Category — BeyondBT

For those of you confused by all the commotion, it’s pretty simple. I got upset about the disproportionate frum presence at the upcoming Heimesh B’ Heimesh Blogger Convention, and it was picked up by others, and Haaretz wrote about it. Then all hell broke loose.

Aussie Dave felt that Failed Messiah should not have been invited because he is an “anti-Judaism blogger.”

After defending the choice to exclude those outside of this narrow band of frum, Aussie Dave insists no such exclusion took place in any way, and insisted that the fact that “Anyone can register” is proof that the convention is ecumenical. But…there were no claims that people couldn’t register if they weren’t Kookniks…anyone can register for the Agudah convention on Thanksgiving weekend also…but that doesn’t make it a general Jewish convention, now, does it?

ck of Jewlicious is trying to heal the warring camps, but peace is so not happening. Frankly, the Left-wing Modern Orthodox should just move out of the way and let these white hats reveal how exclusive and arrogant they truly are.

The Muqata, who judging by his anger, perhaps misinterpreted my constructive comments about his dork graphic takes some obvious shots, writing,

There are blogs that harp almost exclusively on many issues that plague the Jewish and Israeli world. Be it bashing Rubashkins, exposing dangers to the Jewish community from within, or kvetching in general.

In case you missed it, let’s try one more oh-so-subtle-dig (you know how subtle the frum are),

To build a readership one needs a lot more than negativity. To interact with the JBlogosphere, no one wants to see a mega-kvetcher.

Of course this dude is friends with Ezzie and is going to the Beyond BT shabbaton.

Looking forward to seeing you at the JBlogger Convention next week (you can view it via the web as well), or at the SerandEz/BeyondBT melaveh malka on Motzei Shabbat in Queens.

You know, why don’t they just call the Beyond BT shabbaton The First International Jewish Weekend Ever since it’s pretty much the same as the Nefesh to Nefesh convention?

To clarify what should be obvious but what Ezzie’s pack of heimeshes fail to comprehend, I am not upset I wasn’t invited to be a panelist. Shmarya isn’t upset he wasn’t invited to be a panelist. We are upset that you chose a very ecumenical name when you are catering (pandering?) to a predominantly religious-Zionist based community. That is the issue. Address it, or shut your traps. No one actually cares about the content of this lame-o excuse for a blogger convention. The only thing that is of interest is how you misrepresented it. This is much more interesting than anything else that will come out of it.

Toby Katz, the daughter of the late Rabbi Bulman, who was the mashgiach at Ohr Somayach in the 70s, wants you BT people to stop complaining all the time about not being accepted by the FFBs – FFBs…you know, the Fundamentalist from Birth folk.

Mrs. Katz writes on Cross Currents,

In all the articles and comments about whether Ba’alei Teshuva are fully accepted in Frum from Birth communities, one major factor I haven’t seen mentioned is the character of the individual BT. This applies also to gerim (converts). I know a convert who is a sweet, outgoing, pleasant, talented, easy-going person, and she finds the charedi community to be delightful and wonderful. Everyone is good, warm, intelligent, altogether admirable. I know another convert who is sour, dour, prickly and altogether a difficult person, and she finds the Orthodox community to be cold, unwelcoming, uncaring and exclusionary. And both of these women formed their impressions while living in the same neighborhood! Fancy that.

Well, surprisingly, not everyone is very happy with Mrs. Katz. In fact, there are a lot of complaints, including some angry at Cross Currents moderators for not allowing their comments through that to rebut Mrs. Katz. Their complaints are not getting through, but some of their complaints about their complaints not getting through are getting through, and…my gosh, these bnai niddah baal teshuvah people really do complain a lot!

And look – even someone claiming to be Miriam Shear is complaining…remember Ms. Shear? She’s the maniac who went crazy when the nice haredi men tried unsuccessfully to help her be like Rosa Parks and sit in the back of the bus.

Why won’t these all these people stop complaining and accept their lot at the back of the bus? They are so lucky to be there…so fortunate that the Dark Lights of kiruv have taken them out of the slavery of Egypt that the secular world truly is…and instead of eternal gratitude and simcha, they have so many complaints.

Fancy that.

Ezzie and Erachet are exactly the type of frummies that liberal and secular American Jewry needs to worry about. They babble about unity and their love for klal yisroel, and claim to get so very sad when people fight.

But these are the exact same people who will deny problems when they are raised. They will either not bother to research the material/links you give them, or they will lie blatantly.

On frum sites, they will shut you down so fast…in a discussion with them, even one Modern Orthodox person wrote in protest and dissent to their contemptuous attempts to dismiss me and the legitimate concerns I raised about kiruv,

I don’t agree. I think we should continue to discuss this. I don’t believe that DK is alone. You can’t shut people down. Who does it serve?

It serves their kiruv agenda. You are not to disagree with them on that which they are attempting to do to people like you and me – not like them. It is maddening.

How does the community respond?

By honoring them with leadership positions.

Not only are these people going to Israel on the State of Israel’s dollar, Ezzie is being given a partnership role at the Beyond BT shabbaton.

Why? Ezzie isn’t even a baal teshuvah!

Ah, well…he apparently comes from a Modern background, but instead of going to Harvard like his ancestor, he went to Touro. Oh, and I guess he put a black hat on at some point for shabbos. Do not call him Modern, by the way, Ezzie gets very insulted if you call him Modern Orthodox. I made that mistake. Once.

And if that’s not “learning and growing,” they don’t know what is.

Yakov Lowinger is concerned about those who leave because of a “BRE” (bad religious experience) and he claims there is “no such thing as an FFB” on Beyond BT.

Oh, really?

Among the reasons Lowinger feels this title is a bad idea is because unlike the “exalted status” of a ba’al teshuvah (no, he isn’t kidding, but yeah, it’s still pretty funny), the term FFB in contrast,

enjoys no comparable prestige, highlights no distinguishing feature of those so categorized except accident of birth, and therefore tells us nothing about those who supposedly bear this title.

From a western secular perspective, he is right. But from a Frumville perspective, he is wrong. And Lowinger is writing from Frumville. Do Cohens and Levites not enjoy prestige merely because of the “accident of their birth?” Of course they do! So too, an FFB descends from holy yidden, and the baal teshuvah (nebach) descends from people who drive on shabbos and know not the difference between hadar and “the real ‘m’hudar” and did God knows what “before they became frum.”

Lowinger writes,

The term FFB just gives frustrated ex-frum people something to bandy around, some identifier that we all supposedly understand and relate to and toward which we can direct our complaints.

No. This term is used much more by people who are frum, and caught on with the ba’al teshuvahs themselves as a reaction to being designated as b’nai niddah baal teshuvahs.

Lowinger writes,

And as for those bitter acheir’s out there, it’s not too late either. I hope there’s something here for all to take to heart.

Not really, no. But overall, this post is not any worse than any of the other essays we read as to why baal teshuvahs should become/stay frum in a community that doesn’t really want them in the first place, and doesn’t have a clue as to how to absorb them properly when they join.

Why does even a RWMO organization like NCSY send our youth to a third tier school like Touro which services an English as a second language crowd and still NCSY has the gall to boast about this recruitment? Why do NCSY and Yeshiva University have the audacity to recruit our young men directly from our public schools and then, once at Yeshiva College, force the BTs, and only the BTs, to attend morning prayers by grading them?

Probably because in their own minds, if you actually elected to join their communities, you are probably a dumbass to begin with.

Do not kid yourselves. The frummies look down on those who join their community. Their contempt towards the baal teshuvah says nothing about the baal teshuvahs. But it does say something about the wisdom of joining these communities.

Take their contempt as a warning sign coming from some residue of brotherly love and run like hell and never look back. If you look back, you risk being turned into the salt of the earth they walk on.

They will walk all over you like you are an illegal employee at a glatt kosher meat packing factory.

Our frum friend Ron Coleman wrote a piece on Beyond BT (the baal teshuvah blog) called “Considerations When Taking on New Chumras,” about whether one “should or should not consider personal pleasure and desire when making those choices.” As an emblematic example (not meant for specific discussion) Ron mentioned the stringency of only consuming cholov yisroel products, dairy products produced from a cow that was milked under Jewish supervision (some very pious Jews do not trust a gentile to milk a cow, and apparently, this makes them holier yidden).

Of course, some flamers came out for this one.

EPA18 wrote,

A friend of yours in your community was once in the apartment of the late Rabbi Shimon Schwab, ztl. When Rov Schwab heard that the individual did not keep cholov yisroel he became quite agitated, and asked “How could you not keep cholov yisroel!!!” Surely, Rov Schwab knew all about Reb Moshe’s position on the issue. But times had changed, and the easy availability of cholov yisroel products in the New York area no doubt caused Rov Schwab to believe that Reb Moshe might have held differently nowadays, at least for those in the NY/NJ area.

Wait. There’s more. Ready?

Surely the individual involved enjoyed his haagen-dazs at the time, but he did change and ever since has been keeping cholov yisroel. We all made sacrifices on our way to becoming frum. But how often do you stop and think (at this point), “Boy, what I would do right now for a good lobster bisque?” It’s probably the same with taking on something like cholov yisroel. With the passage of time, the desire for non-cholov yisroel products wanes, especially when you - Ron - have a wonderful kosher supermarket in your town, which carries numerous cholov yisroel products, the quality of which, over the years, has definitely improved.

So at that point, as I am sure you can imagine, I was all ready to throw away all my mezuzas own “cholov stam” products -– and fuck it, my TV too, and I don’t even have cable — when Ron, who brought this whole issue up in the first place, and “cholov yisroel” as a neutral – no judgments, “what do you think?” example, wrote,

My personal experience, frankly, is that CY products are really overpriced and the milk goes sour as soon as I open it. I felt that I was being exploited during a certain period when I endeavored to buy CY where it was available even though I was not strict about the matter. I decided to stop being exploited.

So I guess Ron’s point – since he brought it up, and since he brought up CY as the emblematic example of stringencies as well…is that chumras are stupid and exploitive.

Project Inspire, an Aish HaTorah program, has a full-line of frummer than thou “kiruv professionals” lined up to promote Big Aish’s glitzy brand of left-wing ultra-Orthodoxy. Just look at these hats:

We have Rabbi Yosef Viener, author of the must-read MO classic, “An Overview on the Role of Da’as Torah.” We have Rabbi Eliyahu Bergstein, who got his start the way any Big Aish “kiruv professional” should…selling the Torah Codes! And we have Rabbi Yaakov “The Genius” Salomon.

And they have backing. From the most intensely anti-Modern leaders of the haredi world. Read the “haskama” (certificate of kashrut) they are touting. Signed by the leaders of Israel’s right-wing ultra-Orthodox movement, Rabbis Elyashiv and Shteinman, Big Aish/Kiruv.com boasts that their mission is to stop the “devastating spiritual holocaust.” and lashes out at the “Inciters from both within and without.” They want to “save” (this is their language, sound familiar?) secular and liberal Jews.

No surprise, these “kiruv professionals” will be gracing Ohr Sameach, Monsey. Guess where else they will be instructing the faithful to stop the “spiritual holocaust” and stand up to the “inciters”?

The Young Israel of Kew Garden Hills.

The Young Israels were traditionally Modern Orthodox, albeit right-wing Modern Orthodox. My brother, in fact, was president of his local Young Israel. Having a Big Kiruv conference there—especially considering who is backing them–is absolutely egregious. This Young Israel is holding hands not only with the left-wing ultra-Orthodox, but the right-wing ultra-Orthodox. These are the people who denounce secular studies and the work ethic in their entirety.

This is whom the Young Israel of Kew Garden Hills is collaborating with. This is whom they take directives from. Absolute, no holds barred, haredim.

Perhaps our friends at Beyond BT are promoting this series? They have posted information on it, and they themselves live in Kew Garden Hills. Perhaps they can explain why right-wing ultra-Orthodox recruiters are being invited to their own local Young Israel?

The National Council of Young Israel, who is so concerned that nothing of left-wing Modern Orthodoxy invade their synagogue spaces, apparently has no such parallel border when it comes to a policy against the radically fahfrumpt.

Maybe before allying to convert those “wandering in darkness,” the NCYI should take a long look in the mirror.

Just another stab in the back of secular and liberal Jewry by the right-wing Modern Orthodox.

This post was edited to better flesh the men behind the “hats.”

Further Update: It seems important, on occasion, to contrast the lies and fanaticism of Big Kiruv to that of the Modern Orthodox, (or close to it), even if it isn’t nearly as widespread. I feel they (Rabbis Student and Steve Brizel) want this known, so I’m going to help them out, and end on a positive note for the beginning of the week. I personally don’t really believe the following, but I don’t not believe it. And I do respect it as a legitimate approach to offer the secular and liberal Jewish community. Not like the Torah Codes/Gedoylim worship/Sloppy and Sleazy Salesmanship of Big Aish and Co.

Hirhurim writes,

Each Jew has an opportunity to be a part of something bigger, to transcend his own personal abilities and join a group spanning the world and the centuries, to not only follow in their footsteps but to add to their accomplishments — to add a unique letter to their Torah scroll. Perhaps you can do that with other religions but as someone born Jewish, you have a unique opportunity to join the famous Jewish story and add your own chapter to it. If you have to ask why, then this argument is not for you. However, I believe that in this modern world that is full of alienation, this is a powerful and attractive argument.

A baal teshuvah must work slowly and steadily. He must climb medregas at a slow and steady pace. And have faith in the Gedoylim. The Gedoylim would not give you a test you cannot pass. When you find out a new halacha, it is best to assume that this means that you are ready to abide by it.

Mark Frankel writes on Beyond BT that,

Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote a “famous” teshuva in which he paskened that a boy talking to a girl was either a Rabbinic prohibition or possibly a Biblical prohibition. That set the stage for a portion of the Orthodox worlds conduct.

I was not aware of this teshuvah. So I just want my female friends and readers to understand that I will no longer be talking to them. I wouldn’t want to be “over” an ancient Jewish tradition from the 1970s.

Ron Coleman has a post on Beyond BT confessing—among other things–about how much he got spiritually out of befriending frum skeptics. And not in that kiruv way, but “as equals.”

Ron writes,

And, off a less beaten path, I chose to establish genuine friendships — not kiruv files — with people who had views about the Torah world and even the Torah itself with whom I previously would not have ever had anything to do, and I engaged them sincerely, as equals, and listened to what they had to say, and then some. In short, I exposed myself to the rough edges. Some pointy-rough edges, in fact, which were encroaching on me stealthily, anyway. But this engagement is what they tell us, as we leave BT school, we’re not supposed to do. And what I wrote in these very “pages” I would not do. But I did it.

The post is kind of shocking…the official line in the BT world for those of us who “fall off the derech” is that we are either 1) evil, or at least are being guided by The Evil Inclination, or 2) “had problems before they became frum.” You know…nuts.

To some degree, Ron demands that all the frummies engage the skeptics, and not run away.

Ron writes,

Maybe my particular wrestling matches were not for everyone, but there is some juncture… some moment… some challenge… some “hard” or obnoxious question, from which each of us, depending on who we are, and where it is, and when, should not walk away. For our own good, our own eternity. That encounter is different for all of us, but at this time in history, in our place, each of us must, at some point, engage this world.

Ron is right, of course. How real can your frumkeit be if it cannot stand up to any skepticism at all? If that’s your constraint…are you really living according to the will of God, or aren’t you merely living according to the nonsensical fantasy of some rabbi(s)?

If this is so, then perhaps the most important function of the skeptic is to encourage the frummie to stop worshipping rabbis as God. When we are afraid of engaging others for fear of challenging the rabbis’ untenable view of life, this is exactly what we are doing.

And how high a medrega (spiritual level) can that possibly be?

One of the issues that should be a concern to the secular and liberal Jewish community about Big Kiruv is intermarriage. Much of liberal Jewry’s blind eye to the fundamentalism, deception, and promotion of downward (“You can’t do it!”) mobility that Big Kiruv advocates stems from the community’s fear of hemorrhaging numbers due to intermarriage. In fact, how Big Kiruv deals with intermarriage is itself a major problem.

The ultra-Orthodox, and to a large extent, even the right-wing Modern Orthodox, utterly cut off those who intermarry. Or at least, that is their official position and party line. This is in-line with Europe (supposedly), so we can’t say this has changed all that much in terms of policy. Intermarriage, as we know, is not a popular phenomenon in the FFB (frum from birth) Orthodox world.

But the situation has changed dramatically for the rest of American Jewry. Most American Jews who are secular or liberal have large segments of their families that are intermarried, particularly those of us who have been here for many generations already. Baal Teshuvahs have cousins and siblings that intermarry all the time. The policies advocated by Big Kiruv for dealing with this reality are all too frequently brutal.

On Beyond BT, Elihau Levenson wrote,

“Spiritual attacks today are not coming in forbidding adherence to Jewish law so much as something else, something far more insideous and more difficult to understand; enticements toward intermarriage and assimilation. These are the “nice” attacks, the “sweet” attacks, the “sugared-coated poison” attacks.

To keep this piece from going too long I will focus the rest of this narrative on intermarriage.”

What did he mean? See comment seventy-two for further explanation on this post, where Levenson explained that the statement,

““If anything, the very fact that it’s not that big of a deal for a typical Gentile to welcome a Jew into their family via intermarriage indicates that most people out there aren’t anti-Semitic…”

was incorrect, because

“It is the opposite. This IS anti-semitism. Read carefully Devarim (Deuteronomy) 13:8-11.

There are mean anti-semites, and there are lovely and wonderful anti-semites. There are anti-semites who know they are anti-semites, and there are anti-semites who think they are benefitting the Jews, and don’t have a clue that it is the opposite.”

Beyond BT will delete comments deemed to contain skeptic content, but authors calling intermarried spouses of Jews “anti-semites” is apparently kosher mehadrin l’mehadrin. You can do that on Beyond BT. Because it is a kiruv site. A kiruv site that spoons hardline haredi groups.

Baal Teshuvahs are told they may not attend the weddings of the intermarried, even if they are non-denominational in content. This creates a lot of bad blood. Ultra-Orthodox Jews do not even recognize intermarried couples as actually married. They also do not recognize a biological gentile father of a Baal Teshuvah as his “real” father. In their eyes, no gentile relatives are truly relatives.

Also problematic is forbidding attendance at even liberal Jewish congregations for family occasions such as bar/bat mitzvahs even if not a problem in terms of getting there on Shabbos.

This produces heart-wrenching results. I know that when I personally think back to the intermarried relatives I estranged many years ago, I am filled with shame and regret. Someone else in my family does the same thing, perhaps worse in a certain ways, and I am horrified as I watch it happen over and over.

Such behavior and freezing out of family members creates misery and estrangement. Neither is a problem for Big Kiruv. The contempt for those outside of Judaism does not have to be as blatant and vulgar as “Shwartzie” for it to have deleterious results for the Baal Teshuvah and his family when he adopts these intolerant policies.

This is an extension of the famous question, “Which is more important? The mishputim (rational laws) or the chukim (irrational laws)?

Maya writes on Beyond BT,

After we got home from Kol Nidre last Yom Kippur, my dad asked me if G-d prefers someone who observes all the laws of Shabbas and kashrus yet acts immorally in dealings with people, ie in the workplace, or someone who is a good person, acts ethically in business, yet does not observe Shabbas or kashrus.

Let me clarify things for Maya’s Dad from a heimshe perpsective.

If someone prioritizes that other ultra-Orthodox Jews act ethically in business over acting sufficiently haredi, they are probably either baal teshuvahs or aren’t really frum, or both.

If someone wears a black hat and is careful about kashrut (that is to say, shuns the non-haredi rabbinical hechshers as insufficient whenever possible), it doesn’t matter if he steals people blind or touches little boys (provided there is no penetration!). He is still better than those people who eat like animals and know not the laws of the rabbis.

And now seems like a good time for a little reminder to my Manhattan friends: It is getting warmer, and some of you are being lax. Remember! It is forbidden to walk between two dogs, two pigs, or two women. Please be advised. Don’t be a sheigetz who walks down the street without protecting his path from darkness and spiritual danger.