Rabbi Yonason Goldson Blames Secularism on Boners

Rabbi Goldson writes about his experience at Ohr Somayach. I should note, I met Rabbi Goldson at a Dark Light branch, and I have nothing against him personally from that experience. I think he was a nice person…I didn’t get to know him very well.

But he is a Dark Light paladin.

Rabbi Goldson writes,

I was just settling into my new room when Norman arrived. He didn’t want to be there, and he had no interest in Torah. In fact, he seemed to have little interest in anything at all … except girls [...]

I remember the day he packed up to leave. I asked him what impression six weeks in yeshiva had made on him. I don’t think I’ll ever forget his answer.

“The rabbis are right,” he said. “They’ve answered all my questions. Their proofs are all sound. I can’t refute anything they’ve said.�?

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“Nothing. I like chasing girls.”

Rabbi Goldson writes,

“I still can’t understand his answer.”

Goldson is lying. He understands the answer just fine. In fact, it is actually the only resistance his kind willingly acknowledges is legit: the enemy of “taivah” – desire. They (Ohr Somayach neo-B’nai Torah types) pretend Gottlieb’s most dubious “proofs�? are real…they pretend that evolution is “bunk,�? and they pretend that it is perfectly logical to believe that allegorical stories in the Torah are literal.

So how do you explain why so many won’t commit to this obviously divine and rock solid theology and clearly mandated fahfrumpte lifestyle?

You blame all who choose a secular lifestyle (at least, at the time the routine was established) as driven by “the yetzer hara” – the evil inclination.

For Rabbi Goldson, “Norman” isn’t an anomaly at all. He is emblematic of all Jews who do not understand the Torah and Judaism the way he does. Only a selfish desire for something else– especially physical desire for something else– could possibly explain why a person wouldn’t care/choose to live a haredi lifestyle.

Because look – even Norman admits it’s right — everything sure makes sense over there in harediville. But alas…desire takes us away from the truth…

Goldson writes,

How do you teach someone else to care?

Maybe there is no answer. Maybe the only answer is that those of us who do care have to push ourselves to care even more.

Actually, maybe that isn’t the only answer. Maybe some know that there is no proof, even if at a younger age, they can’t refute that which is presented as that. But maybe Norman knew on some level that this wasn’t really the one and final answer, even if he admitted he just couldn’t explain how he knew, or why he felt like that.

And maybe Rabbi Goldson is doing something wrong all too often. Perhaps many resisting his teaching can’t—at their stage of life or education—dispute it exactly, but maybe they don’t really buy into it. Maybe they intuitively sense it just isn’t really true. Maybe they sense that it isn’t going to take them where they are supposed to be going.

And that’s something that takes BTs a long time to figure this out, as we don’t have the years of inoculation to this haredi nonsense that Norman did. It is taking years of collective work to unravel the lies and fantasies and the sleights of hand of the haredi kiruv movement. But that inner voice….wasn’t it always screaming that this wasn’t right, this wasn’t what we should be doing? But we listened to the Gottlieb’s and the Goldsons…and ultimately, the Rabbi Weinbachs, the Rabbi Schachs, the Rebbes…who explained and insisted it was just the boner talking. Just the yetzer hara.

A desire to pursue a vocation…higher secular education…gain life experience…all just yetzer hara. All just a boner.

This is what they preach. Read Rabbi Goldson’s essay. He is not even one of the radicals. He teaches in Aish St. Louis, not Aish Jersualem.

But if it isn’t his Judaism, it’s all just one big boner.