Category — BeyondBT

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.

Sure enough, just a few days after their rabbi, Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, defended the ban on some poor schmuck for being too gentile in his music and presentation (the poor bastard is probably lucky he wasn’t beaten to a pulp…yet),

Mark of BeyondBT has also moved to defend the Gedoylim and daas Toyrah. Mark of Beyond BT writes,

Another point is that we are not privy to all the information that goes into a specific decision. I have seen the Rabbinic decision making process a few times and unless you are inside, you have no idea of all the factors in play. Unfortunately on the Internet, people are hesitant to admit their own lack of knowledge, quick to disparage, and stingy on giving the benefit of the doubt, but we have to clearly see that this is not what the Torah teaches.

In terms of the great Rabbis of our generation we have to recognize:
1) They are people of integrity
2) They are learned in Torah
3) They are committed to helping Klal Yisroel
4) They are faced with very difficult Hashkafic questions on a regular basis

Few people can match up to their stature.

You see? WE don’t know what they are really thinking, because they are the great ones! WE can’t possibly know what went into this very thought out decision.

One problem, BeyondBT. This fahfrumpte daas Toyreh garbage is not appropriate for Jews from a secular background. But I am glad you are bringing this up. Maybe some secular Jew will read your article, and yank his son or daughter out of Aish haTorah or Ohr Somayach.

Secular Jewry, understand…ultra-Orthodox rabbis decide AT WHIM that something isn’t frum (religious) enough, AND THEY BAN IT!

Hey Mark and David, could you explain again what happened with that ban on the rabbi who taught evolution and denied the earth was really less than 6,000 years old? Because as you are probably aware, secular Jews do not understand why scientific method is ever a problem. Explain to them why that is, Beyond BT, and explain why The Great Ones had GOOD REASONS WE CAN’T COMPREHEND for doing so.

In other Beyond BT news, some frum skeptics started a blog specifically against Beyond BT. They have a funny graphic, but write a lot of bullshit, although some of it is okay, like when they yelled at Steve Brizel for being a haredi kiss ass. I do that too…anyway, they claim Ron Coleman isn’t Ron’s real name (it is, I know him personally), they claim Mark and David were being nasty when they were being polite, but worst of all, these idiots did not approve my comments. Jerks.

Still, the reality is that Beyond BT toes the haredi line whenever they feel they must, no matter how stupid the haredi line is.

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.

Our frum friends at Beyondbt have posted a letter from Steve Brizel which included his assessment of Ohr Somayach from a Chanukah party he attended, where they surely celebrated our continued war against the Hellenists, which was never ever written down in a document known as Maccabees I-IV.

I’m thrilled Steve is having such a wonderful time, and look forward hearing some great Gedoylim and mammish mesiras nefesh stories he certainly was fed while at Ohr Somayach’s Chanukah party. However, I feel his generally glowing recommendation of Dark Light doesn’t answer the “factless” allegations I have raised both here, on Beyondbt, and elsewhere.

After dismissing my “factless” allegations against Dark Light as “misinformed,” Steve claims,

“Ohr Samaeach has successfully tapped the market of Jewish post [college] graduates from all sorts of backgrounds and created a program that helps realize their potential as Bnei Torah who then progress to yeshivas across the Torah spectrum.�?

The issue is not the college graduates, but rather, the high school graduates who go there. While they certainly help these young men subsequently attend other yeshivas, they do not encourage them to go to college, which is the problem. Who sends them to Ohr Somayach when they aren’t college graduates? Well, the largest recruiter outside of Ohr Somayach itself appears to be NCSY. And as Steve appears to be conceding, they are guided to further yeshiva study at Ohr Somayach instead of college. The fact that O.S. also has many of the same seforim as in any other yeshiva (and not just Artscrolls) is irrelevant to this problem, and to the fact that their parents aren’t informed of what type of indoctrination their kids are facing, even if they aren’t encouraged to don black hats their first year (of more than one year) there.

If Steve agrees with me that this is the situation, then he should also agree that NCSY should not continue to keep recruiting for Ohr Somayach, but should instead only recruit public high school graduates for yeshivas that do not encourage their students to restrict themselves to yeshiva studies, but also promote their students attending college to aid them in success or what we in the treifa medina call “parnassah�? (livelihood).

The idea that Ohr Somayach is only servicing a post-college population (which Steve suggestively references numerous times in this post) is not the main issue or the reality, or NCSY would not be recruiting for them, would they?

Glad we agree.

NCSY, stop recruiting public high school kids for Dark Light, or secular parents will stop sending their kids to your programs. You think they aren’t going to find out? They are going to find out. Education about what and whom you are recruiting for is your worst enemy, and it is happening. In order to maintain your numbers, you will need secular (half) Jews so far removed from the affiliated Jewish community you won’t know where to start. Instead of dealing with questions of trick or treating on Halloween, prepare for more frequent questions about having Chanukah Bushes. How are you going to mix them with your FFB kids?

Keep up the bullshit. Keep promoting fundamentalist places that promote poverty and discourage college like Dark Light does. But you are going to pay the price. You don’t get to keep kneeing kids in the groin forever without it coming back to haunt you. From a socio-economic standpoint, of course. Not that you would literally ever allow such a thing under your watch. You’re the good guys, right? Right?

NCSY: National Collaborator of Sinister Yeshivas