lectures are given by people who are ignorant on the topics they are supposed to be experts on.(of course there is an entrance fee)
Offspring of yesterday's rabbi's are cashing on on their family name.
Ignoramuses are publishing books.
Most American yeshivas are run by below average wannabee rabbis,and in the most cases are family businesses.
Lay leaders are the guys with the biggest mouths and too much free time on their hands.
Give me one truly religious and honorable Jew,and I will give you one hundred thousand who do not have a clue.
More to come.......
posted by Paul Mendlowitz | 3:37 PM
28 Comments:
Powerfull stuff.
By the grace of G-d
Shalom uBrocha!
What's your point? Don't have emuna pshuta? Everybody is corrupt till proven otherwise? Give some ideas to improve the situation.If as it seems your heart is bleeding over the current situation in the Jewish world do something to improve it, or at least tell your readers what do you think should be done.
be'kavod u'brocha
Ariel Sokolovsky
Long Live our Master our Teacher and our Rebbe King Moshiach Forever and Ever!
Ariel,
His point to me is obvious.Expose the fraudulent people and practices(he did NOT use names)so we may rid ourselves from them.Ubearta hara b'kirbecah.
There are rabbonim and laymen who without question are ehrliche yiden.
The establishment of an American Vaad with these people at the helm would be a good start.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
By the grace of G-d
Shalom uBrocha!
According to the laws of shmiras haloshon in many of these cases he can, and may be should use names.If he will do so at least people will know who they should beware of.
brocha ve'hatzlocha:
Ariel Sokolovsky
PS:As long as he doesn't list names and just condemns unaniomous people and in fact implies that they are in the majority this simply increases suspicion and distrust within the Jewish commmunity.
Long Live our Master our Teacher and our Rebbe King Moshiach Forever and Ever!
He does not imply that all leaders are bad people.
Shlomo
Ariel,
I went to your website.
Do you believe the Lubavitcher Rebbe is alive?
Do you believe that he is going to be reincarnated as Moshiach?
Jacob
By the grace of G-d
Shalom uBrocha!
I believe he is alive in a supernatural manner like Eliyahu haNovi for example.Able to materialize in any place like in this story:
http://www.moshiachforkids.com/story/story.html#mhm
see also what the Rebbe says about the eternal life of Moshiach here (in the public bookmarks subject list section):
http://www.otzar770.com
With respect and blessing.
Ariel Sokolovsky
PS:Gimel Tamuz has numeric value same as Od Moshiach Chai-Moshiach is still alive
Long Live our Master our Teacher and our Rebbe King Moshiach Forever and Ever!
Shalom To Ariel,
Please explain what you mean by super natural.
Lubavitcher,
Do teshuva, and join the Jewish faith. You mean well, but your views are distorted and wrong. I promise that I will daven for you
By the grace of G-d
Shalom uBrocha!
Anonymous said...
Shalom To Ariel,
Please explain what you mean by super natural.
3:42 PM
There are many levels to understand it.
1)Moshiach is alive thru his shluchim see http://www.sichosinenglish.org/books/sichos-in-english/28/12.htm
2) Moshiach is alive metzad atzmo soul in a body and like Rabbi Yehudah haNossi (see the famous story in Sanhedrin and Rashi there and explanation of Rabbi Yehudah haChosid ) or Eliyahu haNovi can materialize anitime anyplace see the story here for example http://www.moshiachforkids.com/story/story.html#mhm
3) If you want call me on the phone I can explain this better.
Anonymous said...
Lubavitcher,
Do teshuva, and join the Jewish faith. You mean well, but your views are distorted and wrong. I promise that I will daven for you
2:51 PM
Dear Anonymous.
If you seriously think I "left the Jewish faith" and my views are distorted and wrong it's your duty to explain to me in what way they are wrong or if you are an AmhaAretz you have to refer me to your rabbi who presumably can explain your views. You seem like a well meaning guy, but you can't go around accusing Jews of heresy without offering proof or a link at least, wise up. At least read my short life story http://www.Torah.5u.com/aboutme.html to understand where I'm coming from
You are hilarious: the rebbe is dead, ergo, he aint mashiach. That's the first point.
Second point. You are an am ha'aretz, because you know nothing aside from your loony lubavitch ways.
Third. You seem to be well meaning person, why don;t you join judaism and give the whole messianic cult thing a break.
The reality is that I should not even dignify you with a response. Pick up a gemara, and call me in 20 years, if you's like. Or read up on why lubavitch messianism is wrong. Dead wrong.
Are you a baal teshuva? Is that how all this started, so that you don't know better? Man, I cannot believe someone took advantage of you like that. . .
But after reading your little blurb you referenced, I really think you should try to sit back and really think: what's the difference between what you are writing and what osme other cult writes? Don't you scare yourself?
Oyu have to go to Yeshiva--not a lubavitch one--and just learn for a while.
There are two responsa on the subject that have been conveniently posted online, one even with an English translation. R. Aharon Feldman, dean of the prestigious Ner Israel Rabbincal College (Yeshivas Ner Yisrael) in Baltimore responded as follows (Hebrew, English):
[T]he meshichistim are not to be considered non-believers (“apikorsim”) and they remain within the category of “your nation,” their testimony and shechita are valid and it is permitted to include them in a minyan. However, great danger surrounds their belief, for it digs beneath the very foundation of the Jewish belief in moshiach!...
Now even if it is true that the meshichistim are not considered non-believers, it is still forbidden to support them or publicize their opinions for it is forbidden to support falsehood. All the more so in this case where there exists the danger that their belief might spread to the general Jewish community and thus the Torah itself could be erased from Israel, chas v’sholom.
Therefore, one who finds himself among Lubavitchers who observe customs aimed at strengthening their faith (for instance, those who chant “yechi adonainu hamelech hamoshiach” at the end of davening), is required to leave, or, if possible, to offer rebuke.
Furthermore, in my opinion it is clear that even though the meshichistim are not considered “non-believers,” nevertheless, they are presumably (“b’chezkas”) people who lack Torah understanding and it is impossible to rely on their conclusions in Torah matters - even issues that do not relate to Moshiach.
Habad messianists are not heretics but they maintain a foolishly and dangerously mistaken view, which renders their judgement suspect and requires us to avoid legitimating their belief. A similar, but less strident, approach is taken by R. Yehuda Henkin (as a free advertisement, I'll point out that this is only one of many interesting responsa that is scheduled for publication this summer in volume 4 of R. Henkin's Bnei Banim):
What many of his Hassidim believe, that R. Menahem Mendel Schneerson is the king messiah, is false and nonsense. However, I do not know of any denial or heresy in [this belief] for they await the messiah. What do we care if in their mistaken view he already was, died and will return? In the end, they are waiting for the messiah to come.
I spoke with R. Hershel Schachter and R. Mordechai Willig on this subject. R. Willig said that R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv has ruled that Habad messianists are heretics.
The following report about R. Ya'akov Kamenetsky comes from the controversial biography of him by his son, R. Nosson Kamenetsky, Making of a Godol (if anyone cares, I read this passage before the controversy erupted). In the forward, while discussing his father's attitude to the unpublished chapters regarding the Vilna Gaon's opposition to Hassidus in R. Betzalel Landau's Ha-Gaon he-Hassid mi-Vilna, R. Kamenetsky writes as follows (pp. xxvii-xxviii):
R' Landau pleaded with my father, "How can I publicize the Gaon's prohibition on intermarriage with hasidim and possibly cause families to break up?" My father agreed that the five chapters he had prepared be left unpublished but not destroyed, saying, "Have them prepared for publication but desist from [publishing them] until such time as may come when events will necessitate their publication." He explained in veiled terms, "They must be ready in case a certain someone [yener] should do an ugly thing [a mi'usse zakh]." He was referring to messianic fantasies simmering in a hasidic circle - in Israel, the adherents of that group had fomented a political feud along hasidic-misnagdic lines - and my father felt that the eventual publication of these chapters would help the general hasidic public shake off the messianics should their fantasy get out of hand. As it turned out, my father's concerns were well founded: a large segment of that hasidic cult did declare its leader to be the Messiah. (The perverse possibility that a decade after his meeting with R' Bezalel, many of the sect's members would formulate the phantasm that its dead rebbe would make a "second coming" - this is what they believe and are propagating in our day - likely never even entered the realm of our protagonist's normal, healthy imagination...)
Need more?
If you can read hebrew, see
Kuntres Bikores HaGeuloh, http://moshiachtalk.tripod.com/bikores/
I really think you should do teshuva, which means, leave lubavitch, go to a normal yeshiva, pick up a gemara, and start to learn. You are really, really not well now, at least on a hashkafa level, and have to come to terms with what and who you really are in terms of your judaism.
You have an obligation to look harder into finding Torah and mitzvos. No matter how well intentioned you are, that dribble I saw on your website is false according to all the poskim. As a medical professional I can also warn you that you do not seem stable, and you should seek help.
Best of luck.
looks like the wacko ran away; i hope he does better . . .
The Lubavitch "Moshiach" movement has done a lot to cause normal Jews to question the validity of Orthodoxy in general. Combine the lunacy of the Lubavitchers with the well-publicized criminal and sexual scandals sweeping the Orthodox world, the insane "religious" practices such as burning sheitlach in the street in front of newpaper reporters, the rampant fraud in private tzedokas, the horrible batei dinim, the march of a generation into the throes of poverty and shnorrerkeit in the kollels, the countless little swindles committed by Orthodox Jews against fellow Orthodox Jews and others, and one, no matter how sincere at one time, can begin to wonder about the "emes" of the whole Torah thing. I fear we have entered into a sick age. I fear that for many of us regular ba'al habatim, the emunah has been eroded in recent years.
Your profile says the truths were heart rendering. One renders an image or meat. Perhaps you mean heart rending.
B"H
"The Lubavitch "Moshiach" movement has done a lot to cause normal Jews to question the validity of Orthodoxy in general."
1)Did you conduct an opinion poll to make such statement?
2)It's not really relevant to the issue itself.
I know what you write and the others write is basically true, and some has a little hyperbole attached, but since I am nogaya bedovar because I am related to or am personally acquainted and/or have to work with almost everyone in almost every single post, I gotta tell ya boychik, I wish I had your beitzim. As for the rebbe being moshiach...well, I grew up in the hood, and way back in the late 50s, my dad used to crack a joke, whenever everyone had to load up their homes like dorms with college kids who came for farbrengen, that the rebbe had a white donkey in the basement of his house on President St. Go know a joke would be taken so seriously 50 years later. (Am I really THAT OLD???!!! yikes!!!) Man, I lived through most of what you wrote and was an eyewitness. Kol Hakavod man. (heavy reading...right on point.)
Point to ponder, Unorthodox:
When you go to your grave, is this really what you want to leave as your legacy? I always say about white supremacists and other hate-spewing people- It's a shame that they don't devote their energies to some positive movements. They don't have a platform, they are simply opposed to the other platform. Would you give any credence to a political candidate who didn't have his own principles, but just opposed whatever the other candidate stood for? Say something for yourself- what do you do that creates change and brings good to the world. Don't just bad mouth any and all circumcized people!
May I enlighten you. The issue here is one of culture. Yes, you are correct. Sex abuse and even sex trading/sex trafficking are not Jewish culture.
This is from the Roma or Gypsy culture. There is the Roma mafia shadowing most of the modern Roma Jews and Roma now Roman Catholics.
The fact that there needs to be a reforming of their culture is true.
By speaking about these problems, the bigger picture is the genetic tendency of schizophrenia in the Roma people. This causes abnormal behavior.
HASHEM will correct these problems through prayer and faith.
Here's hoping that you will not be in denial. And that you will accept that these issues of sex abuse/sex trading/sex trafficking come from the Roma or Gypsy culture. No, these are not Jewish issues.
You must accept that due to genetic schizophrenia due to close intermarriage, that the Roma people must heal from this abnormal behavior and tendency for criminal behavior.
By not displaying this, this tells me that you are in complete denial of your true heritage, Roma and not Jewish.
So be it. You will learn to understand more of your only 400 year old Jewish-Roma-Gypsy culture one day.
Dear un-orthodox Jew,
I agree those ingredients exist. We definitely can use a great deal of reform in our Yeshivos, and it is being done.
However I find a tremendous flaw in your whole project. By calling yourself "unorthodox" you imply that you don't believe in any of the orthodox ways. You seem to be criticizing from the outside, not from within.
Do you believe in the premise that there has to be a "Shevet Levi" that devotes itself to torah, as stated in Rambam?
Do you believe that the study of Torah (in the proper way) has a beneficial effect on the entire world, spiritually and materially, as stated countlessly in Chaza"l?
Do you believe that a good Kollel could have a positive effect on a community?
Do you believe Halachah should be observed in detail? Do you believe the 'Shulchan Aruch' is binding? and therefor studied as such? (Do you? from your variety of posts it seems that you don't know too much of it, especially the one about "Malkiel". Besides, you don't seam to observe the laws of 'Lashon Hora' too well)
If you don't believe in the above, then instead of talking about all the problems, bigotry and extortion (which exist in the non-orthodox world just the same, if not worst), and let's argue about the basic belief is it true or not.
If you believe in the above, then why don't you post positive examples of those who are doing it the way they should. It certainly will work better if you do so. If your whole purpose is getting rid of the bad within why do you come across as favoring anything that is negative regardless of how well educated and well informed is the writer?
It is a crime (correct me if I'm wrong) to post such stories as "criticism of orthodox jewry" .When a orthodox figure is found guilty it's definitely our duty to correct it, but it doesn't mean he did it because he is orthodox, and we all know how true that is. And those who cover up for the criminal are also not doing it because they are orthodox, and how true that is... just open any non jewish newspaper.
The whole picture is missing here. The fact is, we have the lowest crime rate (despite our "poverty"), and the lowest divorce rate. In Lakewood NJ the divorce rate and crime rate is lower than... Weather Rabbi Ahron Kotler (Lakewood) or Rabbi Ruderman (Baltimore) was right is not the decision of doctors and lawyers, the same way a Rabbi shouldn't decide a medical question.
Some of your posts are so ignorant of the facts that I can't even begin with them.
The non-orthodox world has a lot to be accountable for. I even know they have ignorant people publishing web sites...
I am reluctant to give my full name since I'm a Jew that has blemishes and has made errors during my lifetime.
As opposed to many people on your blog who write to you and literally vilify and curse at any Rabbi, Rosh Yeshiva, or Bal Habayis. They totally neglect the fact that they themselves may have blemishes and errors during their lifetime.
My dear OUJ, I do want to commend you for bringing the very serious issue of molestation out in the open. You should know, that in the last 10-15 years there have been many individuals who have dealt with this issue in a direct and forthright manner. They, including myself, have called the police and Child Protective Services. I myself, am familiar, and have reported, at least 20 teachers, parents, and Rabbis that have engaged in this reprehensible act. For your own record, the only Rav I know of, who has permitted these calls to be made halachically was Rav Dovid Cohen who has been vilified on your site by some ignorant, arrogant people, who have no knowledge of the history of molestation in the US and Israel.
The bad news however is, that in my opinion, your blog will not continue a year from now. The reason is not related to the fact that your fight is unimportant. On the contrary, it's a desperate, serious issue in our community. Your blog will not survive since it has attracted some of the sickest, angry, and uninformed members of our Orthodox students and parent in our community. The venom and hatred is so deep that it literally poisons the message you want to portray. The fact that you allow bad language and attacks on distinguished Jews is one of the reasons why your blog will not survive. In the last 6 months, people have named as much as 50 different members of the Orthodox community. Many of whom were attacked based on hearsay hatred or some other unknown reason.
Perhaps you can use your energy and talent to create an organization that will deal solely with the issue of molestation in Yeshivas, camps, and Orthodox homes. This way you won't have to hide behind the name ‘unorthodox Jew’-which I’m sure you're not, but be out there in the open with other decent professionals and Rabbonim who are seriously concerned with this issue.
For the record, I believe that Torah Temima will not close down but will continue. Don't be under the illusion that thousands upon thousands of people are reading and supporting your blog. There are many among our Orthodox Jewish population who are concerned and angry. I have asked hundreds of Orthodox single and married people if they are familiar with your blog. Unfortunately, 90-95% of our people have no knowledge of it and just continue with their lives despite the fact that this is a critical issue in Klal Yisroel.
Want to commend you for the work you've done till now, but if you continue in the same vein, of throwing out names, and having people pick them off and destroy their reputations without proof, your service becomes a disservice.
I look forward to your response on this blog. Perhaps I will find out very shortly who you are and how to reach you directly.
Signed:
Not totally on the sidelines
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