Trouble at the top (Tisha B'Av 5769)

As I have said before, this blog is not a confessional (that's not how Jews deal with sins), but occasionally I feel the need to relate one of my own weaknesses, because it relates to the things about which I wish to talk

Today's weakness is k'vod harav. We are supposed to -- automatically -- give respect to Rabbis, as well as non-Rabbis who have reached a high level of Torah learning (including women.)

The trouble is, both real life and history show that just attaining that level of learning does NOT automatically confer judgement or wisdom. But the recognition of that learning often gives access to a 'bully pulpit' to allow wide dissemination of the owner's poor judgment.

My friend Ben Jacob sent me this once: (if anyone knows the source of the quote please email me so I can credit it properly)

The Komarna Rebbe, Yitzhak Eizik Yehuda Yehiel Safrin, relates an incredible story of the Ba'al Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidism, that he received from Yehiel Mikhel of Zlotchev:

On the road one day, the Besht went into the forest to pray minha (the afternoon prayer). His disciples saw him strike his head strongly against a tree and shout and cry strange cries and abundant tears. Seeing this they were stunned. They asked the holy man what was going on.

He replied that he saw, by means of his holy spirit, the generations which will exist just before the coming of the messiah. He saw that rabbis would be as plentiful as locusts, but that they themselves will be the ones to delay the redemption because they cause separation of hearts and baseless hatred.

It rings true, except for one thing. Sadly, it seems like this is so not only at the end but during every generation! Today is Tisha B'Av. According to Midrash this day is cursed because the Jews cried at Chet HaMeraglim. The 10 spies that caused this were all 'Heads of B'nei Yisrael.' (BaMidbar 13:3) And in Eicha(1:14 and 4:13) Yirmiyahu blames (among others) the false prophets and the Kohanim. (False the prophets may have been, but scholars they were.) Of course, the story of Kamtza/bar Kamtza and the second destruction is full of Rabbis. (Gittin 55b-56a) There were Rabbis sitting there when bar Kamtza was thrown out of the party and publicly humiliated. They did nothing. Either they didn't want to get involved, or they didn't care. And the end of the story has the Haredi stubbornness (euphemistically called "modesty") of Rav Zecharia ben Avkelos, which is what the Gemara blames for the destruction.

There are so many other examples. Korach was a talmid chacham, also, for instance. And Rav Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal, in his preface to his sefer Eim Habanim Semeichah, blames the frum Rabbis of Europe (himself included) for many of the deaths in the Shoah! Because they viciously opposed the Zionist movement and reviled any frum Jew who wanted to make Aliya, they kept all those Jews in Europe to die at the hands of the Nazis yimach sh'mam. Not only could hundreds of thousands of Jews have been safe in Israel, he writes, but with that many more frum Jews in the population, Israel could be a dati state today!

It goes on today. Disregarding the latest corruption arrests in the U.S., many of the public statements and actions of 'great Rabbis' seem designed to do nothing but set Jew against Jew, encourage sinat hinam against both Jew and non-Jew, and avoid facing the real problems that are keeping us from the Geula...all in the name of Torah.

So I am afraid I will continue to have difficulty in automatically giving Kavod to any talmid chacham. I will not mention anyone by name, but I am afraid sometimes you will figure out about whom I am complaining. All I can do is pray that those gedolim who really do deserve our respect can influence some of the others to return to the true responsibilities conferred upon them by their learning. Maybe then we can get back on the path to Geula.

This one speaks for itself

I find it very hard to work without some background noise. From what I learned in Psychology many years ago, this is an adolescent phenomenon that I should have outgrown decades ago, but it seems I never did.

So, with the coming of the Nine Days, I switched from my favorite New York Oldies station to my favorite New York News station. (Yes, I know I'm in Israel but old habits die hard) That means I was listening Thursday as the news broke. First it was an FBI sweep of corrupt politicians. Then suddenly the word "Rabbis" started to pop up. Within hours it was clear that a number of frum people, including 5 Rabbis, were being rounded up as part of a major corruption scandal, including money laundering and even organ trafficking. (Here's one of the earliest articles.)

Of course everyone is proclaiming their innocence, and we don't know who is guilty and who isn't. But I find it hard to believe that they are all pure and innocent, and more importantly, the chillul Hashem damage is already done. One of the early on-line headlines read "Rabbis as crime bosses." And, not only did it quickly blow away the news of an American who had been helping al Qaeda and shooting at U.S. troops in Pakistan, when the imam of his mosque was asked about it, he was able to respond that you can't blame the mosque or Moslems any more than you can blame Synagogues or Jews for those Rabbis that just got arrested!

It's not a coincidence that this happened during the Nine Days. Not only is this the time of year when many bad things have befallen Am Yisrael, but it is another reminder from Hashem that we are still doing the sins that brought about the destruction!

Will this wake us up? Will we stop wasting our time blaming everyone else and start putting our own house in order? I would like to believe so, but past performances make me fear that it will not be so, and I fear for what else God has in store for us until we finally come to our senses.

Stop and Think...

(Bamidbar 25:1-15)

Too often we hear of violence committed by 'frum' people, against non-frum Jews, and against non-Jews...especially Arabs. And too often we hear of calls for more of the same. Most of it is justified (no matter how deranged the attackers may be) in the name of Pinchas, the kanai (zealot) par excellence from the Torah. After all, Pinchas took the law into his own hands (according to most opinions), killing the Jewish Nasi Zimri and the Moabite princess Cozbi while they were mocking the entire congregation with their lewd behavior. And rather than suffering for his actions, he was rewarded! So we should all grab spears and go around impaling all the people we blame for our problems, right?

Wrong. It's not so simple.

I once knew a very wise man who was a Conservative Rabbi named Irwin Zimet z"l. The fact that he was not dati according to my way of thinking does not lessen my respect for him. Many years ago, in Temple Beth-El in Poughkeepsie, NY, he spoke about Pinchas and he made a very important point. When we read the story in shul, it stops in the middle! The Jews sin, the plague starts, the mockers come, Pinchas takes his action, the plague stops with 24,000 dead, and...

What? What happens next? According to Jewish law, Pinchas is a murderer! And you're just going to leave the story there?

Remember, the division into Parshiyot is not from the Torah, it was done by Chazal...and Rabbi Zimet said they had a reason to leave a cliffhanger ending here. They wanted us to THINK...for a whole week until the following Shabbat morning...did Pinchas really do right? Is it ever justifiable to take the law into your own hands, or in the end do you just make things worse?

And after we've pondered for a week, the answer comes...it depends on the motives of the person involved. Pinchas could have been feeling self-righteous anger and hatred towards the sinners. Or he could have been feeling personally offended since the main targets of the disrespect and mocking of the sinners was his father Elazar and his great-uncle Moshe. Any of those motives would have made him just another hoodlum. But Hashem, the Discerner of motives, said of Pinchas, "he was zealous in My zealousy"...his motives were absolutely pure. He saw evil, he saw Jews dying, and he said, "This isn't right. It has to be stopped." He made himself a pure conduit for Hashem's zealousy. And that is the only reason he was rewarded and not punished.

Only in the same circumstances can a person claim the protection of the Halachot of the kanai. Anything less and the person is a thug, at best a "naval bir'shut Hatorah, " a scumbag who yet doesn't break any Torah laws, and at worst a criminal at a lower level than the ones he attacks.

Most of the people who perpetrate, advocate, or defend such attacks today are, in my opinion, motivated by anger and hatred, not by the pure zealousy of Pinchas. (Some may have even more base or selfish motives.) When people like that take the law into their own hands, Hashem isn't happy and He only allows our situation to get worse.

And never forget, the lead sinner was a "frum" Prince of Israel. Once again, the evil starts from within out own community. Yes, there was a non-Jewish seducer involved, but it is WE who should know better and avoid the seduction.

So lets forget about attacking the non-Jews and non-dati Jews that we blame for all our problems, and once again turn our efforts to our own. For we know that if we set the right example there will never again be a need for acts of Pinchas.