Katrina nonsense

I barely know where to begin on this one. Over 1,000 people died, many more suffered, and there are self-satisfied frum people cheering that it is Divine punishment for the hitnatkut, and waiting to see how high the body count will go? What kind of nonsense is this, really?

When people point "punishment" fingers, I constantly refer back to Avraham's defense of S'dom and Amora (B'reishit 18:23ff.) Avraham jumps right in and tells Hashem He can't destroy the righteous with the wicked! And God agrees!

There are other examples, too. In the rebellion of Korach, before the earth swallows Datan and Aviram and their followers, Hashem tells Moshe to give people who don't want to participate in the evil a chance to get away, and he does (Bamidbar 16:23-26.) And when Shaul HaMelech goes to destroy Amalek, he gives the Keinites the chance to leave before he attacks (Shmuel I, 15:6.)

There are times it seems the good are swept up with the bad, just as we face the problem of Tzadik V'ra Lo. But the the basic pattern is that in a direct punishment of evil people, good people should not suffer.

But this is not even what happened here! How were ANY of the people of New Orleans involved in the Hitnatkut that they should be punished? I'm willing to bet that most of the poor people who suffered worst were Democrats, and despite the fact that some frum people hate all Dems, it was Conservative Republicans named Dubya and Condaleeza who pushed Sharon into the hitnatkut. How did they suffer? In fact, since Bush is an oilman, when you look at the price of oil how can you say he suffered at all? True, his ratings are down; but he is in his last term anyway, and plenty of other things he has done are contributing even more to his ratings drop.

So why are the people of New Orleans being punished? Because they are black? That opinion is beneath contempt. Because they are homosexuals? I've dealt with that already, and as someone pointed out in another blog, in that case San Francisco should have been hit. Because of the licentiousness of Mardi Gras? In that case, Rio should have been hit. Because, as one person said, they don't know Torah? They're not Jewish! And where are the Sh'lichim being sent to teach them at least the B'nei Noach? If it's that important and it's not being done, Torah centers are to blame and should be hit.

According to one report I heard, as many as 12,000 Jews were affected by the devastation of Katrina. Are they being punished, too? Maybe because they didn't make Aliya. Or maybe analysis will reveal that they are all eirev rav (today's favorite excuse for hating our fellow Jews), not "real" Jews, and deserve whatever they get. Or maybe because they chose to live so near a center of evil like New Orleans (of course Lot did the same thing, and he was rescued twice, once by Avraham and once by God.) In other words, there is no logical reason to say they were punished.

The fact that the earth is bursting to the seams with people means that the normal course of physical changes to the Earth, driven by the physical rules with which Hashem created it, will cause more catastrophes than in previous ages. The strong possibity that mankind is stirring up the atmosphere with global warming makes it even worse and makes it, at least in part, a self-inflicted punishment.

There is nothing wrong with looking for reasons that things like this happen; Rav Shlomo Riskin spoke about the tsunami in his pre-Pesach shiur in Yerushalaim. He quoted a Gemara (sorry, I don't have the source) that spoke of tsunamis as caused by God's tears over the suffering of His people. NOT as punishment, and not to say that our suffering will stop just because He is crying; like any good parent, the punishment may hurt the parent more than the child, but it still has to be done.

When we look for reasons, it should be within that positive moral context: we should try to derive from it more of what Hashem requires of us in the world and how to fix it, not rejoice at the suffering of others.

Mazal Tov, I'm Eirev Rav

The owner of another blog recently posted a request to his posters to tone down the invective; he said we should direct our anger at the eirev rav, not at each other. I posted a response that nothing would change; each person would define anyone who doesn't agree with him or her as eirev rav and go on hating. Within hours, to prove my point, someone posted this:

'"...anyone who does not participate in the battle against the Erev Rav becomes, de facto, a partner with the k'lipah of the Erev Rav, and was better off not being born in the first place." (Kol HaTor, Chapter 2, Section 2, Letter 'bais')'

I don't and won't battle against the eirev rav; and I refuse to define any Jew as a non-Jew because I don't like them. I guess that means this person is calling me eirev rav; I'm not overly surprised and actually somewhat pleased, in a dark sort of way.

(There IS a point to statements from various gedolim about eirev rav, Givonim, and so on, which I will probably bring up again, but the point is NOT to take away the Jewishness of anyone, but to remind us all that being a Torah-true Jew as Hashem intended involves far more from us each second of our lives than just the fact that we were born of a Jewish mother or converted by a Beit Din.)

This accusation had definite implications in Jewish law. First of all, as it says, I have to be battled against. Once I am defeated, I would have to be offered 3 choices: become a Ger Toshav (Ben Noach) and stay in Israel, leave the land (Yehudi M'garesh Yehudi, as long as he's redefined as not Yehudi), or die. At least I have options.

And my neighbors had better be warned. I can't count in a minyan anymore, they can't trust my Kashrut, and they can't listen to me layn anymore, among other things. On the other hand, it's always nice to have a Shabbos goy on the block...

If our enemies were smart, they would back off completely...at the rate we're going we will all kill each other off for them in no time.

I'm really talking to myself

It was a great Rav in America (whose name of course I don't remember) who first told people when he gave Musar D'rashot, that he was really talking to himself and inviting them to listen in. The same is true in my case; even though I may sound high and mighty (yes, I know how I sound sometimes) many of the things I criticize are flaws that I have not yet purged from myself. Not in every detail, obviously, and this is not a confessional (wrong religion!) but I do have issues that I need to work on.

So maybe I should go to the opposite extreme, as some suggest? Maybe I should retire from any debate, contemplate my own navel until I can emerge pure and perfect. Well, among other reasons, I would then be violating two other Mitzvot, the ones not to stand idly by the blood of my brother, and the one to rebuke (properly and politely) my fellow Jew if I see him doing something wrong (VaYikra 19:16-17.) Not to mention I feel the need to counter some of the nonsense that is being put forth B'shem HaShem. So I will keep on as I am.

Why do I bring this up now? We just read the Tochecha in Parshat Ki Tavo. Buried in the middle of it all (thanks again to Rav Chaim Wasserman for pointing this out to me many years ago), in the midst of the description of all the evils that will befall us, is the phrase, "Because you did not serve HaShem your God with Simcha and with Goodness of Heart from the abundance of everything." (D'varim 28:47.)

Wow. Even if you do the Mitzvot, but don't do them with joy, you're in trouble! Rav Wasserman's favorite example of this is Pesach cleaning. Do you throw yourself into it with vigor, cheering that this is how you are preparing for the joyous YomTov to celebrate our freedom? Or is it more like, "I hate this cleaning, it's too much, why do we have to do this stuff?"

I personally have a big problem with this one; not just Pesach cleaning (I get around some of that by shifting my griping to anger at myself for not doing more preventative cleaning the rest of the year), but in general. It's sometimes hard not to see Mitzvot as a burden, to gripe instead of rejoice. So when I tell you this, I for sure am talking to myself first.

You may wonder, this sounds more like a Mitzva Bein Adam LaMakom, between man and God, and I keep saying between man and his fellow man is more important? The truth is, this is very much an interpersonal issue. Your own attitude determines how you interact with other people; whether you act like a mentsch or a louse. It changes how you influence people about the quality of the Torah you claim to believe in. For parents and teachers, it has a direct effect on how you pass on the heritage to the next generation. In short, in every way it is an interpersonal problem that must be dealt with.

In addition to the high-and-mighty charges, I am often accused of being downright gloomy. This is also true. Although in the long run I believe firmly that Mashiach will come and the promise of redemption will be fulfilled, and though I concede that by the concept of "B'ita" (in the Haftara we just read) Mashiach could come at any time, I don't see us as EARNING that redemption any time soon. As I said on another blog, if the Geula DID come today, we would all have to enter it with our heads hung in shame for the lousy mess we have made of God's world, and for the fact that we are such losers that we have to be bailed out without even beginning to fulfill the most important aspects of our mission.

I want the Geula to come on the Purim model, not the models of Chanuka or Y'tziat Mitzraim, where lots of Jews had to die before the others were saved. On Purim, all the Jews did T'shuva and no one had to die. (I plan to post my "Chanuka and Purim" piece here on the blog when Chanuka arrives.) I don't even want to see non-Jews die, not in New Orleans, not in the Far East, not even in Ramallah and Gaza City. Three times a day I say the Aleinu at the end of davening, in which I ask Hashem to TURN ALL THE EVIL PEOPLE OF THE EARTH TOWARDS HIM, NOT to kill them; just like happened in Ninveh when He sent Jonah to save an entire city.

And when even the frum people are wasting all their energies in the wrong directions and not listening to the true moral imperatives of Torah, I don't see all this happenning so quickly. That's why I get gloomy. So I say, to myself with the rest of you listening, serve Hashem with Simcha, help bring His joy and love to the world, and we can start to reverse the tide of suffering and begin the (possibly long) road to true Geula.

S'dom: a major misinterpretation

There has been a lot of talk lately, linked to Katrina, about the people of S'dom. Much of it is based on a major, but very common, misinterpretation of P'shat in the story of the destruction. I'd like to set it straight.

Rape is a crime of violence, NOT of sex. The reason that it uses sexual means is to increase the effect to the maximum. Anyone can punch someone in the face. To violate them sexually is the ultimate in domination and humiliation, thus providing the maximum satisfaction to the aggressor. In fact, if you take a confirmed homosexual and put him in a barbarian army, he will join in raping the women as fast as any of the others.

The Torah narrative of the visit to S'dom by the Malachim (B'reishit 19:4-11) is a story of RAPE, NOT homosexuality. If the people of the town just wanted an orgy they could've propositioned the strangers directly. Everything about their actions, from the demand that Lot throw his guests out of his house to their attempt to break in shows that violence was the motive.

If you look at the Midrashim associated with the people of S'dom, you see the same thing. A significant percentage speak about violence and robbery, not sex, when illustrating the crimes of the cities of the plain. THIS is why they were destroyed. Once again, crimes against one's fellow man are the highest level of evil. I would go so far as to say that if in their dealings with each other they were good, honest, people, that they would NOT have been destroyed for homosexuality. At the very least, like Ninveh, they would have been offered the chance to to T'shuva first.

But wait, you tell me. Homosexuality is a Toeva (usually translated as abomination) so it MUST be punished, and we absolutely must have to spend tremendous efforts condemning it!

There are a lot of things the Torah called Toevot; it's true that homosexuality is one. But so is cheating at business(Devarim 25:13-16)! And what comes right after those P'sukim? Zachor! Rashi right on the spot (Pasuk 17) says the REASON that Amalek comes is because we cheat in business! NOT because of homosexuals in New Orleans or San Fransisco, not even because of (whisper it...we don't want to admit our own hypocrisy when we scream about secular homosexuals) homosexuals in Boro Park!

The Torah and Chazal return us once again to the same points: our problems stem primarily from offenses between man and man, and especially from those offences when commited by our own. Maybe we should start to listen.

This is Not a Miracle

Anybody lately hear Dubya talking about how wise and understanding the great nation of Israel is? How about Tony Blair? Mahmoud Abbas? No? Well, you ask, why should they?

Here's why: D'varim 4:6: "And you should keep and do [the Torah], for it is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the nations; for they will hear all of these laws, and they will say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'"

This pasuk is a statement of simple fact, NOT a promise of a miracle after the days of Mashiach. But it is conditional on one thing. IF B'nei Yisrael keep the Torah PROPERLY, the overwhelming truth of it's wisdom will FORCE people to recognize it. Whether they like it or not! And THAT will bring Mashiach.

There is historical proof. Take a man who hates the Jews, who is doing his best (according to Chazal) to circumvent a direct Divine order and imbed hidden curses in all his blessings. The one time he simply looks, really looks, at the Jews living in accordance with the Torah, all those thoughts are driven from his mind and he is forced to proclaim, "Ma Tovu Ohalecha Yaacov, Miskenotecha Yisrael." (BaMidbar 24:5)

Didja ever wonder why the first thing you say when you walk into a shul each day is a blessing composed by a non-Jew? This is why! The ideal we must always strive for is to reach the level of proper Torah observance that will force the world to echo the blessing of Bilaam and to proclaim the wisdom and greatness of Yisrael! Because if we can permanantly reach that level, none of our enemies will be able to touch us.

They won't even want to. Shmot 34:24 says we can just leave our homes to go to Yerushalaim for the Shalosh Regalim and no one will want our land! It doesn't even say we have to set guards.

This is not miraculous; it is merely the power of Torah. When the world sees us properly observe it, they have no choice but to fall in line; respect us and look up to us.

But it is not what they are seeing now. When non-Jews and non-dati Jews have any contact with the frum world, far too often it is very negative. Granted the news media is biased against ANY religion and ignores the good apples, but we give them too many bad apples to choose from in any country where there are Jews. Over the years we have seen money laundering and murders, child sexual abuse and prostitution, business lawbreaking and epithets...just to name a few. All from people labeled as, or calling themselves, "Orthodox" or "Chasidic." Not to mention the spectacle of Rabbis meeting in public to curse people they don't like, from Rudy Giuliani (before 9/11) to Sharon...it didn't work in either case. Or cases ranging from the dance-hall collapse a few years ago to Katrina today, where instead of showing sympathy for human beings that are hurt, there are Rabbis who blame the victims.

There is a collective term for this: Chillul Hashem. How can we educate the world, how can we lead them to the ways of Hashem, when some of us make His name look so bad? It's not just that they don't understand our beliefs...in most of the cases there are actual violations of those fundamental beliefs that make us all look like hypocrites. In other cases it is people not violating any specific Halachot, but fitting perfectly into the Ramban's description of "naval bir'shut HaTorah" (a scumbag within the parameters of the Torah.)

We need to stop, now. We may not be able to control everyone, but we can control ourselves. We can speak out against those that set these examples. We can try to force our own institutions to exert pressure on individuals who behave like this to stop BEFORE it becomes public (sometimes now the institutions just try to cover it up, making it worse when the scandal finally breaks.) We can refuse to patronize establishments involved in these scandals. On a personal level, we can try even harder to behave towards each other as if the next action we took could make or break the coming of Mashiach, today.

Because when we all start behaving towards each other like Hashem intended, that Pasuk will come true, and Mashciach WILL come, today.