Posts from — November 2007

“I will take Rabbi Akiva over any scientist, any day.� – Rabbi Alter Klein

It seems to me that when you look at human history as a less than six thousand year old process, it is reasonable to accept Jewish history, despite our small numbers, as a defining chapter. The same can reasonably be perceived by the other Abrahamatic religions.

But if you look at Jewish history within the context of millions of years, it is much harder to believe this. You aren’t able to differentiate between man and animal so easily, because it was not a sudden creation, but rather, a continuum. And the division between gentile and Jew, which looms so large for many of the haredim, to varying degrees…appears utterly absurd in this context.

So it is understandable that the haredim fear so much of what is connected to Old Earth science. So much of the foundation which they base their haredi outlook upon is obviated. If only they could make these disturbing theories go away…

But the world is what it is. God made it that way. And on some level, on a very deep level…to deny God’s evidence…is mindbogglingly heretical. It places a literal understanding of the Torah as greater than God’s actual handiwork. It says that what commentaries and rabbis decided the Torah means is a more immutable truth than how God actually decided to make the world, and mankind.

It may be very frum, but it may in some ways not be Judaism as many of us understood it, because it may not be monotheism in a pure form. In fact, it may be a form of avodah zorah, a worship of commentators instead of an acceptance of God’s design. We are insisting that the intermediaries are correct, even when God is demonstrating something quite different.

The push by the haredim against the Modern Orthodox over conversion has finally been noted by mainstream periodicals. Through a desperate email through our joint site, it was Failed Messiah and myself who discovered the story of their misdeeds first, though Shmarya was quicker to understand the ramifications of what was happening than I was. I invite you to read Failed Messiah’s posts on this subject, as I can’t recap all of the important information. Suffice to say, Eternal Jewish Family was created to be the judge and jury in determining which Modern Orthodox rabbis and bais dins (rabbinical courts) are allowed to perform conversions. This is going to be a bloody mess.

But you might ask, who is this Rabbi Leib Tropper? Well, he taught at Dark Light in Jerusalem, and then helped found an Ohr Somayach branch in Monsey.[Delete by editor]

Rabbi Tropper played Minister of Dirty Tricks to slander Rabbi Slifkin, the Zoo Rabbi. He claimed he knew of two whole cases of young men who had “fried out� because of reading Slifkin’s Old Earth science. It doesn’t even matter, but the two cases he brought were anyway complete bullshit. One of the examples he brought disputed his religious commitment had changed in any significant way – he had merely gone to Yeshiva University (which, to be fair, is for a man like Tropper, the worst expression of heresy, but not to those outside of right-wing ultra-Orthodox circles), and the other one was never frum in the first place.

But to give Tropper credit, he doesn’t just lie about you; he blatantly deceives and lies to your face. He has lied to potential converts, with heart-wrenching results, punishing them over the slightest of infractions, both haredi, or just according to Tropper’s own rulebook, which he apparently makes up as he goes along.

If he did this unintentionally, this guy should be faking it in the second fiddle section of the Rockland Community Orchestra, not heading an effort to standardize conversions. But it is more likely that he is a quite capable and manipulative person, who tolerates little dissent and allows for precious few mitigating circumstances.

And that is why this is whom Rabbi Elyashev’s men have chosen to be their Torquemada, both to the conversos, and to Modern Orthodox rabbis.

Updated: Some information about policy and hashkafa was contested by a reliable first hand source, Ron Coleman. That sentence was removed from the post. As I am on vacation with little access to internet, this will have to do for now.

I was invited to join some rather heavy hitters for some blog punditry in reaction to the new Forward 50 list, an annual listing of Jewish machers determined by the staff of the Forward. There should be a bit of back and forth over the next few days, so please do check it out.

Would you believe me if I told you that Yonah Schimmel’s received a higher rating in service than it did for quality of the food?

Well, would you believe that the knishery’s customer service was rated as high as the quality?

Okay…would you believe me if I told you that Yonah Schimmel’s customer service was given a rating (one point) over half of the quality?

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it at thousand times. When a haredi kiruv organization boots someone out for “not fitting the fitting the mold,� that is to say, not thinking more and more like they do, said kiruv organization needs to stop harassing the former mark via telephone, email, and direct mail.

7fatcow reports,

“I keep getting calls from someone at Aish named Ayella who wants me to study with a telephone partner. I find this strange since me, and a bunch of people were going there three years ago and the Rabbi said that we should all get lost. No, he didn’t refer us to a more frum place or try to help us in any way. He merely said that we all had to stop learning with Aish and get the fuck out. So, I don’t see why they suddenly want us to learn Torah now. It all seems entirely too arbitrary. The Aish web site has so many essays about how they always accept everyone…â€?

Come on, Aish! You are BIG. You need to cross-reference those lists before you hand them to your “one-stop shop” direct marketing firm. Didn’t Lazer’s focus groups tell you that you need to offer a “consistent message,” and that this was an “essential part” of “presenting oneself as the Jewish outreach market leader?” Well, this is lazy, and not good for your brand at all. This is not the quality of work we demand of “kiruv professionals.”

I am an American Jew. So when the esteemed rabbi of my country — of the founding congregation of America (an Orthodox congregation, mind you) speaks…I listen seriously to what he has to say. To those of you prefer the ancient paradigms of “the old country,â€? remember that his congregation, Shearith Israel, was established before your movement(s) existed. In 1654, The Baal Shem Tov would not be born for over fifty years.

Anyway, Rabbi Marc Angel, shlita, writes in the Forward,

Sadly, the RCA leadership capitulated to the demands of Rabbi Amar. The RCA agreed to establish regional rabbinic courts to handle conversions in line with the dictates of the chief rabbi. This means that individual RCA rabbis may no longer perform conversions and expect them to be sanctioned by the RCA — or by the chief rabbinate. Power is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and only into the hands of those who agree to adopt stringent and restrictive positions. The result is that many non-Jews who considered halachic conversion will turn to non-halachic means of conversion, or will give up on conversion altogether.

This is a tragedy — and an unnecessary one at that, since there is no halachic reason why the chief rabbinate’s view should carry the day.

Rabbi Angel asks,

Rabbinic tradition teaches that one who oppresses a convert is violating 36 Torah laws. How many laws will be broken by the Orthodox rabbinic establishment in causing torment to halachically valid converts and their children? How many tears will be shed by victims of religious narrowness? How many would-be converts will be turned away from any possibility of a life of Torah and mitzvot due to the intransigence of certain rabbis?

Plenty. A river full. Loads.

Here I am complaining about NCSY, and look at who was coming around the bend. OMG-d, I don’t even know how to sugarcoat this, it is so unacceptable, I think I can only understate it’s significance.

Chabad Lubavitch reports,

At this week’s International Shluchim Convention, Chabad representatives will be sharing strategies for making the problem – public school – part of the solution.

Breathe. Don’t worry about the walls caving in. Just let go. Just relax. Don’t look at it. There is no reason right now to look at it. You will deal with this later. You can not solve this right now. It is not yours to solve right now. Breathe deeply. Think of the big beautiful tree you saw in the park. Shhhhhh.

Hat tip: Failed Messiah

I am receiving some disturbing complaints about a group JAM (Jewish Awareness Movement), operating on campuses in Los Angeles, and seeking national and even international collegiate domination.

Apparently this group is so bad, than some of their staff defected to Aish because (get this) they couldn’t stand the high pressure tactics, and — dishonesty. It’s kinda like leaving Pol Pot’s Killing Fields for the relative liberalism of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution, huh?

High pressure tactics are employed in part because they will lose funding if they don’t meet their Israel trip quotas.

The first two groups on their links section are Aish HaTorah and Ohr Somayach. The first two out of a whopping total of five. These are some real fundies.

They appear to be funded by the Los Angeles Federation, who apparently will sell their soul to Rabbi Elyashev in order to get college kids to Israel. Have you people heard of Birthright? Can’t you work with them? I guess there is no need — anyone who says “trip to Israel” will do just fine.

Anyway, I said they have high pressure tactics, but to be fair, that’s not true for everyone. Like if, say, a person is disabled. They don’t even get a return call. And JAM has a rather expansive definition of disabled. Stuttering apparently counts as disabled, so if you are harassed on campus by a JAM person, start stammering, and they will leave you alone forever.

Also, if you don’t make “progress,� that is, become Orthodox quick enough, they drop you. You are wasting their time. That is to say, you are taking them at their word, a mission to “connect them to Jewish knowledge, community and Israel.� They also encourage couples to break up, since they aren’t ready to get married.

If anyone has any additional information about these guys, please email me. I don’t like what I am hearing, and this group needs to be exposed. Domestically, I have never heard of the kind of shtick being pulled on college campuses like I am hearing about this kiruv group.

Haaretz reports,

Some 1,500 residents of Beit Shemesh gathered late Monday to protest the recent wave of ultra-Orthodox violence in the city, calling on police and municipality officials to take stronger action against Haredi “zealots.”

The protesters, many of them Anglo residents of the city’s modern Orthodox neighborhoods, demonstrated against what they call growing religious intimidation and coercion on behalf of Haredi fringe elements.

Hat tip: Yeshiva World, who did not bother to give an actual link to the Haaretz article he cited. A Modern Orthodox writer would have given a link to the original story.

If you listen to any lecture about honoring ones father and mother, the kiruvniks will insist that they encourage a BT to respect his secular/liberal parents. It’s quite debatable if they do actually encourage this…but FFBs themselves often do not respect our parents. In fact, they actively disrespect them right in front of us.

As Annie noted,

“The straw that broke the camel’s back though, was the disrespect shown to my parents. All of this “it must be so hard for you to go home� and similar statements disparaging their choices. I love my parents, they have been nothing but supportive of me, and they are much better Jews than some of these frummies. They don’t judge people by their observance, are open-minded, give tzedakah, they CERTAINLY don’t cheat on their taxes, are good patriots (as opposed to voting in the US based on a foreign state)… I could go on and on.�

Look, we could all go on and on about the problem with frummies. And we will. Oh, yes.

But for now let’s stick to the point about FFBs who think it “must have been hard� to have grown up in a traditional secular environment, where we often look to Judaism for morality but not halacha. Where we have an intense respect for secular knowledge, and often a love of the fine arts. Where we have a “don’t ask, don’t tell� policy in the occasional Chinese restaurant. Where we celebrate most of the holidays, but never have the *joy* of a three day yontiff. And where we are constantly reading and debating, though not fighting about things like what makes a lemon-like fruit beautiful. Where we are taught to be sexually responsible, but not shomer negiah.

All I can say to my FFB readers who pity us and feel so bad for us is…I guess it sounds more horrible than it actually is. So if you want to cry for the BT who (nebach) grew up in such a horrible environment that is “hard� for us, don’t you cry in front of us. Jerk.

And to all BTs reading this…do not take that FFB-er than thou trip. Stay away from such people. Do not go to their homes for shabbos. Do not eat their food. Do what Annie did — lay into a tirade about why your parents are actually better than most frummies, and let them know that it is preciesely the contemptuous attitudes like theirs that make you rethink your choice to “live Orthodoxâ€? (as opposed to “becoming frum,â€? don’t say it like that, gives that lifestyle choice too much credit) in the first place.