Category — Ohr Somayach/Dark Light

Manfred Gerstenfeld rebuked Ohr Somayach for “Holocaust trivialization.” The OS essay specifically cited by Gerstenfeld claims,

“1. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, 12 million were left afterwards. Today there are only 13 million Jews in the world. Where are the rest that by natural increase should number close to 20 million? The answer is that the silent holocaust of assimilation has caused them to disappear as Jews.”

Slowly but surely, Ohr Somayach/Neve Yerushalayim and other like-minded institutions are getting the reputation they deserve.

It’s simple to remember. Better out than haredi.

Dark Light offers some sage advice this week on how to avoid hari kari at the shabbos table.

From: B. Altman

Dear Rabbi,

There is a custom to remove knives from the table before Birkat Hamazon (Blessing after Meals). What is the reason for this, and does it include plastic knives?

Dear B. Altman,

There are two main reasons for removing knives prior to Birkat Hamazon.

The Talmud relates that a person was once reciting Birkat Hamazon. When he came to the third blessing in which we ask G-d to rebuild Jerusalem and the Holy Temple, he became so distraught at the thought of the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile, that he picked up a knife from the table and stabbed himself.

Because of this event, we remove the knives on the one hand to recall how strongly we should feel about the destruction of the Temple and desire its restoration, while removing the possibility that the event described in the Talmud be repeated.

I realize that some of you are a bit lax on this, and I do ask that you please consider that you look out for the safety of your guests, so that they aren’t tempted to kill themselves when they get to that third blessing.

However, metziza b’ peh is still okay, of course. No one ever got hurt from that. But knives during benching, well…you can never be too careful.

Oh, plastic knives are okay, though. Because, “plastic knives aren’t ‘lethal’ in the classic sense so they are not considered dangerous in this context.”

I don’t think I agree. What if your guest is so distressed over that third blessing that he jams his plastic knife down his throat and chokes to death? What will you do if that happens? Well, you’ll be very sorry you were so lenient. That’s for damn sure.

I never caught this, but Frum Heretic did. Dark Light’s oracle of subverted logic, Professor Gottlieb, has the audacity to compare God to a mafioso.

“Now the short answer to the contradiction is that the universe is 5766 years old and God created it looking older than it is. So that scientists when they follow up the evidence of greater age, are following it up correctly. And they are correctly inferring the age of the universe upon that evidence based on certain assumptions that they are making… but their conclusions are wrong. Similar to a case where the Mafia plants evidence that someone committed a crime and police use the evidence according to all the correct forensic techniques to identify so-and-so as the criminal - they aren’t making any mistakes in their inferences from the evidence - except they don’t know the evidence is planted.”

This is pretty nasty stuff. If this isn’t heresy, well, what is?

Oh, right. The idea that we don’t accept the imprint of God over the interpretation of rabbis not privy to the information revealed to us.

Can you imagine Rabbi Weinreb comparing God to a mafia boss? No, it would never happen. You know why not? That’s because Rabbi Weinreb isn’t really frum. Rabbi Weinreb worships God. Real frummies worship rabbis.

To help send your public school teen to Ohr Somayach to learn that God planted scientific data as a red herring to test our faith because he is like a mafia boss, please contact “Rabbi Dave” Felsenthal, the director of alumni for NCSY. You should be able to contact him through your local “cultural” JSU (Jewish “Student” Union) rep, who JUST HAPPENS to usually work also for NCSY.

Yes. It’s true! How do I know? I read in on Ohr Somayach’s website! In an essay by their Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Mendel Weinbach himself.

In, “One Way to Stop a War,” the leader of Dark Light wrote,

“This is the prime minister of Georgia, Vladimir Gurgenidze, speaking. You brought me a letter from a man name Steiman. Is he still alive? I’ve heard that he is a holy man. I want him to pray for us and our state.”

This was what Rabbi Shimon Bruk, chairman of the Israel branch of Hava’ad L’hatzalat Nidchei Yisrael, heard on the phone on the morning of August 12th when war between Russia and Georgia was reaching a climax. Bruk had met with the prime minister in March to thank him for his support of the Jewish educational institutions that his organization had established in Georgia. He also presented him with a letter from the revered rosh yeshiva in which he referred to the Georgian government as a “regime of lovingkindness”. The letter is reportedly hanging on the wall of the prime minister’s office.

Rabbi Bruk met with Rav Steiman around noon and presented Gurgenidze’s request. Shortly after the rosh yeshiva gave the requested blessing came the announcement of the cease-fire.

Pshhhhh. Never underestimate the power of the Gedoylim!

Earlier: The Power of a Rebbe’s Blessing — According to Dark Light

Update: This just in (via an email exchange with Shmarya) — This entire story was PROVEN false. And Ohr Somayach’s Rosh Yeshiva published this story over a month after it had already been proven false.

And by the way, NCSY is STILL sending public school teens to Ohr Somayach.

The Young Israel of Queens Valley is having Ohr Somayach’s Harediban recruiter, Rabbi Dr. Akiva “Join the Teshuvah Revolution” Tatz come by for a visit to fundraise for the Dark Light.

Do not forget the betrayals of right-wing Modern Orthodoxy in terms of casually throwing secular and liberal Jewish youth to the penguins. They know that Dark Light wants to turn Israel into a fundamentalist theocracy that reports to the Gedoylim. They know that Dark Light rejects an old earth and macro-evolutionary theory. They know that Dark Light encourages a diminished vocational trajectory.

They just don’t care, because 1) “They make the frum!” and 2) they don’t think anyone important is watching.

If someone would ask me why the mosque on the Temple Mount is problematic, I would say it is because it was surely built as an expression of supercessionism.

The problem is Islam made triumphant over Judaism. That is the issue. What doesn’t matter is that the people who built it are Arabs. That isn’t the issue.

But Rabbi Weinbach, the Rosh Yeshiva of Ohr Somayach and founder of Neve Yerushalayim, is too ignorant to perceive a difference between Islam and Arab.

“The mountain of Zion is desolate; foxes prowl over it.”

These words from the Eicha lamentations of the Prophet Yirmiyahu are said and sung in a sad tone during the current nine days of mourning the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash.

What is a more powerful reminder of that great tragedy than seeing an Arab mosque on Temple Mount!

Right. Because if it were a Somalian, Berber, or Indonesian mosque, that wouldn’t bother us a darn bit.

For a tenth man for your minyan, is it better to free a slave or build a golem?

When you are in the Dark Light, you simply ignore so much of the strange buzz flying around the edges of the superstitious and silly haredi communal mindset. Only later does it become clear that this absolute fundamentalist nonsense is coming from the top. As Shmarya likes to quote that old Yiddish saying, “The fish stinks from the head.”

Anyway, never mind what I think. Clearly the Talmud is always true and absolutely literal. Let’s take a look at this week’s Talmudic lesson from Dark Light, on the choice between getting your 10th man for a minyan from a slave you free, or through making a golem.

Rabbi Weinbach, the “dean” of Ohr Somayach, writes,

There were only nine Jews in the synagogue without a tenth man in sight to complete the minyan-quorum necessary for communal prayers. Rabbi Eliezer deemed the situation an emergency and liberated his Canaanite slave to complete the minyan.

How could he do so, asks the gemara, when it is forbidden to liberate such a slave, in accordance with the Torah command “You shall enslave them forever” (Vayikra 25:46)? The answer given in our gemara is that this ban does not apply when the slave is liberated for the sake of fulfilling a mitzvah. (In Mesechta Berachot 47b this answer is challenged on the grounds that you cannot fulfill a mitzvah through the committing of a sin, and the response is that a mitzvah of communal nature has a special status.)

The question has been raised as to why it was necessary for Rabbi Eliezer to come into conflict with the ban on liberating slaves in order to complete his minyan if he could simply have created a tenth man? The Talmudic sages certainly had the power to do so as is evident from the incident described in Mesechta Sanhedrin (65b). The Sage Rava created a man by using the mystical formula in “Sefer Hayetzira” and sent his creation to his colleague Rabbi Zeira. When the latter spoke to this creature and received no response he realized that this was a man-made man with no soul and the power of speech that goes with it. He therefore ordered it to return to its dust.

If Rabbi Eliezer preferred liberating his slave to making a man, it would seem that this is proof that a man-made man is not considered a Jew who can complete a minyan. What is interesting, however, is that the question of whether such a creature (commonly referred to as a “golem”) is eligible for inclusion in a minyan was actually dealt with some three centuries ago by Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi in his Responsa of Chacham Tzvi (93). He concludes that even though there is an argument to be made that since the creations of tzaddikim are considered as their offspring and therefore the golem should be considered a Jew, the aforementioned incident of Rabbi Zeira consigning Rava’s golem to the dust bin proves that such a creature cannot be included in a minyan. His reasoning is that Rabbi Zeira decided that the speechless creature had no value and if he was capable of completing a minyan he would not have so readily disposed of him.

Rabbi Mendel Weinbach is unreal, and so is the haredi world he recruits for. And they become so infuriated when you say they have a “medieval” mentality.

If this is “Torah true Judaism,” we don’t want any.

A Chassidic man and six other men are facing indictments for beating the shit out of a woman and threatening to kill her for refusing to move out of the community after leaving ultra-Orthodoxy, and for talking to men.

While the right-wing ultra-Orthodox ban careers and secular education, apparently, Baruch HaGedoylim, there is money to be made in brutalizing women. The ringleader of this modesty vigilante was apparently paid $2,000 for his role in this vicious beating.

What neighborhood does this modesty vigilante group feel comfortable attacking woman and threatening her to leave?

Maalot Dafna. Home of the Dark Light.

All the haredi leaders in the vicinity connected in any way to these Harediban criminals should be asked to publicly condemn the violence that took place. If they do not, all institutions they are connected to should be asked to disassociate from these rabbis. If the institutions refuse, then the yeshivas, synagogues and day schools they are connected to should be bulldozed.

Hat tip: NCG

There is something you should know about Big Kiruv, and it requires understanding an axiom of the black hatter-kiruv mindset.

The haredi believes that a secular or liberal Jew is going to hell. Perhaps of equal importance, he believes they he be greatly rewarded if he convinces someone to “become frum.”

So he will lie. Remember yesterday’s blatant lie from Big Aish? Why would they print that? Because they deem it beneficial towards cultivating baalei teshuvahs over the long haul. How does that justify lying? Because it is “pakuach nefesh” — saving a life or a soul. Just as you are allowed to save someone from the czar’s army, so too you are allowed to lie in order to get someone to wear a black hat on shabbos. And so too, places like Neve Yerushalayim and Ohr Somayach will lie to their students and to their families. So and so “just needs a few more months” in yeshiva/seminary.

Modern Orthodox Jews do not generally accept this mentality. But you should understand why Big Aish and other ultra-Orthodox kiruv-institutions are so frequently dishonest and deceptive. They believe that they are permitted to lie to you. At least, they pretend to themselves and each other that they believe that. And they are just smart enough to know that naked ultra-Orthodoxy is not an easy sell. Not at all.

If you were in their shoes, you would also be tempted to lie, deceive, and mislead. A lot. The only difference is, you might not actually do it.

A few months back, I wrote (as did others) about Robert Savit’s decision to attend Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem, noting,

Robert, beware. Ohr Somayach rejects scientific method, and Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem rejects the work ethic as well, and reports to “daas Torah” gedolim, who are quiescent fundamentalists to the core, and whom are increasingly activist.

Robert’s father, Joel Savit, has commented on The Kvetcher in defense of his son’s decision.

Mr. Joel Savit wrote,

I never even realized that this web site existed, but now that I have read some of your comments, I find I must reply. I am Robert’s father. I did not want Robert to leave for Israel, telling him he could study Torah in the U.S. instead of so far away.

I knew I would miss him dearly and I do. The only “motive” which Robert has is to be the best Jew he can be. For him that means studying in the Holy Land where he feels a greater connection with Hashem.

Robert has no agenda other than to learn as much as possible in the city of our Lord and if that is somehow evil or irritating to those who are criticizing him, I pray for you.

He has chosen his path based upon his feelings and heart and for that I applaud and congratulate him.

Just so you are aware, I attend a Conservative Shul and certainly had nothing to do with Rob’s decision to be closer to God. If that is wrong then this world is in trouble.

It should be noted that even though the Ten Commandments dictate that you respect and obey your parents, there is one time that this Commandment does not apply, and that is if your parents demand that you not study Torah. For that is the most important mitzvah of all. Robert has chosen that course and it makes me shed tears of happiness for him, knowing how his love of Judaism has led him to the Holy Land.