Family

                                                                                                          B-H

After last week long posting of Rav Hirsch’s writing which I titled ‘Family” perhaps nothing else should be said. He writes on this topic in such a beautiful and meaningful way that I can’t imagine anyone else being able to add to his words. Nevertheless I decided to write a second post titled “Family”.  No, I don’t think that my writing can be compared to that of my Rav and Master, neither in content nor in style. I rather want to share with the reader my personal experiences and convictions hoping that the fact that they do not come  from the great Rav with his exceptional knowledge, understanding and vocabulary but come from a simple person like me with his simple almost clumsy language, will add an additional shade to this discussion.

“And than they shall became one flesh.”

This is first mitzvah in the Torah, a call from the Creator of humanity to his creation. This mitzvah requires both parts of mankind, those obligated to keep the seven commandments for the descendents of Noah and those who were chosen among the sons of Abraham to perform 613 commandments – Jews. Since it is first of the commandments it indicates a high if not the highest value of this mitzvah.

There was a boy thirty years ago growing in Poland. A country separated from the world by the iron curtain and shackled by the chains of official atheism and cultural anti-Semitism. This boy was just a little bit more than 16 years old but after a few disappointments with his political activities and after discovering the falsehood of the world around him, began to look for the real meaning of life. He was surrounded by friends of both sexes  but something inside was telling him that what encircled him was not the truth; he started to recognize that  what people are saying and what they believe in is not real, in fact it is false.

With his friends he discussed everything, from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to Marx and Engels, from LaSalle and Kropotkin to the old Greek classics. But much time other then when he was not in the library he spent on his couch at his home. Sometimes sitting, other times lying and looking at the ceiling above, but many times he was also kneeling next to this couch. He tried to understand why everything exists, why he was born what is his role in this reality, how to achieve the goals and Who is standing behind all of this. Weeks of this intense thinking and analysis soon bore fruit with conclusions that drew for him the path of his future life. He found out about G-d even though at the time he still defined Him in the form of  a trinity as he was taught in his youth. He discovered the reason and meaning of life and he understood the right means to achieve the goals of life.

Not bad as for a 16 year old considering the fact that thousands of others have spilled oceans of ink to come to the same conclusion. Without a doubt, he didn’t understand everything and learned much more later in his life but he grasped certain fundamentals upon which everything he learned later in life was built on. Without a doubt it happened with the help of Heaven which he continuously asked for answers and providence.

One of these fundamentals ideas which he understood was the magnitude of the institution of the family. The conclusions came from two facts. One of them was the unique and different way that humanity was designed: man and woman, she and he, male and female. It was self evident for him that in this design must be something so profound that if any goal for humanity exists it must be achieved through the unification of these two elements. From the reality surrounding him he understood that if this unification takes place between more than one male and female, if this unification is betrayed, ruined or corrupted somehow, than the means to this lofty goal is ruined and the goal of humanity can not be achieved. He understood that all his male potential should be reserved to one mate whom he was hoping to meet at some point of his life and build a future together with her. He didn’t understand the details of what the goal is about, but he knew at the time, that it was the Creator Himself who designed it this way and marriage is part of His service – it is the way to fulfill His will. Surely he didn’t know or have any access to the source of knowledge of how to build a family or how to express his love to his wife or by what means a marriage can be ruined, he didn’t have any patterns or tradition of how to give a proper upbringing to his future children. For him all of the above was an experiment yet to take place.

Those revelations were result of the time the boy spent on the couch and next to it. It happened in the weeks between September and October of ‘82. In November of that year his new conclusions were subject to a trial. He went to a Blues festival in a far away town where Polish hippies used to gather to share the music, pot or even syringes. Various promiscuous & other immoral acts were also commonplace. At this time he was still a boy, young of age but wise in his self consciousness. With a couple of his friends he made a pledge to keep clean, clean from smoking, drinking and promiscuous behavior. Behavior which he understood should take place only under the covenant of marriage. Heaven watched over him and he kept his pledge.

The following January he went with his friend on a road trip. Trains, train stations, hitchhiking, towns and people, he saw it all. By the guidance of a Higher power he ended his trip in the only store in Poland selling Bibles. He bought his first Bible! Among other surprising revelations of the book of revelation there was the first commandment of the Creator: “and they will became one flesh”. This was one of the matters which convinced him to recognize this Book, the Bible as the Message of G-d to humanity. Among many other important issues which he recognized at that time as essential to leading a life serving his Creator the issue of Family Philosophy and moral purity was without a doubt the leading one. All of the other matters he was ready to learn and change if necessary, however all the other desires were not as strong as basic instinct – the result of testosterone flowing in his veins. Because he recognized that since the primal desire to procreate is the strongest and most basic of all desires it must be the one most watched and controlled. It is never easy for a man to restrain himself from wrongdoing. It wasn’t easy for this young man whose life was open before him and promising fulfillment of all of his craving and desires. With the help of Heaven he decided to withhold from promiscuous behavior and invest all of his potential in the service of G-d and his sexual potential only with his wife, the woman of his future. It was not easy, not only because nature doesn't work in this direction but also because his friends and the environment were not supportive. There was a popular nicely rhymed saying in Polish about such weirdo’s like him – “ doesn't smoke, doesn’t drink, doesn’t … and his name is a.. hole!” Not once and not twice was he ridiculed for his convictions, for being faithful to his beliefs but he seemed to the only one with these beliefs.

It is not difficult to recognize in this story the author of this essay. I describe some more details of what happened during those months of my life in my book “Another Convert”.

I will again share a few of the other aspects of this spiritual-intellectual experience which happened to me during at my mid teenage years. Upon discovering that there are different forms of Christianity I found in one of the small Christian denominations fulfillment of my higher desires and a path helpful to live a G-dly life. A few years later I met my future wife the one I wanted to grow old with and to be the mother of my children. We got married and than I found that my religion could not give me the spiritual growth which my heart desired. After a long search I found that Judaism offered me not only a life according to the commandments revealing the ‘Character’ of G-d but also has incredible means for family development and preservation. The problem was that my family was not ready for that step, to leave Christianity and to become Jewish. While there were possibilities and offers to convert with a non orthodox conversion together with family or an orthodox conversion without my wife and children I had strong convictions that love for my wife and children is of the highest value. For a non Jewish gentile person, to destroy his marriage and abandon his family so as to achieve many more mitzvos is great disservice to Hashem the Giver of life. I waited. I greatly desired to fulfill the other mitzvos given by Hashem to his chosen people but I chose to continue to be faithful to the commitments and convictions of the ‘revelation’ of my youth without converting to Judaism. After six long years of waiting, Hashem blessed us with a unified decision to undertake the yoke of Torah by my whole family. Together with my wife and growing children we now discovered much more about family than we ever expected.

The institution of Mechitza, the separation between the sexes in public events was one of those discoveries, the great Jewish tradition of protecting a woman’s dignity and man from impure thoughts. Laws of yichud – preventing men and women (excluding the closest members of the family) to be secluded alone with each other was another important discovery. Those were a few of the most profound, important and yes enjoyable institutions, as those laws gave the married couple even more trust and faith than just relying on positive connections between the spouses. Love and trust are of course fundamental for a healthy family, and protecting mechanisms serve only as devices helping to keep higher standards of morality and love between the married couple.

But there were more such devices and procedures in Judaism promising the ability to build a family of more than one or two generations. 
Those were building binders which allowed assembling the structures which Rav Hirsch describes in the post which I posted on my blog last week. The ‘family minhag’, the custom binding members of the same family unit to something greater, to something lasting for generations, is the most profound of all. The way how the family dresses and cuts their hair, the way how they cut the chala at the Shabbos table, the daily behavior which is common and specific only for this family and no others. All the other cultural and sociological aspects used also by others but employed in specific arrangements within the family unit. Judaism gives an opportunity to establish and reinforce families for generations while at the same time giving the means of developing the individuality and specific talents of its members. With growing children there is a possibility to establish something which will serve them and their future offspring.

Rav Hirsch writes, the payment for the parents for their toil with their children is seeing the care which is taken for their children’s children. When the old zaide and babbe see their aineklech and ihr ainklech following the path which they designated for them, this is the only payment for their investment. No money, not even the care which children owe to their parents according to halacha are considered payment but the awareness that here are people who will remember their grandparents as the ones who established them as a family ready to live and die for Hashem and each other, this is the greatest achievement of life. This and more is what Yidishkeit has to offer. Life without this is not worthy to exist. This is what began as an intellectual and spiritual kernel in the minds of those 16 years olds back in Poland. 

Matys Weiser

Family by Rav Hirsch

                                                                                                          B-H

We are already thinking about the summer, Pesach is long forgotten but here is a belated (it seems to be that I am posting late more and more!) essay containing commentary from my beloved Rav Hirsch. It is a commentary on Passover but I guarantee you that it will serve you for the coming summer as well, these words will serve you in life. Don’t wait till the next Pesach to read this! Any time is the right time for chizuk and inspiration!

Matys Weiser

(Subtitles are mine)

INDIVIDUAL

Ish "every one of them!" This is the first feature in the character-formation of this people raised upright by God. Every one of them! God has built His Nation upon the personal self-awareness of each individual member of His People; not upon a vague national consciousness finding no response in the warm and feeling hearts of its citizenry. God does not envision His spiritual task undertaken by agents who, as representatives of the people, absolve them from their individual duty.

Ish "every one of them!" was the rousing call which summoned Israel out of its darkest night. And if they were as numerous as the sand on the seashore, one and all would be expected to answer God's call. God has asked and continues to ask each one to help in building His Nation. This Nation cannot dispense with a single member.

Veyikcho luhem ish – (for themselves – each man) God has granted each one independence and human dignity by means of His "unburdening" and "liberating" acts of

Redemption. The Pessach offering, this Jewish declaration of independence, was simultaneously Korban Tzibur and Korban Yichud, and remains so for all time; it was a national act which had to be put into effect, not by national representatives, but by every individual. It became a national act precisely because the nation and all of its members participated in it at the same time and in the same manner.

Thus the first and fundamental feature of the Jewish national character is pride. It is the pride of human dignity and human awareness. It is the proud awareness not of what a person is, but rather of what a person should be. This is the powerful feeling of human worth that never lets a person give up completely but urges him on to reach the pinnacle of self-awareness attainable by all.

Seh The "lamb"—the creature which joyfully follows God as its Shepherd—was the first object demanded by God from His newly independent nation. The "ox," the "ram," the "goat"— strength, power, and energy respectively—these had been surrendered up to God by three misery-laden generations. Centuries of death-dealing suffering had taught them simply to endure their pain with loyal resignation. Joyful submission to the guidance of their life's Guardian; willing obedience to God, their Shepherd—that, they were now to learn. At the moment of redemption, they all became "Lambs"- His sheep, "Sheep of His pasture." All of them allowed themselves to be led by Him to life, just as they had allowed themselves to be led by Him to death. This obedience to God is the second characteristic in the image of the People of God. All of them stand independent, equal, conscious of their equal worth and their equal dignity; but all of them stand equal also in their equal subordination to God: Ish Seh

FAMILY

And Ish seh lbais avos seh lbais (each man – a lamb for the father’s house a lamb for each household)—underlines the third and fourth characteristic of Israel. Each Jew, in the full feeling of independence, subordinating himself to God with complete devotion; each is closely attached to the house of his parents, symbolizing the past, and to the house that he will build, symbolizing the future! Ish lbais avos vlbais, (man for his parental home – man for himself) that is the cornerstone of the Jewish People: to bring forward the traditions of yesterday into the world of today. Every Jew comes forth out of the love of his parents who look after his physical and moral well-being. Every Jew recognizes as the prime purpose of his own striving the task of building another house. By looking after the physical, moral and spiritual needs of his children, he pays the debt of gratitude owed to his parents.

It is not without good reason that family purity is such an essential precondition for Jewish national existence; it is not without good reason that their adherence to family purity lo gilu arayos—was the first merit that made Israel worthy of Redemption and of its selection for its great historic task. Consequently lo shinu shmom vleshonom. Subjected to terror and persecution, Israel did not lose the consciousness of its special mission. Could this have been achieved through any other virtue than the chaste purity of the generations? No Jewish child was exposed to a casual education or entrusted to the care of chance. Was this not achieved because both father and mother were present and available for every Jewish child from birth onwards! Upbringing is the spiritual and moral completion of the physical process begun with conception and birth. All of Judaism is built upon the fact that every Jew is born for one specific life vocation and task; that every Jew must be educated for this life task, and that this spiritual bequeathal of a Divinely revealed vocation is transmitted from generation to generation. Can this Judaism then be truly realized if the child, who is the key to the coming generation, has no father who transmits the Jewish spiritual legacy to him; if the child has no home in which he thrives in the formative atmosphere of the pure Jewish life required for this spiritual legacy?

To be descended from a proper home and to build another such home—bais avois ubais—comprises, therefore, all the good fortune, all the earthly blessings, and all the ethical Calling of the Jew.—And is this not actually basic to all men? Is this not likewise the basic condi-tion for the well-being and ethical perfection of the nations? Is it not also the precondition for all the hopes of mankind?

O that wherever people deliberate about the fortunes of nations and national welfare, about the morals and the culture of nations, about the well-being and tranquility of people and of mankind; O that they would look at this first page of the Magna Charta of the People of God which was bestowed upon them by God! Not at the council tables of princes, not on the fields of battle, not in the factories of the industrialists, not in the halls of business establishments, not even in the lecture halls and educational institutions of, the arts and sciences, and also not in the temples where God is glorified—not there, but in the homes is decided the fortune or misfortune, the prosperity or misery of nations and men. Do you desire good fortune and prosperity? Procreate in purity, take care that in palaces and ordinary homes every new child that is born is looked after, reared, and educated with the love of his mother and father. Facilitate, encourage, and support this ethical building of human households. "Create homes!"—and you will have provided for the well-being of your families, peoples and states; you will have ensured—whether in palaces or in ordinary homes—that human affairs, from the sublime to the most ordinary, are entrusted to clean hands, pure minds and unsullied spirits. The spirit of morality, the spirit of love which can flourish and be practiced only in homes, that spirit will permeate and govern ruler and subject, industry and trade, science and art, religions and temples. That spirit—and no other—will bring about well-being and peace.

There is no surrogate for the home. Let immorality increasingly make a mockery of ethical family life and let children without fathers proliferate in the streets, then all of your politics and diplomacy, all your institutions of culture and learning will not save you from ruin.

Truly, the sages of old probed deeply into the problem of the well-being of nations. They noted that in the Divine Scriptures there is a repeated counting of the people by families and houses. The sages then comment as follows: "When Israel received the Law, the nations of the world were envious, saying: Why are these people deemed worthy to stand nearer to God than others? The All-Holy One silenced them with the words: Bring Me the records of your ancestry. You cannot! Only my sons are able to furnish evidence of their birth according to their families! Therefore, He counted Israel—at the beginning of the fourth Book—after the conclusion of the Giving of the Law in the third Book: Count the members of the entire congregation of the sons of Israel according to their families, according to the houses of their parents! Thus begins the fourth book; because Israel became worthy to receive the Law only through the purity of the lineage of their families. Israel wavered in this purity. They came to Shittim. The people began to go astray. The nations were delighted, saying: The crown they had worn has been taken from them! The glory in which they prided themselves is gone! They are now equal to us!—God then slew all who were morally corrupt and restored the rest to their purity. And then it says again: It was after the dying that God spoke to Moses and to Elazar: Count the members of the entire congregation of the sons of Israel!"—(Yalkut to Numbers I, 1).

And seh lbais avos seh lbais, and now every home, with its manifold filial and parental concerns and efforts, tasks and exertions, seh, must be the object of the loving care and guidance of God and must follow with trusting devotion the provident guidance of God, Ish seh lbais avos seh lbais, and every member of the household, relative to his or her position, as son or daughter, brother or sister. Father or mother, husband or wife, must present themselves to God only as a unit within that household, aware that only in this manner are they the focus of attention of Divine Providence. These are the people with which God built His Nation: Veyas lahem batim – “He built them houses" first.

"Collected Writings" V1 Nissan VI by Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch

Holy People

                                                                                                         B-H

It’s been few weeks since I posted last time and this kind of neglect of my blog doesn’t happen too often. From the blog statistics I see that people are visiting this blog even more than before and they are reading my old essays as they are not finding anything new since Purim. I apologize to all of my regular readers and the only excuse that I can provide is that some of my last essays were so long that they may last for a couple of weeks. So… this week I’ll post something different than the previous topics of bashing unfaithful, unorthodox and confused.

Holy People 

Saints of the nations - especially devoted individuals who according to their beliefs undertake steps and actions that are supposed to appease their deities.

For example those religious folks who make a yearly pilgrimage to their holy sanctuaries, their version of “Bumois” – high places, who sometimes walk for miles on their knees or even crawl or roll on the ground toward their temples and chapels. Exhausted and bleeding, they believe they are committing the highest possible service to their god thus assuring them good fortune or even a place in heaven.

Or the others, who as a commemoration of the death of their god, allow themselves to be nailed through their palms to a tree. They understand this to be the way they can participate to a certain extent in this human sacrifice, which as they were taught by their priests, happened two thousand years ago in the Holy Land.

Yet others sit for hours and days in the same position while waiting for enlightenment.  They deny their bodies its basic needs, causing themselves pain, they call it meditation. They believe that their corporeal bodies are hampering them on their way to nirvana.

There are also those who take it to the other extreme. In their desire for higher reality, they commit suicide. But it is not plain primitive self killing. The kind of death which they choose, gives them glory in this world as well.

This kind of devotion is extremely difficult and sometimes it can take even years of effort to achieve this single goal – their spirit departing from their body. After denying themselves food and liquids, they starve to death in one of the yoga positions, later to be hung under the ceiling of the temple. Yes! Their dried corpses can be admired by every visitor who can reflect on the holiness of these holiest of people!

Some of these and others, less extreme people, have on their mind such simple transactions which in relations between humans would be called a - bribe. “Hello! god! I will show you my devotion and then you will give me what I want.” This is what many of them really have in their consciousness or sub consciousness. In other words a penitent in his religious action is trying to purchase the favor of god or sometimes even G-d by doing something which he, the penitent, considers as fulfilling the will of his deity. A person doing this act believes that he can manipulate heaven by his actions, by pushing certain so to say buttons of the heavenly machine and this action will result with heaven fulfilling his will or desire.  Yet for others, these kind of acts have a sacrificial character, supposedly to show the deity that the subjects of such atonement are punishing themselves for their sins, as they understand the meaning of sin.

Can we admire such devotion? Can we comprehend the dedication of these saints of the nations to their beliefs, to what they consider holy? Is there anything that we, Jews can learn from such religious acts, something what we can apply in our service to Hashem?

No! Chas VaChalila! G-d forbid! There is nothing here which we can emulate.

I purposely didn’t use quotation marks to describe these people as saints and their acts as holy, I wanted you to believe for a moment that in reality there may be something to consider, something to pursue, and something to learn and perhaps even to follow. But No, No and one more time No!  Such or similar behavior was never known within the main stream of our spiritual path, our Derech Hatorah.

If you look at the translation of the words Korban and Kapura from the Holy Tongue to English, you will see that Korban and Kapura translate to Sacrifice and Atonement. However this translation has no correlation to the original Hebrew meaning. They are used because English has no words to express those specific concepts of Torah.

Our bodies were given to us in order to engage them in truthful service of Almighty. Not by damaging them but the opposite, as Jewish Law requires, giving them all the necessary care. Food, sleep, garb, shelter, marriage, exercise, social life and all other necessities that support the body for the highest of services.

This is not a place to discuss this topic in detail and for the same reason I will not dwell on the story of Akeidas Yitzchok – the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. Volumes were written already on this subject and it is impossible to expound on this topic in a short essay like this one. Nevertheless, I will write B-H a few words, as Akeidas Yitzchok is one of the most known accounts of dedication in the history of mankind.

Yes, it showed to us that in certain circumstances without hesitation we should be ready to give back what is in essence a gift! - Our lives. And yes, G-d considered what Avraham and his son did as if this ultimate act of devotion really happened, as the Machzor for Yom Kippur says – Hashem is taking under consideration the ashes of Yitzchok. But no, it was never intended to make our service harmful in any way or destructive to our bodies.

There is however great difficulty in all of the elements listed above of earthly life which constitutes the essence of this service of G-d. What is this difficulty with performing all of these earthly, mundane actions? Our creator requires us to use and achieve all those means in a moral and ethical way. Ethics and morals are not created by man but are the revealed regulations and laws of the Torah, and this causes a double dose of complexity.

The first difficulty is that these requirements of Torah are specifically designed as a counter balance against the nature of man or corporeality which we also received from the same Creator. The Creator created us with our natural and corporeal desires but later in the Torah He asks us to put restrictions on our nature and corporeal desires. This is one of the difficulties. The second difficulty is that our service is based solely on our faith in His Torah. It is Torah and only Torah which decides what is good and what is evil for us. There are no other criteria of good and evil besides what He revealed to the Jewish nation - the Torah.

Only the children of Abraham, Yitzchok and Yaacov are able to express such faith and prove by their daily devoted lives that they are worthy to carry this most difficult task and test.  It is much easer to undertake from time to time some self-destructive act or even die for G-d. What is really difficult is for a man to live for G-d!, to work on self-control over our thoughts, speech and body for 70, 80 or 120 years, in this unfriendly environment. It is a most thorny task to submit the corporeal to the spiritual as corporeal seems to be so close and spiritual is invisible and remote. The Torah is asking nothing more than to work on, to change but to change ourselves and not to try to manipulate the Heaven with our actions! To subordinate us to the Creator’s will and not the other way around. Then and only than, we may find favor in His eyes and our requests for what is good and helpful can be answered.

I will conclude this essay; like the saying goes to add sweet raisins to the dough, with a sweet morsel from my beloved Rabbi Hirsch, Parshas Vaigash 46:1 “Yaacov’s life up till now had really been little else but an Akeida being realized concretely in actual every-day life.”  To paraphrase, one long Akeida lasting for the whole of Yaackov’s life.

Matys Weiser

Purim, Amulek and free choice

                                                                                                             B-H

“Vayishma Yisro Kohain Midyan Choisan Moishe Es Kol Asher Aseh Elokim l’Moishe ve’l’Yisroel Amo – Yisro, the minister (priest) of Midyan, the father in law of Moishe, heard all that G-d did to Moishe and to Yisroel, His people.”

Rashi elucidates: What report did he hear that caused him to come? Rashi answers, the dividing of the Red Sea and the war with Amulek.  

A few weeks ago I was learning Tanya with my Tanya Havruso, Reb Yaakov and he told me the explanation of this verse of Torah and Rashi’s elucidation according to the Chasam Sofer.  I almost jumped out of my skin. I was so excited!  From time to time we come across these pieces of Torah which give you the feeling that you want to dance and scream and give Hashem Yisburach praises and thanks. You want to express your gratitude that you are part of this society which has this wisdom and above all you are thankful to achieve this awareness of the Creator. For me this was that kind of moment. Now this is not a totally new idea for me. The concept of Bechira the free moral choice given to humanity by the Creator has boggled my mind for almost thirty years and today B-H I have a collection of my own thoughts on this topic as well. Some ideas that I have heard and learned in my studies and some that which with help of Heaven I was able to clarify and create new ways (new at least for me) to understand these concepts.

My sympathies for Yisro is also nothing new for me, there are some who occasionally compare me to this great man, one of the greatest men ever!. Those who see me as someone comparable to Yisro probably don’t understand his greatness. Nevertheless there is obvious link between every Jewish convert and this second in history major Ger – convert.

What made me so excited with the pshat (explanation) of the Chasam Sofer? It was how he explains why it was splitting of the sea and the war with Amulek which made Yisro want to convert. It is a known fact taught by our Torah that Yisro in his search for the true G-d investigated all the religious systems and philosophies available to him. The splitting of the sea itself, was not the sole reason that made him want to join the Israelites in their service of G-d. Other religious systems also teach about the Almighty Creator, or  at least the concept of a head god ruling over the other gods that were involved in the matters of mankind. The deciding reason for Yisro to convert was not the splitting of the sea alone but the splitting of the sea together with the subsequent war of Amulek. The fact that this Almighty G-d, who just days before split the sea with His might and control over nature, this same G-d, when it comes to human matters, withdraws Himself thus  leaving space  for man and his actions. In this case it was the action of the nation of Amulek to attack the Jewish nation.

Yisro understood the lesson which happened to his son in law and the people of G-d that he was leading. Yisro realized that G-d of Jews is free and unfettered in his actions and he made man free in his actions as well.

I was thrilled to learn that the same concept that has occupied my mind for so long since my early teenage years, this same concept was the decisive reason for Yisro to join the people of G-d and to give his life in unconditional service to this G-d!

No other man, nor family or society, no life situation or social status can change or influence our moral decisions! Even G-d himself “withdraws” so as to let our moral choice take place! Our freedom is happening inside our hearts and minds! No matter if we are in an easy environment or a hard one, it does not change the fact that the choice between good or, Lo ulaini, evil is in our hands. One can blame no one for his moral degradation besides himself. There is no other factor other than moral laziness and succumbing to the corporeal desires which allows some people to become beasts. Man was created with the ability to allow him to achieve a loftier level than even spiritual beings (popularly called angels). If man fails, it is his failure! If he succeeds it is his success to be rewarded. That’s the lesson which Yisro learned from the splitting of the sea and the war of Amulek.

Our discussion about Amulek in the context of the recent attack against our community by people who were too weak to uphold the high moral standards of this community; and the context of the reading of parshas Zuchor and the holiday of Purim, is entirely not coincidental. With help of G-d, I will come back to this topic after Purim and meanwhile please enjoy the comments of Rav Hirsch on the topic of Amulek. Amulek represents the mode of civilization in opposition to the civilization developed by the adherents of Torah. Again I will beg all my readers, skip my writings and read this excerpt from Rav Hirsch’s commentary. He promised and I also promise you, that your understanding of history and your position in history as an individual and as a member of the Jewish nation will be elevated new to levels after reading this!

Matys Weiser

From commentary on Chumash of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch:

"The general ideas on Nature, G-d and Man were so completely opposite to the Truths which were to be realized in Israel and through Israel; Nature and its Laws were thought to be so completely absolute and above any other power whatsoever; the gods themselves to be similarly bound by these laws; and Man to stand so powerless under the double ban of the blind powers of both Nature and gods, the step to Jewish conceptions of these matters was such a tremendous and overpowering contrast, that we really can not wonder if these basic ideas which lie at the root of Jewish thought and actions only became firmly established in the minds of the first people of G-d very gradually, and that it required all the great and wonderful experiences of our history, which was then 'List at its commencement, to make these truths really and truly and safely fixed in our consciousness. For the very foundation of Jewish Teaching is based on recognizing:

(a) Nature as being a creation of a completely free, Almighty unique G-d, Who still retains completely free mastery over it, and is in no wise bound by it, or the laws He has made to govern it;

(b) G-d, as the One, Personal, Free, Almighty Creator with completely unlimited powers of governing the world and

(c) above all, Man as being created by this free Creator as a personality with complete free will of his own, to whom given, again by the free Creator, the mission of raising himself above the forces of Nature which stand far below him, by, of his own free will, subjecting his own will to that of G-d, to become the first free servitor of G-d.

All the experiences which Israel — destined to become thy Nation of G-d — had hitherto made, since its entry into the wilderness, Mara, quails, Manna, Sabbath, water-from-the-rock, taught it to know its future relation to Nature, taught it what independence of the forces of Nature it was to gain, simply by subjecting itself to the Will of G-d. They still had one experience to make in these preparatory weeks for the reception of the Torah. It remained for them to learn what the position of the future People of G-d was to be, as a nation amongst the nations; its position in relation to human forces and for the future of human violence. This experience they were to have while still in Rephidim, the means of teaching was Amalek. In the same way that the Spirit of Esau, in its night attack on Jacob who was on his peaceful way to his individual independence, made Jacob live through the whole struggle and fight that the descendants of Esau would impose on the descendants of Jacob throughout the night-centuries of world-history, and proclaimed the final ultimate victory of Jacob, so it was Esau 's grandson, Amalek, who was the first and only nation that completely unprovoked and unthreatened, attacked Jacob's grandson, Israel, on their way to national independence. However weak and tired out by their wanderings, this people with women and children seeking a homeland must have appeared, the Might of G-d which hovered over them protecting and guiding them, had become so imposingly evident, that the fear of it paralyzed all the other nations, even those not immediately threatened. Philistia feared, Edom remained stunned, Moabtrembled, Canaan was quite dumbfounded, it was only Amalek, completely unprovoked, who hurried out of his way to gain renown and take up arms against the Force which had laid even a Pharaoh low. He alone lo ire Elokim, did not fear G-d. He alone, was the heir of that spirit which chose the sword as his lot, who sought to realize the seeking renown in laurels of blood and the naseh luni sheim with which old Nimrod started the history of the world to the destruction of the happiness of nations and men. This seeking renown by the force of arms is the first and last enemy of the happiness of mankind and of the Kingdom of G-don earth. The policy of the Pharaohs — using force ruthlessly to further their own interests, certainly has interest in keeping: up slavery, but it can even be a friend of freedom, when freedom serves its interest. But Amalek's renown-seeking sword knows no rest so long as one single pulse beats in freedom, and pays no homage to it, so long as any modest, quiet happiness exists which does not tremble before its might. Similar forces, armed to the teeth like himself, Amalek does not bate, but rather sees in such measures a sign of recognition and fear of his sword. He wages war against them of course, but honors opponents who acknowledge him and have similar principles to his own. But in Israel he sees an object of mortal hate and complete disdain, where one dares to think the sword is dispensable, where one dares to trust in spiritual moral powers, powers of which the sword has no idea, and which are beyond its reach. In the representative of the idea of the greatness which Man can attain by Peace, Amalek sees the utter scorn of all his principles, sees in it his one real enemy, and senses somehow his own ultimate collapse. "Amalek came and made war on Israel in Rephidim". Perhaps if Israel's faintheartedness had not caused Rephidim to be transferred from a passing station to a camping ground, Israel would long ago have already been led on to, Horeb, and Arnalek would not have caught them in Rephidim. But as it was, Israel had to endure this fresh anxious and worrying experience.

Attacked by Amalek, Israel had to wage war, but it is not Israel’s sword but Moses' staff that conquers Amalek and it is not any magic power in the staff but the Emuna - faith which is expressed and brought to the minds of the people by the uplifted hand, the giving oneself up with complete confidence to G-d that achieved the victory. Emuna "so his hands remained as an expression of confidence until the sun set".

(…)Aaron and Hur were at the side of Moses as the representatives of the People. Not the confidence in G-d of the Leader, but the confidence in G-d of the People, which the Leader inspired, led to victory.

Vayachlosh – root Chlsh whereas root Chltz means the loosing of a constricting band i.e., freeing, Chlsh is the loosing of the natural forces which hold one together; i.e., weakening. Joshua only weakened Amalek. His final defeat remains for the distant future. Israel itself is not yet mature. Until Israel attains maturity, the existence of Amalek as a contrast is necessary for the development of Israel's education.

(…) Es Zaicher Amulek - It is not Amalek who is so pernicious for the moral future of mankind but Zaicher Amulek, the glorifying of the memory of Amalek which is the danger. As long as the annals of humanity cover the memory of the heroes of the sword with glory, as long as those that throttle and murder the happiness of mankind are not buried in oblivion, so long will each successive generation look up in worship to these "great ones" of violence and force, and their memory will awaken the desire to emulate these heroes, and acquire equal glory by equal violence and force. Only when the divine laws of morals have become the sole criterion as to the worth of the greatest and smallest of men, and no longer in inverse proportion but in direct proportion to greatness and power do the demands of morality grow, and the greater and more powerful a man is, the less any lapse in the laws of morality is excused, then and then only will the reign of Amalek cease for ever in the world. That this is the final goal of G-d's management and direction of the history of the world is expressed here after the first weakening of Amalek, "I will utterly obliterate the keeping up the remembrance of Amalek from as far as the heavens reach". So also in Ps. IX,7, the thought is poignantly expressed, that only with the doing away with the remembrance of devastations and conquests will the perpetrators of these deeds disappear.

Vayiven Moishe Mizbeach - Just as Jacob, after he had won the name Israel by his night-long fight with the genius of Amalek, built an "altar for remembrance"Vayitzav Sham Mizbeach (Gen. XXXIII,20 see notes there), and there. by immortalized the acclamation Kal Elokai Yisroel so did Moses here build "an altar of remembrance" after the first victory over Amalek, and after the meaning of this victory had become clear to him. Amalek's greatness lies in "destruction".Israel's mission is "building", the peaceful human building up of everything earthly up to G-d. This building an altar, this final raising up of the whole earth to form an altar to G-d, is the antithesis of Amalek's Sword. (Compare Ch. XX,22). This altar of Moses in the wilderness starts the war to be waged against Amalek, that is why he called it H Nsi -"G-d calls me to the fight and shows me where I am to fight".Nes is neither a weapon nor a defense. Nes is the sign that is held aloft to give the fighter the direction and the place where the fight is to be fought. The work that G-d lets Moses start and found, has not got for its object simply the internal constitution of Israel. The object of the building up of the nation of Israel on the development of every humane feeling and ideal, is to fight and overcome everything ungodly and inhumane on earth. This development does not attack, but it is attacked, as by Amalek here, and in this defensive fight, Amalek gets defeated.

Vayomer (see the text in Hebrew) He gave it this name and thereby expressed that etc.; or, He said this because etc., Kas does not occur elsewhere. It is manifestly the incomplete Ksa, just as Yid Key is only a part of the Name of G-d. It is evident, as our sages say – “As long as the memory of Amalek is thought of as renown, neither God's Throne nor His Name is complete.” G-d then only rules in Nature, but not in the world of Mankind. At most G-d's Mastery is recognized and acknowledged as being over Nature, but not as being over the world of Man, as long as Man does not subordinate his actions to G-d's Will, as long as the ideal of Man's greatness is fixed on might and power, and not on his showing his homage to G-d by completely carrying out His Law of Morality. So here Moses proclaims: The governing (or directing) (Yad) power of the Throne of G-d — incomplete though the Throne may still be, and incompletely recognized though His Name may still be - is nothing else but a war for G-d, i.e., for His complete recognition, against Amalek from generation to generation. The underlying idea of G-d's direction of history is naught but war against Amalek until the Goal of Time is reached."

Non kosher Jesus and Der man Fun Natzret

                                                                                                             B-H

This essay suppose to be posted last week but since we are dealing with Hanotzri for the last two thousand years we have already well developed paths how to do it, I posted my last week essay about Mrs. Feldman’s affair.

“Feldmans” are also not a new phenomenon but after seeing that there is silence on our side for longer than we can afford in this inflated with information world, I decided to write and post some answer for her book.

But now please let me spread my wings over the space which I really know, the space which I was flying over for big part of my life – the history of Christianity. I can understand that it may look strange for some to see guy who looks like me to talk about it but well… in our days, there is not to many of us in our camp who have sufficient education and experience with this topic, to take a stand.

Non kosher Jesus and Der man Fun Natzret.

That’s right! Rabbi Boteach is not the first one who is trying to kosherise the Christian messiah for the Jewish people. Rabbi Boteach declared however in his article published on Huffington Post that he is addressing his new book to the Christians but the title of the book however suggests to me something else. Some may say that I got the wrong impression about the book from the title but doesn’t the title represent the book? That’s what the title has to do isn’t it?

The title of this book definitely is not addressing Christiandom, for kashrus is not a part of the Christan religion. If someone is labeling anything as ‘kosher’, to my simple understanding he is looking to sell his product to the Jewish public. It could be an object which really needs this kind of labeling like food or some other religious items. It could sometimes be an item which by stretching the meaning of word ‘kosher’ is labeled this way to assure Jewish buyers that this item meets the requirements of a specific Jewish group regarding certain restrictions like ‘kosher’ phone or ‘kosher’ wig. In all of these instances there is no doubt that it is the Jewish consumer that the seller expects to buy his product.

Now let us deal with ‘kosher’ Jesus.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, Rabbi Boteach is not the first one who is attempting to bring the gospel to the Jews. Sholem Ash, one of the leading ‘yidishisten’, wrote a book “Der Man Fun Natzret”, almost a hundred years ago. In beautiful prose he describes the life of Hanotzri, reading the gospel as only a Jew can. Colorful descriptions of first century Palestine, together with knowledge of the Jewish environment at the time is the background of the story of the gospel’s main hero. All described in a way unlike anyone before. B-H the book of Shalom Ash is almost forgotten by now and doesn’t influence the healthy minds of the Yiddish speaking public. But now we have Rabbi Boteach who once more is trying to do what thousands of Christian missionaries and persecutors have failed to do since the offshoot of the Jewish religion was invented.

Dear Rabbi Boteach,

I don’t believe that you will ever read this essay posted on an obscure blog authored by a convert, a convert who calls himself just ‘Another Convert’. But if you do see this essay, please do yourself a favor and read my book “Another Convert”. You will see that on the so fashionable for you ‘scholastic level’ there is already someone who wrote about Hanotzri but with the exactly opposite goal then one which you appear to have.

I feel strange, that I an ex Christian clergyman, teacher, missionary and preacher, have to come to you with words of Mussar. And believe me there is nothing in my heart causing me to write this critical essay about your book other than the good of Klal Yisroel which I have joined and I love. Rabbi Boteach you are on the wrong path!

There is no question that Hanotzri was a Jew and his teachings are derived from his environment but it is not he who should be credited for these highly moral teachings. It is   this environment, an environment filled with Torah and her followers. Devoted Jews who like him lehavdil learned from Moses, the Prophets and the Scriptures. He preached what he learned from his family members or from his rebbe in the local cheider or from both. Like every Jewish child he breathed the holy air of Torah from his young age. Like every Jewish man he was raised to take upon himself the sweet burden of the Torah and carry it with him throughout his life. Everything good that he preached, all that is so admired by the nations for a large part of human history, is Jewish! But is it Kosher?

Do we the Jews, need to learn from him? Do we need him and his distorted version of Torah, to enrich our service to Hashem? Is Hanotzri so important to us that we should stray from our mesorah/tradition of not learning or teaching about him and his views? The tradition which many of your ancestors gave their life for?

We, Jews are doing just fine without him and for all these years we have no need for him and his views! His philosophy brings nothing new to our values of the highest morality and love for our fellow Jew, the gentile as well as all of the bria – creation as taught to us by our sages. We aren’t deficient in any way and nothing from his teachings can increase our love to HBH our beloved Creator and Father. That’s how it was and that’s how it should be.

Our Jewish mission recognizes the good in everyone and everything that is good according to our Torah shaped definition of goodness. No Mitzva – good deed performed by Jew or gentile will be left unrewarded by our Creator. These are the teaching of our holy sages. But our task, the task of the Jewish nation requires clarity of mind and clarity of our tradition. We learned as soon as we left Egypt that it is not enough to be a so called ‘kosher Jew’ to fulfill our mission. We learned from the example of those who engaged in the sin of Chait H’Aigel but mostly from the sin of Korach and his comrades as well as from the transgressions of the meraglim, the spies.

I dare to remind you Rabbi Boteach, that Korach was a righteous man, a man who saw the holiness of his Jewish brothers and sisters. He kept Shabbos and ate only kosher. He put on tefilin and wanted to dip the all of his tzitzis in the blue dye of tacheles to do even more than what was asked from him by the Torah, and that’s precisely where his problems began. He ended up being swallowed by the earth together with many other ‘kosher Jews’. The Meraglim seemed to have legitimate concerns about the lives of their people. What can be more admirable than their concern about their fellow Jew, basically just saying ‘don’t go there because you will be killed by giants’. And than one day after the wrongdoing of the meraglim some of the Jewish people did not heed Moishe’s warning and decided to go and conquer the Promised Land - Eretz Yisroel after Hashem said not to. Their bones, like the bones of shavet Ephraim whiten the surface of the desert.  Now these ‘good’ Jews were severely punished by Hashem. Their lives were taken for much less serious Aveiros than the one who you seek to ‘kosherize’ in your book!

Yes, Hanotzri was a Jew and so were his first students and the entire Christian congregation of the first century beginning from his birth. But our Teachers who were smarter than me and you, they saw the events as they were happening and not from the perspective of history, two thousand year history covered with the ‘patina of paganism’as you call it. Those teachers decided that it is good for us not to be busy with him and others like him. They taught us that he and his teachings are not kosher!

Rabbi Boteach, being a Jewish patriot doesn’t make anybody Jewish al pi Torah, at least not for most of our history. It was and it is the Torah which makes one a Jew – Jewish - kosher adherence to the Torah and nothing, nothing else.

Again I will encourage you to read the chapters of my book dedicated to the topic of the Notzrim which I used to be one of. However, I wrote those chapters for reasons different than yours, to explain to thousands of my Jewish brothers and sisters who in their confusion due to their detachment from the true source of Jewishness believe that Hanotzri was a Kosher Jew. He was not, and like others like him, religious or patriotic Jews like Hanania, Shabsay Tzvi, Frank, Hertzel and countless of others, distanced himself from his people causing confusion and sometimes even great bloodshed.

I also take issue with another one of your ideas, dear Rabbi Boteach. On the Hufington post and elsewhere, you write about ‘interfaith dialog’. Well I don’t know where you took this idea but the way you are applying it seems to be strange. Strange not only to our Mesora but it is also not in sync with the ideas of those who are considered to be the fathers of ‘dialog philosophy’.

Let’s start with my great Rabbi  Rav Hirsch, how he understood the cause for the division of the nations in to seventy distinct identities. He wrote that the reason for this pluralism was for us humans to learn and collaborate in mutual understanding despite differences dividing us. In other words, the goal is to ultimately unite all humanity in serving the One Creator; it should be achieved however not by giving up all distinctive aspects of their cultures, but rather opposite, i.e. by engaging by these nations their own cultural elements in this service . Rav Hirsch applies a similar idea to the fact that our Creator divided His chosen nation into twelve separate tribes with different tasks and talents which were given to them to serve common task of Yisroel as a nation and humanity in general. This is the basic idea of Rav Hirsch.

Now let’s dwell a little bit on what Martin Buber wrote about ‘dialog philosophy’. In his various works and perhaps most prominently in his “I and Thou” he is quite clear. Dialog doesn’t require resignation from the principals of any of the participants of the dialog. Just the opposite, a Jew should stay a Jew, a Christian should stay a Christian and a Muslim should stay who he is! The different sides of the dialog shouldn’t require or expect the other side of the dialog to compromise their beliefs or even compromise on differing elements of their culture but rather to concentrate on the recognition of the human character of the adversary or of the friend. So why does your version of the dialog see it as necessary to make the messiah of the other religion, kosher? (I realize what I am saying may sound strange being written by a convert who became Jewish after being born to a Christian family but that’s a separate topic impossible to explain in this short essay but you may understand to a certain extent after reading my book and my other essays.)

If however from the very beginning you knew what I have written above and the title of your book was designed as a marketing trick to attract the public and sell your book then I would advise you to use something much more common in contemporary advertisement techniques. I think that if you would put in the title of the book… lets see … ‘sex’!  Much more people would buy your book. Oh! … You did that already?!

Matys Weiser

Some thoughts on "Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots” by Deborah Feldman

                                                                                                             B-H

There are no coincidences.  The fact that Mrs. Feldman comes out with her book at the same time that I began our long overdue ad campaign for my book “Another Convert” is not a coincidence. The fact that her book comes out on parshas (weekly portion of Torah Reading) Mishpatim and right after parshas Yisro is also not without meaning. Two parshios which are  known as the foundation for all the future laws of justice for all of mankind.

Many will ask, what now Mr. Convert! What you will say now about the religion and society which you chose to join? Now that Mrs. Feldman has “exposed” the dark side of Judaism in general and Hasidism in particular will you now possibly regret the choice that you made?

With the help of Almighty I will try to repudiate and answer some of the statements that Mrs. Feldman is capitalizing on these days.

Many of readers will expect me to be insufficiently informed about the community that I belong to, due to the fact that I joined the community as an adult. In fact, I am a member of the Hasidic community for the last 17 years compared to the Mrs. Feldman who is 25 years old and has been in the community since birth but left it at age 23. Mathematically it seems that there is a disadvantage on my side but considering the fact that I joined the community as a mature person quickly turns the math to my side. If you add the fact that my three children grew in this community while attending Hasidic schools this gives me much more experience and insight than any outsider can only dream about. Some may say that I certainly lack knowledge of the particular Satmar community that Mrs. Feldman grew up in. Again I want to assure my readers, that my ties with the Satmar community are very close. I never became an official member of this community as I didn’t want to commit to only one particular community however Satmar is where I’m at home and that is where I feel the most heimish. I can also mention that my Rav is the Satmar Rosh Yeshiva and my Rav in Monsey where I live, is a Pupa Hasid which while different than Satmar is still more alike then different. Also my youngest son learned in Satmar cheder and Yeshiva for most of his life and we always have plenty of boys from Satmar schools at our house.

What else can I add?  
When the argument, between the Hasidim of Reb Aharon and the Hasidim of Reb Zalman Laib of Satmar began in Williamsburg several years ago, I was literally in the midst of the argument as I was managing the expansion of the Satmar Mikva into the largest Mikva in The U.S.A. Yes, is was a difficult time as arguments and machlokes are never good, but for me those years when I worked in Williamsburg, with Satmar and other Hasidim gave me glimpse of the community which even some of the people who grew there can only dream about. As the Gemara teaches in Mesachtas Avoida Zarah - the person looking in through the window sees more than someone inside the room. I came away enriched and reassured about my choice as I saw how the highest emotions and sometimes even great ambitions can be controlled when there is adherence to the Torah and Jewish values. It is these values that allow its adherents even when arguing to be on a much different level than others in similar situations. But even more important, all the years in Williamsburg allowed me to learn about the people, make friends and see what we call Kedushas Yisroel on the streets of a big city. As many of non Williamsburg Hasidim can attest to, there are certain attitude and nuances that can be detected when you deal with “Williamsburgers”. We sometimes poke fun about this attitude and other things which we find humorous with our brothers from Williamsburg but after all is said and done we see them as our brothers and that’s how it should be. Enough said about my credentials!

There are many differences amongst us Hasidim, some stem from the different backgrounds of the countries where we came from, some diversity is result of differing philosophic ideas as taught by our great Hasidic teachers and other differences are a result of family upbringing. The last factor can in some cases be seen as an ‘oppressive upbringing’ as Mrs. Feldman chronicles it. As in other religions and cultures, we have dysfunctional families amongst us as well. There may be some meshugene rebbies/teacheres in cheder and there are nebech even cases of abuse. We are people and people we are. Nothing more or less. We have the same desires as the rest of humanity. Faults of character or even moral weakness are not strange to us. 
The fact that the Jewish people suffered through the holocaust and still are a model of high moral values and devotion to family, is all the more astounding! 
Yes, we have help now and throughout history. The Torah that is what sustains us. It is a treasure that has a power to uplift our people – the Jewish people, from the 49 level of moral contamination to the greatest heights of what humanity has to offer.

Unfortunately Mrs. Feldman has chosen a different path. She made a choice as every other member of this community has. Yes, this community has rules as any other community has its rules and regulations but no one has to stay in a particular community where they do not feel comfortable! There is a G-d given right to leave this community if somebody chooses to. It is G-d Himself who allows us to rebel against Him (Lo aleinu). Mrs. Feldman is certainly not the first one in this position and perhaps not the last one. In fact, every few years we hear stories that are widely publicized. In recent times the titles of these stories for some reason begin with the prefix ‘un’ which expresses opposition.  This is what seems to attract all the moral scavengers that are constantly looking for some scandal to feed their decay encrusted soul!  Most of the renegades from our community however, are not intellectually capable to write or even to read, and this is not due to their limited English education. I know many of these people personally and they can’t or are to lazy to read in any language. But a few of these Hasidic rebels with help of others are able to bring their stories to the broad public describing what most Americans would consider obscure or even unknown,  Hasidic society.

There is a tremendous problem with these stories though, they are written by renegades, rebels who left their groups with dismay, anger and hate. Their lack of objectivity leaves no question about the value of such accounts. They left with full knowledge and understanding that like many other societies, those rebelling will be completely rejected even by the members of their own families once they leave the service of the Creator as it is understood by us. This would happen in any religious society that takes its rules seriously. There is no need to explain to nonbelievers or the semi religious why this is so. That’s how it is and most of us know the rules. You can’t be a sportsman while intoxicated and you can’t be in the Marine corps when you weigh 400 pounds. You can’t play basketball on a golf course and sing confederate songs in Harlem. You can’t call yourself  a vegetarian when you declare your love for steak! It doesn’t work this way and no one call you a vegan after seeing you in McDonalds eating a hamburger. You can’t belong to a society which for over 150 generations gave their lives for certain values and conduct while you refuse to obey these rules. One of the rules is rejection of rebels like Mrs. Feldman. If there would be a middle ground on this issue, our nation would have been finished three generations after Moses and there wouldn’t be a Torah, there wouldn’t be prophets with their moral guidance and there wouldn’t be sages that bring us to the intellectual, spiritual and moral heights, us and the nations of the world as well. Because of our separation and withdrawal from general society, we were able to carry this message of morality through the ages, and because we living within this society at the same time, it allows this message to penetrate the hearts and minds of nations through the millennia.

Through these millennia we have had a number of groups and individuals who, on mostly a personal but sometimes a philosophical basis, denied the validity of this path and rejected and fought this path from without and within.

Through the millennia we have among us lots of over ambitious people or perhaps immoral individuals seeking to blemish our community as a justification for their moral and personal failures.

When I meet these, mostly young, people who decided to leave our community I know already before they even begin that they will start reciting a litany of filthy stories about contemporary rabbis and leaders. They memorize some salacious stories going back sometimes hundred of years in time. But let me tell you something sensational! We are not perfect. From the times of the Patriarchs we learn stories about mistakes, imperfections and sins done by some, and thoroughly criticized by the Torah itself as well as by the later sages. No one whitewashed and described storied of our fathers, our leaders, our judges and our kings in the same way as the heroes of other nations are described - always unblemished always perfect. Bad things happen and these things are described in Jewish writings but with only one goal, to teach us not to repeat those mistakes! I can go on and on through the ages with a long list of sins committed not only by righteous people but also by renegades and common criminals coming from a Jewish background. Some of them were not religious; some of them were religious hypocrites, some others who failed despite their good intentions. We are people and just the people, but after all the litany of sins, there is something greater something exceptional about this nation which constitutes the Jewish phenomenon in history.

Mrs. Feldman, you may get your five minutes of attention which every artist is willing to die for! You may feel the sweet taste of vengeance for all the true or imaginary evil that happened to you. You may bring true, half true and completely false stories about your people, but after all is said and done it will be you who and those like you  who fail and are relegated to the trash heap of history!

Let me quote a few examples from your writings which will present you in a way that you will probably not be able to see for yourself. This is however how other people see you after they read what you have written.

You write in one of your posts on your blog:

"I am absolutely not all about criticizing Hasidism. I am up for opening a discussion about Hasidic culture and encouraging reform and progress both within and without of the community, but pointless criticism never accomplished anything."

Wow, what an admirable attempt. You just want reform and civilize us to the standards of the society which you just joined. Let’s see from where your conclusions and desire to change us are coming from, let’s see what your perception of us is.

"Those men are scary; they’re not trained in civility. They’re terrified of what would happen if the genders weren’t segregated. They think of lust as this uncontrollable, wild impulse."

Who are you talking about? Hasidim? Really? Well, let me list some names. They don’t sound Hassidic to me! Kennedy, Clinton, Berlusconi, Craig, Spitzer, Schwarzenegger, Wiener etc. the list is long and juicy.

Because we are aware of the power of sexuality within a man’s veins and we choose to create certain prevention mechanisms to preserve our families and ourselves from moral tragedies this makes us ‘not trained in civility’? Who other then us is trained in self control and civility? The leaders of your new society? A society where many have ruined their whole lives, careers and family to appease this insignificant (in your opinion) desire? No we do not think that “lust is a  uncontrollable  wild impulse”, we know its power!. That’s precisely why our Rabbis have guided us in putting up “walls” so that it doesn’t become a “uncontrollable  wild impulse"! That’s why we use the power of human desires only within a certain framework as designed for us by our Creator and enhanced by our sages as Hashem Himself wished us to do.

You say you are against pointless criticism. I guess your story quoted below illustrates how pointless your criticism is! Mrs. Feldman.  Or perhaps there is a point to your activities, but it leads to places where you don’t want to admit it does.

“There was this old man on my street who, every day on my way to school, would be sitting on this bench, and would call out to me and offer me candy. I told my grandfather, and he said, “Well, he’s older than you, so you have to talk to him out of respect.” The guy was, like, a pedophile. And we were taught to respect him.”

He was ‘like’ a pedophile? A candy man? An old Hasid sitting on the bench and giving candies to the kids? What makes him ‘like a pedophile’ Mrs. Feldman? I really fail to understand why you bring up this story and what the point of it? This story like many others coming from under your pen and from your mouth, is a product of a hateful mind willing  to use any memory, any scene and any person to besmear the people which you have rejected. Here is another example,

The paragraph is about eating out in restaurants. “because I was never allowed to do it. Women aren’t allowed to eat out”

Where are you coming from? There are plenty of restaurants and pizza shops in Williamsburg filled up with many Hasidic women at all times of the day. What is you point in this statement?

You were not allowed to go there? Well, someone was feeling responsible for you.

There are Satmar families who go to restaurants and those who don’t. There are over 100, 000 people in the Satmar community for G-s sake! Tens of thousands of families, each one with their distinctive approach to Judaism and to the rules of the community.  While there are minor variations to these rules most live within the framework of these rules. Is there any pressure placed on those who are lenient about the rules? Sure, but as it was said before, that’s how every society functions.

With one thing I agree with you and I’m sure that you were right when you say “I definitely think there are plenty of community members that are as unhappy, if not more, than I was”. While there aren’t plenty there are definitely some. That’s precisely why there are some failure cases among us.

“I know that Hasidic Jews are indoctrinated from a very young age to believe that there is some sort of global conspiracy against Jews”… “I was taught to believe that outsiders hated me. That if I talked to someone [non-Hasidic], I risked getting kidnapped and chopped into pieces. Never, ever talk to an outsider. Not even a policeman. Which is why what happened to Leiby Kletzky…

” 

I don’t know from which planet are you coming Mrs. Feldman but the one on which I have been living on for last 45 years. The fact is that country after country, leaders after leaders, people after people, nations after nations, whole civilizations! have murdered and butchered  the Jewish people. How should we feel about it? Should we trust all Non Jews and outsiders while remembering our neighbors putting our children, woman and elders into barns and synagogues to burn them alive? Should we integrate within such a society?

Our true leaders and sages developed guidelines for us as to how we should integrate within the society we live in. But as is perfectly normal we look for help always first among our own. There are wonderful people, some of them true friends of the Jewish nation who go the extra mile to help and to do all the good they possibly can for us. What is wrong with asking our own first? How does Laiby Kletzky’s unfortunate case prove your hateful conclusion?

It is just despicable and ugly how you exploit the death of this innocent Neshuma – soul…

How can you look in the mirror without throwing up? When you insist over and over again in blaming the Hasidic upbringing of this child for his death!

“No pointless criticism” you say! Yes! just straight shameful anti-Semitism. What else are you willing to do for your five minutes of fame? You are selling you family, you are selling yourself, you are selling your people now you using the most unthinkable person to achieve your goal, Laiby Kletzky!

But you didn’t end with using Laiby Kletzky for your despicable goals of blackmailing an entire community whose member spent days and nights selflessly looking to find this child and than after finding him, crying for weeks trying to understand what happened. For the sake of besmirching the community which you were unable to stand their moral standards you go even further with your ugly accusations. You created the story describing the death of a thirteen year old boy by the hands of his father in the most horrible way imaginable. You either made up this story yourself or are eagerly repeating it after the same type of people like yourself who made up the story, than you accuse the whole community of a cover up!

There was a tragic death in the town of Kirias Joel at that time but you know it was a completely different story. It was a story of mental illness and ultimate suicide. And to produce your slander you use this kind of tragic story, a story so painful to the family. This villainous slander puts you in the lowest category of all, you are a human scavenger feeding yourself and other blood thirsty beasts like you with human tragedy without even a trace of human feelings for the family who were already devastated by the death of their child.

My first thought after reading Mrs. Feldman writings and watching video clips, was anger, irritation and pain coming from the awareness how someone can use half truths and complete lies to build her career using old, worn, threadbare and hateful propaganda, while knowing that this type of propaganda has in the past brought suffering blood and death to the Jewish people. How it is possible that a person can be so hateful toward her own people, her own family while deceiving the innocent reader? Nay! Posing as someone who has only good of her people on her mind?

The answer is self explanatory and proves more how wrong Mrs. Feldman is in her statements and actions and how right those who choose to continue in their well trodden path are. The answer is - Family.

I’m sure that her grandparents gave her the best what they could despite the fact that this family experienced a generation gap which I mentioned before; they were holocaust survivors. I guess, Mrs. Feldman was probably the only one of her age group who grew up without a mother. I will not play Freud here, but I’m sure it caused tremendous stress for this young person growing up among peers with complete two parent families as is case in the vast majority of the Hasidic community.

But when we look a little deeper in Mrs. Feldmans life we learn that not only Mrs. Feldman’s mother but also here grandmother divorced their husbands and left their families in ruins.  Just yesterday I learned about another young lady from Brooklyn whom I remember from when she was still a little girl, years ago. With sadness I learned that with the exception of writing a book, she went down the same path Mrs. Feldman has and also left her family and community waging a public war against them. The pattern is almost the same as in the case of Mrs. Feldman - one divorce in the family after another. I will obviously not go into the details but the lesson is there to be learned! Ones this happens in the family, once the family safety and family values are damaged, once the foundation of the family is shattered, this is only the beginning! It is a  catastrophe which will continue (in most cases) for generations (Lo Aleinu).

This is precisely the reason why we are so protective about our families, about our behavior and even our language when comes to the issues of man-woman relationships.

We are simply doing everything in our power using what we learned from our sages and the past generations, to avoid the same devastation that happened in Mrs. Feldman life.

My book will never receive the publicity that Mrs. Feldmans book has received. I will never be invited for an interview with Barbara Walters and not even by some PBS interviewer. Who cares about a book describing adventures in finding the true G-d. This is not entertaining or educating!  At least not the type of education that the masses are looking for.

A lack of entertainment is not a fault of Mrs.’s Feldman’s book. Juicy stories about criminally inclined, treacherous, self righteous, strange looking Jews will always sell and any author that includes these topics is sure to be a best seller.

At the end of the Barbara Walters interview on the “View” television show Mrs. Walters says that her editor is speaking in her ear through the ear piece and asking her to ask a very important question. What is this burning question that needs to be asked? What is the question that wouldn’t be asked of person other then like Mrs. Feldman? What is this question that everyone in the studio audience and the millions of people at home watching their television must know?  What is the sexual life of Hasidim like?

If this is a sign of the current society, a society 'trained in civility', then I will pass.

Matys Weiser


To learn more about lies and distortions of Deborah Feldman see:
http://deborah-feldman-exposed.blogspot.com/