Charedi Extremist Violence - Who Should Condemn It?

Last week there was a horrific attack by extremist charedim on a 21 year old charedi soldier who came to visit two of the members of his unit in Meah Shearim. At the Cross-Currents blog, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein posted a moving letter from the mother of the soldier. Both the letter and the comments bemoan the lack of condemnation of such violence from the charedi leadership and community.

Rabbi Doron Beckerman and Rabbi Yaakov Menken take issue with these complaints. Rabbi Beckerman points out that the violent thugs who did this could not care less what the Gedolim say (which is true). Rabbi Menken asks why when Israeli policemen beat up an Ethiopian soldier it is deemed an isolated incident with no bearing on the police, yet the Mea Shearim incident is seen as a stain on the entire charedi community. Similar arguments were offered by a leading charedi rabbi in Ramat Beit Shemesh after the extremist charedim made problems at the Orot school; he argued that regular charedim have no connection to such people and that it is offensive to demand that they condemn them.

All these people are, deliberately or unknowingly, missing the point. Yes, it is true that the extremist hooligans who do this could not care less about charedi rabbonim outside of their micro-community. But there is no sharp disconnect between them and other charedim with regard to religious zealotry.

There is a continuous spectrum ranging from physical violence to verbal abuse towards the IDF which exists throughout the charedi world. Furthermore, while the people at each level do not agree with the level of hostility coming from people to their right, there is near-constant refusal to condemn it. And even people who are horrified by the violence nonetheless produce inflamed rhetoric which creates an atmosphere that allows it and contributes to it.

At the extreme right you have a group of Meah Shearim and RBS-Bet hooligans who will commit physical violence against people. Less to the right are others from those communities who will not commit physical violence, but they publish the chardak campaign which portrays soldiers as pigs and evil beasts out to seize innocent charedim. Then less to the right are the Rav Shmuel Auerbach faction and suchlike, who describe Israel as a terrorist state and hold riots against conscription. Then moving left into the right wing of the mainstream Litvishe world, there is regular talk of people who are pro-equal army service being "Amalek" and suchlike. Then people across the board in the charedi world attended the notorious selfishness and ingratitude rally in which Shefoch chamascha was recited against the Israeli government.

Each of these groups does not approve of the actions of those on their right. But, with rare exceptions, they will never condemn them. Sometimes this is because they are afraid of not appearing frum/ right wing enough, and sometimes it is because they see it as more important not to break ranks with other charedim than to condemn violence.

As long as matters are this way, non-charedim are correct to consider the attempted lynch in Mea Shearim as a charedi problem. The problem is not the attackers, per se; it is that the attackers are part of a larger community which exudes hostility and ingratitude to the IDF and its advocates at every level and which almost never condemns verbal and physical violence from the right. Nobody standing around the attack came to help; except for Hamodia, the Israeli charedi press did not condemn or even discuss the event; and Anglo-charedim defend the lack of condemnation.

Who should condemn charedi extremist violence? Everyone. And the further you are to the religious right, the louder you should be condemning it. Otherwise, you are part of the problem.

When Mass Hysteria Attacks

A number of people have asked me to weigh in on the KosherSwitch controversy. I'm not going to, for a number of reasons. One is that it seems to me that right now there is a situation of mass hysteria.

Mass hysteria is a fascinating phenomenon, which is much more powerful than most people realize. It can create real physical symptoms. One extraordinary case was the 1983 West Bank fainting epidemic. Nearly a thousand Palestinian schoolgirls and IDF female soldiers were hospitalized for fainting and nausea believed to have been brought on by poisoning. But it was ultimately determined to have been psychosomatic. The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962 likewise affected around a thousand people, causing not only uncontrollable laughter but also respiratory problems, attacks of crying, and rashes.

Mass hysteria can also lead otherwise reasonable people to believe or state extraordinary things. An amazing story is with the 1954 Seattle windshield pitting epidemic. Many thousands of people reported seeing pits and bubbles suddenly appear in their car windshields. It was attributed to everything from cosmic rays to gremlins. Then all of a sudden, the entire thing ended, and it was realized that people had simply become hyper-sensitive to the pitting that affects all cars. Much more serious was the Satanic Ritual Abuse panic which swept the world during the 1980s. It was widely believed that there were vast numbers of people involved in this and that a conspiracy had infiltrated the highest levels of society. Eventually it was determined that there was never any satanic ritual abuse and that the whole matter had been a product of mass hysteria. As far as I can ascertain (which isn't very far), it appears that a similar phenomenon occurred in Nachlaot a few years ago, where a small number of cases of pedophilia were exaggerated to a conspiracy theory involving a massive ring of missionary-led pedophiles and a police cover-up.

My personal fascination with mass hysteria relates to how it occurred with the notorious banning of my books ten years ago. It's not only my personal role that leads me to recall that period as being one of obsession and hysteria - one blog had a headline stating "All Slifkin, All The Time!" It was disturbing to watch otherwise reasonable people fall over themselves in their rush to avoid getting into trouble. One website which had published perfectly innocent essays of mine about drawing inspiration from nature rushed to announce to their subscribers that all the essays had been removed. (They later regretted this and apologized to me privately, though not publicly.) A rabbinic mentor of mine who was so convinced in the truth of evolution that he had actually helped convince me to accept it suddenly urged me to be "mevatel my daas" and follow Rav Shlomo Miller no matter what he says. And people who had no connection to the topic were yelling their condemnations of the rationalist approach and their fealty to the charedi Gedolim. People were terrified of being "tainted."

Aside from all this being very upsetting, I just couldn't figure out what was going on. Then someone drew parallels to the witch-hunts of Salem and the commie-hunts of McCarthyism (see the essay Slifkin, Salem and the Senator), and I started to learn about mass hysteria. It shed much light on events.

I think that the same might be happening now with the KosherSwitch. There are breathless magazine headlines and claims that the creator is chayyav misah! In such an atmosphere it is impossible to conduct a sober analysis or be able to trust anyone's pronouncements. Maybe in a year, when things have calmed down, it will be possible to address the issue.

The Greatest Miracle

Recently I was speaking with a friend of mine, a dedicated educator who works hard at trying to inspire teenagers from the yeshivah world who want some validation that Judaism is worth being passionate about. He's been using pseudo-scientific "proofs" to try to convince them that Torah is divine. But as you may know, I'm not very enthusiastic about those "proofs."

So I had another suggestion for him: Why not tell them about the single greatest uncontested miracle of human history - the return of the Jewish People to their ancestral homeland? An ancient nation, exiled and dispersed and massacred with the most horrific persecution in history, fulfills its ancient prophecies and returns to its homeland, to create an amazingly vibrant country and triumph against overwhelming odds. What better validation is that?

"Yeah," he agreed. "But that sounds like Zionism, and so the yeshivah won't let me teach it."

Happy birthday Israel, and thank you to everyone who helped create this inspirational miracle!

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, zecher tzaddik l'vracha

The loss of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein is a great tragedy. In the charedi days of my youth, I figured that he couldn't be a "real" talmid chacham - after all, he was clean-shaven and had studied English literature in university, whereas I had been taught that only exclusive Torah study produces real Gedolim. But then my horizons broadened, and I learned that many great Torah scholars had also studied other disciplines (and that several members of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah had also been to college!).

Then I started to actually study what Rav Lichtenstein  had to say. I discovered that he was a gadol b'Torah who was wise, thoughtful, sophisticated, and humble. Rav Lichtenstein's treatment of the topic of Daas Torah is one of the most important discussions of the topic that I have ever seen. You can read the original Hebrew at this link, and my friend Joseph Faith produced an English translation which you can download here.

May his legacy endure and inspire.

A Place For Ex-Charedim

Guest Post by Allison Josephs

A couple of years ago, after a speaking engagement of mine in Monsey, a couple approached me. They had been raised, as they described it "ultra-Chasidish," but did not feel that they could live such a strict life any more. Unfortunately, their families had rejected them when they expressed their desire to lead a more moderate observant Jewish life. “We still want to be frum," they told me, "we just don’t know who to follow.”

I was troubled by how lost they were and told them I wanted to help them. "You'll come for Shabbos," I said. "I'll introduce you to our rav." But then someone interrupted us, and when I looked up, they were gone. I tried to find them after the talk to no avail, so I started reaching out to people at major Jewish organizations, asking if anyone wanted to help create a program to help people in this situation. Nobody was ready to do anything about it.

As the months passed, every so often I'd remember that this couple was still out there and feel guilty, but it wasn't until last year that something finally pushed me to act: I read an account online of an ex-Satmar woman who wanted to stay observant after she left her Satmar community, but every non-Chasidic school she checked out didn’t want her kid. Her new non-Chasidic neighbors never really welcomed her and her son had no one to play with on Shabbos until she started paying a neighbor to do so. After enough rejections, she got fed up and just left altogether. Today she is no longer observant.

The moment I read this, I knew that something had to be done even if I didn't know what that thing was. And so I posted an article on JewintheCity.com asking our readers to speak up if they were willing to help people in this situation. We heard from 200 people from around the world (including the couple who I lost! And we did have them for Shabbos and introduce them to our rav!) Apparently many people like me had been wanting to help but didn't know how. We even had two women volunteer to spearhead our effort (Mindy Schaper and Gavriella Lerner, who are now our co-directors), which we've named "Project Makom." Its mission is: helping former and questioning Charedi Jews find their place in Orthodox Judaism.

We put out a survey to find out what former Charedim would want if someone was willing to help them. Based on that info, our directors developed a survey for people who want to volunteer to learn with a participant (either Jewish or secular studies), have them for Shabbos, be a friend, etc. If you are a former or questioning Charedi looking for help, you can sign up here. In the last several months, our co-directors have interviewed one hundred volunteers. We have already begun matching up participants with them.

We are planning a Shabbaton in couple of months in the Five Towns, which we'll be posting about in our Facebook group. We have thankfully received positive feedback both from leaders in the Charedi community and from the formerly observant community. The Jerusalem Post also just featured our initiative this week so we're hearing from people in Israel. Please help spread the word, so that anyone who needs help can access this service. And if you can help us out in any way, we recently received up to $5000 in matched funds to help us build a website and get programming started. Thank you for your help!

A Bracha from Batman

Yesterday I had the interesting experience of getting a bracha from Batman.

Okay, maybe that’s not entirely accurate. I wasn't getting a bracha for myself, but rather recording him giving a video bracha for someone else. And he’s not Batman, at least not yet; he’s still only Bruce Wayne.

I’m referring to David Mazouz, a very talented young actor who plays twelve-year-old Bruce Wayne in the hit new television series Gotham. It turns that David attends the same school as my nephew. I seized the opportunity to do something special for the children of a neighbor of mine, who are big fans of the show and who have suffered a family tragedy. David kindly agreed to bless them with “bracha and hatzlacha.” (As a friend of mine quipped – it was a bat-mitzva!)

Meeting the young Batman just a few days after my encounter with the Lord on the beach, I was reminded of that post. I had reminisced about the stage of my life when I subscribed to a black-and-white view regarding the legitimacy of sources of religious inspiration. Anything [Orthodox] Jewish was in; anything not Jewish was out.

At that stage of my life, about twenty years ago, I was once speaking to a certain brilliant Jewish educator of a decidedly non-charedi disposition. He was a big Batman fan, and told me about various creative insights that he had, connecting Batman with Jewish ideas. I was appalled. As a teenager, I had always been a big Batman fan (not the campy TV show with Adam West, but rather the more serious and intense graphic novels). But to claim that Batman could be a source of Jewish inspiration seemed downright sacrilegious. In a fit of religious fervor, I took my collection of Batman graphic novels and sold them.

Fast forward many years, and, as noted in my earlier post, my view has broadened. If Bnei Brak can draw inspiration from a Christian parable about the Lord on the beach, then we can draw inspiration from wherever it is to be found. And, with regard to Batman, I came across a wonderful little book entitled “Wisdom from the Batcave.” It is written by Rabbi Cary Friedman, a prison chaplain who also teaches classes on spiritual growth for law enforcement officers, including the FBI. The book is all about spiritual lessons to learn from the Dark Knight, including such concepts as how to triumph over adversity, the value of willpower, the blessing of family, and so on.

A few years ago, I myself was spiritually assisted by Batman. I can’t remember the exact details, but it was a halachic situation in which I was being tempted to come up with some sort of rationalization for why I didn't need to observe it. Then, all of a sudden, a page from the second-greatest Batman graphic novel of all time, The Dark Knight Returns, popped into my mind.

It was where a middle-aged Batman, having come out of retirement, is in a tank-like vehicle, with an utterly evil monstrous person called the Mutant Leader in his gunsights. In the world of Batman, there are some concrete rules. One is that Batman never, ever kills. He might bruise and maim and break bones, but he never takes a life. Another rule is that criminals never remain incarcerated – they always manage to somehow escape from prison or from Arkham Asylum, to commit further atrocities.

So, Batman is looking at this monster, and thinking to himself that the only thing that makes sense is to fire the tank cannons and blow him off the face of the earth. But, he reminds himself, to do so would mean crossing a line that he drew for himself thirty years earlier. And so he doesn't do it.

In this particular scenario, it may well make perfect sense for Batman to kill the Mutant Leader rather than sparing him to inevitably end up committing more atrocities. But if Batman kills this person, then there is no real reason for him not to kill other bad guys. And once Batman becomes a mass executioner, the world is a much worse place. And so he doesn't kill him.

This is a very important concept that I have successfully since used with others, in particular with Orthodox Jews who have faith issues and who are questioning whether they should observe particular halachos. Like the situation in which the Dark Knight found himself, the question is not whether there is sufficient reason to keep a particular halachah. Rather, the question is, what kind of person do you want to be? Do you want to be part of halachic society, or not? That question can have a very different answer, which motivates a person to observe halachah even in a case where he would otherwise see no reason to do so.

Of course, this does not mean that every message communicated by Batman is of value. Indeed, in the aforementioned story, Batman proceeds to come up with a second and apparently more important reason for not killing the Mutant Leader – because he wants to see if, in his fifties, he still has what it takes to win in hand-to-hand combat. This is absurd – you don’t risk letting evil triumph in order to boost your ego! The first reason alone is valid.

So, one can draw religious inspiration from Batman. I plan to send my copy of Wisdom from the Batcave to the young Bruce Wayne – he is a very fine young man, and I’m sure that he will appreciate seeing how he can learn from the character that he plays. I hope that he will grow up to be a great man, and perhaps one day there will be many more Jews seeking a bracha from Batman!

The Footprints of the Lord

Since it is no longer a secret as to where I am spending Pesach, I decided to share the following thought.

Yesterday, I was walking on the beach next to the hotel where I am staying. I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand: one belonging to me, and the other to the Lord. It reminded me of the following famous text:

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand: one belonging to him, and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life. This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it:

"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."

The Lord replied: "My son, my precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

That text is well-known, and while its precise source is debated, it is of Christian origin. Yet I came across it about twenty years ago in a contemporary charedi sefer of parashah vortlach called Yalkut Lekach Tov. It presented the Footprints text as being a parable stated by "an Adam Gadol."

At the time, I was very much into a black-and-white understanding of the principle of "Torah b'goyim, al ta'amin." God spoke to the Jews through the Torah, and not to anyone else. I took great pride and dignity in the difference between Jews and non-Jews. Yet here was a Christian parable being presented in a super-frum parashah sefer! This was one of the many things that led me on the path of realization that things were not always as black-and-white as I had previously thought.

Anyway, when I encountered the Lord on the beach yesterday, he made a similar offer to the Lord on the beach in the parable. He was telling my wife about how bad he feels for wives who have to suffer their husband's books being banned, and he said that if we are ever feeling down, we should just write to him and he will call and offer whatever chizzuk he can!

Needless to say, no other Knight has ever offered to save me from distress. Which left me pondering a thought that was very appropriate for Pesach: It was nice that this knight was different from all other knights!

Irrational Clothing Decisions

If you were choosing the most irrational mitzvah, shatnez might be a top contender.

That was a thought that crossed my mind today as I went today to get a new suit checked. I went to the official Los Angeles shatnez "laboratory," which might conjure up an image of a high-tech research facility with people in white coats poring over sophisticated equipment, but was actually someone's living room with a high-powered lamp. As I was waiting for my turn, I pondered the significance of the prohibition against wearing mixtures of wool and linen.

Rambam claimed that it is about negating a pagan practice. Rav Hirsch (if I recall correctly) writes about the importance of keeping the domains of animal-products and plant-products separate. Many others would simply categorize it as a divine chok which has no rationale that can be grasped by mankind.

Whatever one's view of the reason for the institution of the mitzvah, the reasons for the observance of the mitzvah can be entirely different. I would suspect that for some, it is about heeding God's word, while for many others, it is about being part of the Orthodox Jewish community.

As I was thinking about these things, a fascinating scene unfolded in front of me. A very secular-looking woman had brought in a man's suit. It transpired that she was an employee of a store where someone had purchased a suit and asked them to have it checked for shatnez. Since this woman was the only Jewish employee, albeit entirely secular, she had brought it in.

Much to her dismay, it was found that both the jacket and the pants contained shatnez. Not only that, but the shatnez was so thoroughly embedded that it was basically impossible to remove it. Not only that, but the process of finding the shatnez had damaged the suit such that no refund was possible.

"What a shame," she lamented. "That was a seven thousand dollar suit."

My jaw dropped open. Seven thousand dollars?!

After the woman left, I commented to the shatnez tester about the absurd price of the suit.

"Oh," she said, "That's nothing. A few weeks ago, someone brought in another suit that was irreparably full of shatnez, and it had cost twenty-six thousand dollars."

Twenty-six thousand dollars?!?!

Shatnez might not have a reason that we can rationally grasp, but it certainly isn't anywhere near as irrational as spending twenty-six thousand dollars on a suit!