http://yeshivaguy.com/pom-pesachs-or-pomegranate-passovers/2010/04/02/

Chag Kasher V’Sameach!

The chareidi and yeshivish community is often been described as such. It may very well be that we are those things. After all, the average bochur in a mainstream yeshiva doesn’t know what the most recent behala on the blogosphere is. The average Bais Yaakov girl doesn’t know what the latest in haute couture is. Certainly, the regular yingelech in cheder are blissfully unaware of the madness prevalent on the crisscrossing byways and highways that speed secular youth toward a life of, well, emptiness.

We are insulated.

Beautifully so, I think. Have you ever taken a walk in peaceful Meah Shearim on a Friday night? Watched the boys and girls of eight or nine play in the streets? The poetic innocence on the faces of the Yerushalmi kids twinkles in the twilit alleyways. Freshly scrubbed and bathed, they play with joyful, carefree abandon. Abandoning the yokes of a society gone insane on them, they are, in a word, children. When was the last time you met up with a nine year old who was only nine years old? We say, “oh, what a smart child you are”, chap a knip, and move on, subconsciously silencing the screams of our own childhood… itself so much more innocent. Children are meant to be children, not adults. In frightening irony, however, adults behave childishly and attempt to shortcut their children’s most vital experience- their youth. They nuke their progenies’ time growing up, and nuclear is nothing short of the result.

So as secular society stumbles forward in its mad rush towards moral oblivion, know that the seclusion of our community is good, and true, to our roots. It is Torah. Results, too, are on the side of the system. Just take a look at the thriving Torah communities built by men and women educated in the very same institutions that they now lead. Yes, the system is solid.

There is, sadly, a school of thought that has attracted some misguided students in recent years and attained a disproportionate voice in various online venues. I do not believe that the prattle of these pedagogues characterizes the majority Orthodox Jewry. Only that any voice, maintained in a forum lacking any opposite vocalization, and pedantic enough, will by default earn the following of what few students remain in the room.

These cynical Cassandras and doubting Thomases  attempt to attack our  insularness of the last thousand years or so with a few pithy lines of embarrassed, and embarrassing rhetoric. Always, it has been thus. Always, the naysayers have felt the need to fight organized Yiddishkeit. Dating back to Genesis itself, the scorner’s ban has been hurled by the cynics of every generation and geographic grade. Bans as old and foolish as when they were first sent on their way, to mock a righteous Avraham Avinu, the hurler’s never see fit to update their content or even originality.

And it is wrong. Allow me to demonstrate.

[Side note:

The propagators of said rhetoric are more often than not products of a society that has not worked for them. They are the result of an awesome factory like system designed by great men that may have wronged them- like every factory in the world, defective products are occasionally turned out. I wish, truly, that these men and ladies could find it in their hearts to forgive a system that did not intentionally do them harm.  And to understand that the defects in the systems' machinery are a result not of specific intent, but rather of an attempt to cater to the masses, to the median. Should a system with fewer tolerances for defects be put into place? Perhaps. But that is neither the purpose nor within the purview of this post.]

According to the argument, enveloping oneself in a community like the chareidi or yeshiva world’s current island-like approach leads to one thing- ignorance of the outside world. Nothing could be worse, or more embarrassing, according to them, than the yeshiva students who cannot intelligently discuss the latest developments in whatever reality TV show currently holds sway on America’s upper middle class. For shame, they cry! How dare we educate our children to avoid pop culture like the plague and focus on the most valuable of all pursuits?! Instead, they propose, expose them to the barrage of instantly available, vitally important news served up in real time on the news outlets. Have them assimilate constant reports of the violence and gore of the street.

But why? Why expose our innocent, protected youth to this? I can hear the sane voices questioning. But the voice answering from the darkness have an answer for this too.

Because one day they will be, must be, exposed to it themselves. What will happen when these children must grow up and face the world? They won’t know how to deal with it! They won’t be able to handle the ghastliness and gore of the outside world. So expose them to it early on. That’s the argument in a nutshell. And nuts it is. Here’s why.

Exposing our precious, our most precious, commodity early on to a world gone mad is patently ludicrous. It’s worse than that, actually; it is dangerous. An inaccurate analogy might be the swimming instructor who wishes to teach his charge how to swim. Wishing to do so in a no nonsense fashion and being a pragmatic instructor, he lifts his struggling pupil and bodily throws him into the raging river. In short order, the three year old boy drowns. “Swim, swim”, cries the teacher from the riverbank. To no avail. The child simply can’t deal with the overpowering, swirling waters of the river. Flailing wildly all the while, the child slowly slips under.

Taking our youth and wishing to equip them to deal with the mad milieu swirling round them can have devastating effects. To those who argue we will eventually need to do it anyway… I say this to them. For the same reason you do not choose to equip your ten year old with a .45 to defend himself using the logic of “one day he will need to know how to defend himself anyway”, we do not equip our young with potentially fatal tools.

And finally, we are intolerant.

We are intolerant of any threats on our young. Just as the herd gathers together to ensure the survival of its young by not exposing any of the kids, we too gather in on ourselves to protect our children. And we do not tolerate any charges of the unfaithful on our charges. We are intolerant of insurgents on our isolation.

So we must stay secluded.  In our perfect little worlds. But you’re welcome to join us any time.

“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity”.

-Henry David Thoreau

News, in its pure form as a medium of delivering information, has always been a wonderful idea. Indeed, the musag of having a grasp of the events that shape the world around us was, to various degrees, was encouraged by our sages.

Lately, however, the proliferation of the 24 hour news cycle, in conjunction with the dual Israel/USA frum news teams, has people gasping for breath. Bochurim, yungeleit… even baalebatim can hardly keep up. And one wonders, is this the way we are meant to consume information?

But that isn’t what this is about.

Take a look any one of the “big three” “yiddishe” internet news outlets, and find laughably idiotic tidbits, videos, and yes, even audio shiurim that have no business being published on a mainstream media outlet catering to the frum public. I deliberately avoid the term yeshivish public, being that true Bnei Torah avoid the web like the plague. (No, I am not completely oblivious to the irony of that statement.) Scan the headlines of these sites, if you will, and you might find it more of a challenge to spot an item containing real news than not. Arbitrary opinion pieces (not that much unlike this one) written by random people, cutesy poems authored by high school kids, and an odd assortment of what can only be termed eclectic informationals that do more to uniform the informed than the reverse have become the norm over the past few years.

I don’t understand how this came to be. How is it that watching clips of little children laughing, gorillas smoking, and high speed police chases became a legitimate form of spending time? Yiddishe culture, as a result of our religion (and being the same as), has always maximized what available time we had left after parnassa and Torah study. Putting aside the question of if and when that time even exists at all (lo yomush, etc.), it certainly was never spent viewing inane and insane media, without purpose or innate growth involved.

Traditionally, as far as this uneducated yeshiva bochur is aware, our forebears spent little time on what today is labeled “entertainment”. We were a busy folk; occupied primarily with learning Torah, communal work, charitable endeavors, and diverse fashions of enterprise, as permitted by our host countries.

True, one must, as the legendary Rebbi R’ Yerucham Kaplan ZTZ”L used to say, “chill zich”. But we were never meant to substitute the ikkar for the taful, to make it a matarah in of itself, and certainly not to prioritize it above all else. In reference to such lifestyles- the mislocuted “Western Civilization”- did Ghandi say “Western Civilization? I think it would be an excellent idea”. In contrast, our sundry spiritual spices of life were wholesome, constructive activities. Things like going on nature walks, appreciating fine architecture, and even botanically based edification.

At this point, the initiate might be wondering…what makes the above activities any different than watching YouTube, or indeed than the endless hours combing every nook and cranny that canny Zuckerberg himself never knew existed? Why should one’s subjective position on an individual’s preference as to how to spend his or her leisure time be more or less right than someone else’s?

To such questioners, I can respond only with what may come across as rhetoric, but should ring true to all who listen for the truth. To the question of what differentiates the mind numbing hours of cyber trawling- crawling might be more accurate- from soul expanding diversions such as nature walks, I say only this.

“Chaval al d’avdin v’lo mishtakchin“.

Shaking my head sadly, it’s almost as if I can hear his refrain set to music. The first few chords, accompanied by the aforementioned fist thump, are  as familiar as the sagging walls of Zichron Moshe shtiblach. He’s ticked off by the endless parade of meshulachim knocking on his door, interrupting his shacharis, and accosting him at the mikvah. He can’t handle the endless yidden who’ve fallen on hard times knocking at his door, disturbing his dinner. He doesn’t like the the stream of schnorrers that doesn’t stop. He continues.

“From a purely financial standpoint, it doesn’t make sense. The plane ticket alone costs $1600, and then the drivers take 50% commission. For that price, let them borrow from the same people sponsoring their tickets, and make a cheap wedding at a tzedakah hall. And what about aniyay irchah? Huh? What about them? We have to support our own, don’t we? Do you know how many families in Teaneck mamish can’t make ends meet? Tons. You wouldn’t believe the numbers if I told you.”

By now, the gvir I’m eating my Friday night seudah has worked himself into a fine frenzy, and his face is beginning to flush. His wife, apparently more forgiving of evyonim than he, or perhaps simply less forgiving of the spittle sailing into her soup, is trying to settle him down. Why he’s decided to direct this rant at me is beyond my ken. I’m no kin of his, and although I happen to be seated next to him, I should think this maarachah more appropriately be given to the local rabbonim or some such body. Instead, I’m zocheh to hear it. He ignores his wife and continues.

“I say that instead of funding endless flights to America, we setup a vocational school in Bnei Brak. For the same price, they can learn a trade, and support their children like G-d meant them to. Have some pride in their lives. Also, we must abolish the dira custom. It’s absurd that kollel yungeleit must buy a dira for their eidims; where are they supposed to get $200,000 from? Not me, I’ll tell you.  We must eliminate it from their mental minhag lexicon. From now on, they should make do with renting, like I did when I got married. If they want more, let them work for it.”

Finally having finished his piece, he sits back in his chair, happy to have delivered a humdinger of a filibuster. Convinced of his argument, and it’s inherent logical merits, I doubt I can change his mind. L’maaseh, however, there is a chiyuv machaah, so I give it a shot. By now, his wife has thrown up her hands in despair, and retreated to the kitchen to bring in the main course.

I start slowly. “Did it ever occur to you, R’ Yid, that this fad, as you call it, is not in fact born out of a desire to see the world, or spend time on El Al’s brand new fleet. That maybe, just maybe, these yidden are desperate for the money they receive in America. That as a charter baalebos of America, you have a chiyuv to support them. And as for its newness; well, that’s just incorrect. Your financial acumen notwithstanding, you clearly don’t know very much about Jewish history. Yidden have been collecting in far-flung communities of the Diaspora since the golus began. It’s how we operate- kol Yisroel areivim zeh l’zeh.” I pause for a moment to let my point sink home. He hasn’t started banging his fist on the table yet, so that means that at least he’s absorbed what I’ve said. Encouraged, I keep going.

“Having said that, let’s move on to your contention that they enjoy this. Let me tell you something. I, personally, have Boruch Hashem never had to collect money for myself. But come Purim every year, I experience a mashehu of the intense bushis that any ani no doubt relives, again and again, every time he must ask again for money. The gehinnom each closed door must mean for him; the shell tachtis each slammed door must be. I challenge you- go to a random community where no one knows who you are and try collecting money in the local shul, just for a few minutes. That will speedily put to rest any ideas you may have about people enjoying the experience.”

My long-winded drasha so far having enjoyed a bit of success, his open eyes tell me that the ideas thus far presented have met their mark. I finish up with a story for effect.

“And finally, with regards to aniyay ircha and who does and doesn’t have a chiyuv to support them, don’t give me that garbage. We both know there is more than enough money to go around, Boruch Hashem. And forgive me for bringing in a goyishe president to illustrate my point(s), but this problem is as old as you are, if not older.

Woodrow Wilson, a former president of the United States, had a rough go of it as a child. His father, a good man, was a minister, and apparently they paid their ministers less than they do kolleleit today. One day, young Woodrow and his father were on their way to the market in their horse-drawn buggy.

A member of the congregation flagged them down. “Minister”, he wanted to know, “why is it that your horse looks so well fed, while you yourself appear as thin as a stick?”

Before the gaunt Wilson senior had a chance to respond, little Woodrow answered.

“That is because my father is fed by the congregation, while the horse is fed by my father.”

I don’t think I need to tell you who are in the moshel…”

With this story, I stop talking, hoping the gvir sitting in front of me will chap the moshel, and take a lesson from a goyishe president. I don’t have koach to be masbir.

His brows still furrowed in thought, I lean back in my chair. His wife brings in the main course, and I dig into the American meat they are serving. It’s good; juicy, soft, and full of flavor. Too bad they don’t serve ‘em like this at every Friday night seudah.

Hmm…there is a job opening for some enterprising yungerman. He can open up a butcher shop, and import US meats. Wait. I’m not supposed to be advocating yungeleit getting jobs! Now my brow is furrowed, my brain in full gear. How about half day and half day? Nope. We don’t hold of that. Wow.

The lesson here? Obvious.

Don’t eat at baalebatim who will impart krumme hashkafos.

B’taovon.

allegory |ˈaləˌgôrē|noun ( pl. -ries)a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one

Only boring, uncreative people read guidebooks. That said, if you’ve ever spent any amount of time browsing through a Rand McNally, you’ll no doubt notice much prose devoted to the subject of arising in the morn. Whether a poetic bit about the local wildlife and their propensity for waking up themselves and their surroundings for vasikin every day, or an envy inspiring paragraph glorifying the greatness of the Bohemian lifestyle and slumbering on until past midday, tourists seem obsessed with what time arise. Not so yeshiva bochurim; we wake faithfully, each day, with the sun, to serve our Creator. Or we’re supposed to. Listen, you try sleeping four hours a day and putting a full day of learning. It ain’t easy. Particularly when…

Each and every morning for the past few months my alarm clock has been neither the lyrical chirping of Jerusalem’s parakeets, nor the shrill trill of the standard 20 shekel electric Timex designed to tick the flip out of anyone unlucky enough to be in a 200 yard radius. It has not been a gentle, or rough, tap on the shoulder, nor an insistent vekker whose idea of entertainment is to count backwards from 100… in Yiddish, mimicking the Rosh Yeshiva all the while.

No, the aural accompaniment to transition from dead to alive has been graciously arranged by the Jerusalem Municipality. For reasons unknown, our fine iryah has decided to rebuild the streets of Geulah. Formerly dinky, squalid streets shall soon resemble the quaint crescents of eastern Switzerland, down to the faux gas streetlights. In the process, our tiny, crisscrossing alleyways have been gridlocked for months; drivers are advised to stay away from the area unless they wish to leave quickly- in an ambulance, due to coronary failure. Taxi cabs b’shittah will not enter the shchuna, claiming their meters have inexplicably failed, and quoting exorbitant 100 plus shekel prices for a ten minute nesiah.

And so, heavy machinery of all kinds, including jackhammers, diesel shovels, and telemographicbicorborators drill and detonate their way to the center of the earth in a non-fiction nightmare of Wellsian proportions. Why this admittedly admirable expedition had to take place 3 feet from by bedroom window is the only thing that has me scratching my head. I suspect that the chief architect of the wonderfully functional light rail was bored, now that he finished showing the world how similar Jerusalem is to Paris and Milano. [Side note: Do me a favor, should you happen to bump into him, and let him know that you are tremendously proud of our (read:Kol Toshvei D’Yerushalayim) accomplishment; and that he shouldn't feel disappointed that the actual rail cars aren't moving yet, never mind the seven years of construction. After all, we console ourselves by gazing at our beautiful bridge. Eizeh Yofi.]

It is for the above reasons that I have acquired a deep seated hatred of any and all heavy machinery. And although I shall have to live with bumping into my former brethren, the teeming yeshivishe masses, in Lancaster who are oleh regel every Yom Tov like lemmings on their mindless mission, a man’s got to do what  a man’s got to do.

Wish me luck.

Brisker Rav (Upon reading the Rebbe’s first maamer, Ba’asi L’gani):
This meshuggener has convinced himself that he is Moshiach. We will suffer yet from him.

Rav Ahron Kotler (Upon asking him about Lubavitch):
It smells like Avodah Zarah, and they are perverting all sorts of perversions in the foundations of the faith.

Rav Yechezkel Abramsky:
From all the different religions, the movement that most closely resembles Judaism is Lubavitch.

Rav Chaim Shmulevitz (Upon being told that Lubavitch does many good things):
The Vatican also does good things.

Rav Elya Lopian (Upon hearing the Horaos from 770):
That student from Paris won’t tell us his beliefs.

Rav Kloift:
It is lucky for us that he isn’t a deep person; had he been deep, he might have reached the level of Shabbesai Tzvi.

Rav Hutner (Upon hearing about Lubavitch):
Christianity.

Satmar Rav (Upon hearing that the Lubavitcher Rebbe had said the following in response to the Satmar Rav’s opposition: Do not be impressed by the Satmar Rav’s opposition; we already find by R’ Yishmael Kohen Godol that he served as K”G for 80 years and then became a Tzidoki- implying that the Satmar Rav had been a godol but now should be stripped of his leadership status, having now become a “Tzidoki“):
Yes, but that a person should be a Tzidoki for 80 years and then become a Kohen Godol…this we’ve never heard of.

It is deep, and searing. Elemental, in ways I will not, cannot, describe, but those of you who have experienced this sort of pain can understand, and know all too well how to relate to it.

I speak of real, true emotional agony. Boruch Hashem, many go through life without experiencing this. Indeed, even the people who do occasion encountering this emotion more frequently, often enough shelve it deep in the closet of their minds, where they dust it off and examine it only twice, thrice per decade. This is out of necessity, more often than not. For after all, who among us can stare into that abyss for long?

The pain I speak of, and for, is not specific. It has no name, nor are there any criteria by which it can be defined. It is better this way, I think. It should not be diminished by pithy tags or convenient handles.

There are many within our community and many without who know these sort of pains, R”L. Today, however, I speak of one sort in particular. Some of the people who have met with and live with this agony are the older single men and women in our community. They, perhaps more than anyone else, are most familiar with this foe. They do battle with it daily. No vacation, no sick leave, no Shabbos or Yom Tov.

I hear every day of yet another older individual not yet married.

I confess plainly, I cannot think about them. I dare not. Quickly, I file their names in the musty box that resides deep in my mind’s closet, and shove it back, back where it belongs. Back where I need not think about it, or them.

This is wrong.

Painful as it may be for me, for us, I refer back to elemental pain. I have, perhaps, experienced it on a passing level. Perhaps not. But they, these Yidden- and I do not adjectivize them here for lack of a suitable term; heroes does not do justice to the mountains they’ve climbed in life, or to the peaks they scale and stare at us from- they know no respite from it.

I do not point fingers. I do not say, I do not scream, “Why is everyone silent”?

In fact, we are not. True enough, the pages of Jewish dailies throughout the world are awash with the “crisis”. Good. Let them be. But the natural corollary, aside from the desensitization it engenders, is the alleviation of personal achrayus it provides. See; others are handling it. Shidduch groups abound. The Letters to the Editor page is rife with their plight. Look, it even has a name. Now we must be making progress.

Am I bitter, too bitter? Maybe.

Imagine how they feel.

The truth is, we think, that we are not at fault. We don’t know people, or if we do, we don’t know enough people. Anyway, single people, as everyone knows, are notoriously difficult to deal with. A professional shadchan is called for.

The facts, however, are not so. We do know people. And if the pain affected you, even just on a fractional level, you would be working the phones, all day, every day. Oib es tut vey, shreit men.

So I guess I am pointing fingers. We are all responsible. We are all culpable.

In closing, I ask only this:

Have you actually picked up the phone yet? Just once, have you lifted the telephone receiver and placed a call? Do you realize that people around the world are desperate to hear the ring of the phone, your ring? Anyone’s ring? I think it not hyperbolic to state that someone’s life may depend on it.

Make the call.

Someone’s life depends it.

Rav Menachem Porush ZTZ”L was niftar last week. An askan and shtadlan for the chareidi velt for many years, he was close to many gedolim, and was famed for his ceaseless efforts on behalf of frumme yidden.

In Meah Shearim, however, the patchkevillim announcing his levayah looked as on the right.

This isn’t something I understand. While I can understand the Neturei Karta and their position, why doesn’t the velt’s vort of Acharei Mos Kedoshim apply here? Sigh.

And for those of you who may have never heard this vort, it is simple. The order of these two parshios in the sedrah is as listed. Acharei Mos, and then Kedoshim. Translate them into one sentence, and you get “After death, (they) are holy”. In other words, speak no evil of the dead.

So why not?

I must say, that as an occasional (former?) reader of the infamous VIN and YWN news blogs, I was quite disappointed at their biased coverage of the two recent hafganah affairs in our Holy City. And here comes the kicker…their bias was towards the secular! In fact, the type of chareidi hating, Brisk-bashing, anti- frum fest that was going on in the inspired comments below those articles was nothing short of sickening. And to think that these frum websites were goreim those comments from frum yidden. Whatever happened to Hilchos Lashon Hara???

It is critical, especially when dealing with remote media channels, to verify and double verify such type of information before passing it on. The scenes described in the above mentioned news outlets are simply copied from various secular media agencies, and NOT TRUE. (Yes, the secular media does have a bias against the chareidim. Wake up.)
That ostensibly frum news channels run stories, and particularly of the volatile and potentially Chillul Hashem causing type we’re discussing, without due diligence in their fact checking is worse than atrocious. Its assur.

And its high time someone said something about it. So there you go. I hate to be a hater, but it had to be said.

And if you’re in any way confused about what the flip I’m talking about,…then move on- this blog ain’t for you.

(Above photo taken on Yechezkel, near Kikar Shabbos, on Thu., July 16th).