Author Archives: Rabbi

The “-Ism” Prism

Posted on December 17, 2015 | 5 comments

Chanuka is the festival of lights, so it is both natural and paradoxical that the mitzvah of lighting Chanuka candles must ideally take place in the darkness. The lights of Chanuka come to dispel the darkness. But consider the association of Chanuka with darkness; so much of Chanuka revolves around darkness. The Midrash expounds the second verse in the Torah as referring to the four exiles that Jews will endure in our history, the third being the Greek-Syrian exile that ended with the triumph of Chanuka. “And ‘darkness’ – that is the Greek exile that darkened the eyes of Israel with its harsh decrees” (Breisheet Raba 2:4). And the very form of the mitzvah of Chanuka emphasizes the darkness. When do we light? The Talmud (Masechet Shabbat 21b) states “from the time the sun sets until pedestrian traffic ceases in the market,” further defined “until the Tarmodeans, wood sellers, are no longer walking in public.”

And where do light? Again, from the Talmud, “the mitzvah of the Chanuka candles is to place them out the entrance of one’s home, outside,” where it is dark, facing the public domain. The common custom of lighting inside is a compromise born of misfortune – “in times of danger it suffices to light inside on one’s table.”

Why then is Chanuka a commandment that is celebrated in the dark?

Five times in the last six weeks – and I wasn’t looking for it – I have come across similar statements made by five different individuals, I assume without coordination, all in the nature of: “if Orthodoxy and feminism are incompatible,” or “if Orthodoxy and egalitarianism are incompatible,” then I want nothing to do with Orthodoxy. Or, as one put it, “until I became a feminist, I had no idea that the Torah was so anti-woman.” Or, if the halacha is not changed, and the Mesorah is not flexible enough to accommodate my desires, then I am out. At a certain point I realized – again – how history and especially Jewish history repeats itself, and how time and again Jews lose their way and willfully self-destruct.

We have had many “–isms” threaten our faith over the centuries, beginning with Hellenism in the Chanuka story that swept away most Jews from observance of Torah. There have been other “–isms” even more recently – Socialism, Communism, Zionism, Objectivism, Feminism, Egalitarianism, etc. All have several things in common. They each presented singular overarching theories that to believers will solve all problems that they wish to see solved. And they all have been designated by their Jewish adherents as the “ikkar,” the essence, with the Torah relegated to something “tafel,” secondary. The “–isms” were so intellectually and psychologically dominant that they became (or become) the standard by which Torah is to be judged. And here is the basic rule of Jewish history: whenever the “–isms” became the lodestar, the touchstone, the benchmark by which all else – including the Torah – is measured, Jews were lost to Torah, by the thousands and tens of thousands. It is as if the believers concluded: If the Torah, a mitzvah, a minhag, a Jewish value, or a Jewish idea does not accord with one of the “-isms,” then they must be rejected, for G-d surely did not intend that, if there even is a G-d.

Even worse, the “-isms” became objects of worship, veneration and adoration, even more than the Torah. I once encountered a young person who had rejected the mitzvot and become an objectivist, a follower of the philosopher Ayn Rand who was Jewish herself but non-practicing. Nothing I said could persuade him; some of her ideas made sense, and some were preposterous, but this young person was unmoved, even when I asked if my interlocutor realized that a choice between the Torah of the living G-d and…. Ayn Rand is really no choice at all! There is nothing to compare! No matter. Rand it was. Whatever becomes the measure of all things – and is not Torah – is a ticket on the slow train to one’s spiritual doom.

And of course, none of the “–isms” are completely negative, otherwise they would not attract thinking Jews. In fact, the opposite is true. Each “-ism” had or has many fine features. Our Sages (Masechet Megila 9b) spoke glowingly of Hellenism: “’Let G-d expand the boundaries of Yefet, and may it dwell in the tents of Shem’- may the beauty of Yefet reside in the tents of Shem,” son of Noach and ancestor of Abraham. There is beauty, harmony, and even nobility in Greek culture, properly indulged and characterized. It can find its place even in the tents of Shem. For a time, our Sages even permitted the Torah to be written in Greek and read in public – the only language afforded such a privilege.

Is there not the kernel of a good idea in Socialism – the democratic control over the means of production? It might not be my cup of tea, but it sounds fair. Only a Jew could have thought of Communism – an end to private ownership, the epitome of the egalitarian society. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Sounds great in theory! Ayn Rand – self-help, self-sufficiency, individual rights, capitalism – wonderful. But it’s not Torah, so it’s flawed. All these doctrines were flawed in theory and practice, but it is not as if there is nothing attractive in them.

And the “-isms” also have in common that each ideology snatched pious Jews away from their faith – beginning with Hellenism (as history records: most Jews became Hellenists – that’s why the Maccabees were a minority in their own land among their own people) to all the modern movements. Socialism, Zionism, and Communism made inroads in every yeshiva in Europe. There were frum Jews – ordained rabbis from the finest yeshivot in Europe – who became staunch Communists and by the time they realized what Communism had in store for Jews, it was too late. There were distinguished, pious Jews who became revolutionaries – for socialism, Communism, against the Czar and others – and relinquished the Torah life as well. All these ideologies, in vastly different ways, were immensely seductive. The temptation to change the world, join the avant garde, and be part of mass international movements was extremely appealing.

Zionism is different in that the core of Zionism always was a Torah concept – the Return to Zion as promised by the Torah and our prophets. But there were many people who threw away Torah for secular Zionism – saying, in effect, “the mitzvot are only necessary for the exile!” – itself an incorrect paraphrase of a point made by the Ramban (Devarim 11:8). Zionist leaders such as Weizmann, Eshkol and too many others all attended Yeshiva in their youth, and gave it up religious observance. They didn’t have to abandon the Torah life; Religious Zionism has demonstrated how one can be an observant Jew and a Zionist. But abandon Torah they did in order to create the “new Jew” who became remarkably like the old Jew who abandoned Torah for other “-isms.” Likewise, there are people who still grievously distort the Torah for anti-Zionism, which is also just another “–ism.”

I fear that the same thing is happening with feminism and egalitarianism. They are also just “-isms,” and each of them also contain some good – equality, fairness, sensitivity, an end to abuse, increased opportunities, etc. But each of them also contains ideas and practices that contradict the Torah as well, and therein lies the danger. The fundamental departure from Torah that characterizes these two “-isms” is the assertion that males and females are the same and therefore men and women are “equal.” Men and women are no more equal than an apple and a tomato can be said to be equal. They have some things in common, some things in which they are distinguished, and different roles (even different brachot). To build an ideology on that proposition is essentially to repeal parts of the Torah, nature and common sense.

Whenever something is designated as a counterforce to Torah, is deemed to be an idea or value that supersedes or transcends Torah, or is perceived as the barometer by which the Torah is to be measured – then you know you are on the wrong track. Whenever any “–ism” comes forward and says, “worship me, the Torah must obey me,” and induces one into thinking that if the Torah cannot be harmonized with the “-ism” then the Torah is flawed, know that you are on the wrong track. Then the person has to have the inner strength and fortitude to say “I may be a Hellenist, Socialist, Zionist, Feminist, Egalitarian, etc. but ‘ahd cahn.’ Only up to here. I can go no further without abandoning what is most precious to me, the Torah and its mitzvot.”

Shlomo, in his wisdom, summarized our obligations: “fear G-d and keep His commandments, for that is man in his entirety” (Kohelet 12:13). Any ideology that takes us away from Mitzvot – intentionally or unintentionally, permanently or temporarily – is flawed, invalid, and unworthy of a Jew. Those who believe in G-d and His Torah must internalize that our lives will not be measured based on how good Hellenists we were, or Socialists, or Communists, or Feminists or followers of Ayn Rand – but how good and faithful Jews we are. We delude ourselves at our peril into thinking we can have it all and embrace it all and harmonize it all. We can’t. The “-isms” of history swept away countless numbers of Jews; the modern ones still do.

The purpose of Chanuka is to illuminate the darkness outside, not to bring the darkness of the outside into our homes. The previous Lubavitcher Rebbe said the Mitzva of Ner Chanuka was so formulated – light candles in the place of darkness at the time of darkness – “so that we should bring our light into a darkened world,” until the Tarmodeans – i.e., the mordim, the rebels and revolutionaries, can no longer stand in the public domain.

In times of danger, when the outside world beckons with its temptations and heresies, entices us to look at the world through the prism of an “-ism” and not through the Torah and our Mesorah, and tries to cajole us into making additions, subtractions and amendments to the Torah, then we have to ensure that our homes, our places of holiness, remain pure, and the jug of oil in our hearts is unsullied by alien ideas. We may not be able then to enlighten the world but we can keep our homes and families spiritually safe and secure.

Only then we will again be imbued with G-d’s spirit and worthy of having His presence dwell among us. Only then can we anticipate His protective hand that will shield us from the turmoil and struggles ahead, as He did to our forefathers (and foremothers) in those days in this season.

5 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Holidays, Israel, Machshava/Jewish Thought

The Seam

Posted on December 11, 2015 | 14 comments

Generally, there are two types of pass defense coverage used in football (read on; this is not about sports). The more common one was man-to-man coverage in which each defender is assigned to a particular offensive player. Over the years, defenses have often shifted into zone coverage, in which defenders are assigned to a specific territory on the field (of course, unknown in advance to the offensive team). In the latter circumstance, the task of the quarterback is to beat the zone by exploiting the “seam” – those areas on the fringes of the coverage, usually between two defenders.

Muslim terrorists have become masters at exploiting the “seam” in the culture, legal system and values of the Western world, and certainly in the United States and Israel. They know how to exploit the immigration system in order to gain entry to their target countries, and they know how to manipulate the social system to receive government benefits as they settle in and plan their attacks. This has become an especially acute problem in Europe. They know exactly how to take advantage of the constitutional protections that are guaranteed to honest and decent citizens to enhance their lives, and they utilize those protections in order to preserve their interests, conceal their plans and execute their terror. This has become an increasingly grave problem in the United States.

They know when to claim the First Amendment privileges of the free exercise of religion to inhibit surveillance of their mosques that preach radical Islam and call for jihad against the infidel, when to assert the freedom of speech to defend their calls for the imposition of Sharia law and the dissemination of the most extreme interpretations of the Koran, and they know when to complain about intrusions on the freedom of association. They know, quite well, how to conceal their communications, and how the American value of individual privacy – taken to an extreme – facilitates their capacity to commit acts of terror. They know how to exploit the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, and how the Fifth Amendment affords them the right against self-incrimination.

Those who are citizens enjoy an abundance of rights that make early detection of their nefarious schemes very difficult and make pre-emption and effective prosecution almost impossible – even as the sophistication and dedication of law enforcement makes their eventual capture almost a certainty. Israel struggles with this as well; the tools at their disposal to deal with Arabs who are Israeli citizens are much more limited than the tools they can deploy against Arabs who are not citizens.

And here’s the largest “seam” – the opening in the defense coverage that is the easiest to abuse: the recognition that most Americans, and especially the elitist establishment, would rather protect the core values, rights and privileges for all – including terrorists – even if it comes at the expense of innocent Americans, murdered by radical Islamic terrorists. It is easier – and somehow more comforting, I suppose – to mourn, grieve, light candles, pray for the souls of the victims and an end to evil than it is to amend the Constitution, certainly, but even to restrict somewhat the rights of non-citizens. Maintaining those values provides a reassuring sense that the world as we know it can endure, even if that becomes less and less likely. When Obama says that we can fight the war on terror while maintaining our values – and when that sentiment is echoed by his usual liberal acolytes including Jewish groups – he is partly correct but misses the larger point: some things have to change because the constitutional protections afforded our enemies have given them the upper hand. Only the blindest followers of Obama believe that San Bernardino will be the last of the attacks on innocent Americans.

So, too, Israeli leaders often mouth the same platitudes, even if they have fewer restrictions on government conduct, but rather than take the strong action that can change the dynamic and successfully prosecute to victory a war on Arab terror, it is content to indulge 2-4 terrorist attacks per

day on its civilian population. That is not to say the government wants it to happen; it is just that the costs of waging such a campaign currently exceed the benefits of waging it.

All of which leads to the Donald Trump phenomenon, even if we can concede that the attacks on him and his plans (and I have my own) serve the political establishment’s need to divert attention from its failure to stem the growth of radical Islamic terror and just change the subject to something it finds, together with the media, much more pleasing: screaming at someone and creating a different bogeyman instead of the obvious one. It is easier to have a public enemy to revile and hate than it is to have to deal with a public enemy that lurks in the shadows and could be your next door neighbor.

Hence the predictable objections to Trump’s plan – if you can call it that – to bar all Muslim non-citizens from the US until the political class “can figure out what’s going on.” True to form, Trump’s plan is brazen, bombastic, lacking in any detail and completely unfeasible. Would he ban IDF Bedouin soldiers from visiting America, for example? How would customs officials ascertain who is a Muslim – ask each person?? (Would they tell the truth?) Does the United States wish to ban visits by Filipino Muslim tourists? Obviously, he doesn’t really mean all Muslims, but there is a segment in the society of the simple that persists in interpreting generalizations as if they were categorical and universal principles. If you haven’t yet noticed, Trump can be a little, say, imprecise, when he talks.

On the other hand, Trump’s plan is unassailable when the M&M Test that someone recently suggested is applied: If you have 100 M&M’s in a bowl, and two (or ten) are poison, would you eat M&M’s from that bowl? I assume most people would not take the risk. In other words, however this matter is approached, and notwithstanding all the sanctimony, phony piety and promises of stringent vetting, isn’t it likely that some – 1%, 10% or some other percentage of new arrivals on these shores – will be radical Muslims dispatched by ISIS to murder innocent people? Of course, especially since that is ISIS’s stated intention. We should at least be willing to concede that even if some Americans would prefer to enact Draconian measures to preclude that eventuality, most do not, and there will be a price paid for that in the real world, not the fantasy world in which blame for the future terror will be ascribed to gun control, climate change, Republicans or something else.

The Trump card has an Israeli parallel as well – the popular slogan “Ain Aravim, Ain pigu’im” (No Arabs, No Terror) – an equation that is true per se but also unworkable and unsustainable. For every person in Israel who would want such a program implemented, there are probably 10-15 who do not, and that is also a conscious choice made by the citizenry.

To propose policies that sound great but have no realistic chance of implementation (“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” or “health care for all that will bring down costs and improve quality”) is sheer demagoguery and many politicians do it. The response to Trump has also been demagogic, and primarily an effort not to encase the responders in the sugary goo of faux morality but to deflect attention from their own failures. To date, the response to the most recent act of radical Islamic terror has been Congressional legislation, enacted on a bi-partisan basis to great fanfare, to tighten a visa waiver program that would have done absolutely nothing to prevent the San Bernardino terrorist attack.

Add to that the claim by several talking heads that a ban on immigration for a certain religion is unconstitutional. Such a claim – “the Constitution bans religious tests!” – is laughable on its face. The Constitution, in Article VI, paragraph 3, states that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,” i.e., there can be no religious test mandated to qualify to held federal elective office. What does that have to do with immigration? Nothing! But don’t spoil the fun for the demagogues on the left. Certainly, at least, restrictions on immigration from certain countries would seem to be common sense.

Demagogues know well how to exploit people’s fears, insecurities and general ignorance. In the United States in recent times, it has been critical to winning elections. Trump’s popularity such as it is (bear in mind that 70% of the Republican electorate does not want him as nominee, according to the ubiquitous polls) owes to his status as the anti-politician, the one whose every word is not poll-tested or focus-grouped in advanced. He sounds real, like a human being with emotions if not always the clearest thoughts. Many modern politicians (Hillary Clinton is at the top of that list) come across as plastic, artificial, scripted and, frankly, utterly boring. Personally, I don’t think that Trump has a chance at becoming the Republican nominee, much less the next president, but I never thought Obama could win one, much less two, elections. All the shibboleths of American politics have been refuted – if the economy is this, if terror is that, if you can’t win Ohio, etc. All these mean nothing because the electorate is so volatile, and relatively few people actually vote.

What I do know is the “seam” of freedom that Muslim terrorists exploit will exacerbate the decline of Western society unless it is reversed. One American value – the reluctance to single out a group or religion by name – has led to the Obama and liberal media tap dance that shuns the use of accurate labels in favor of euphemisms and dissembling. That includes the height of absurdity: calling radical Somali Muslim terrorists living in Minnesota “Minnesotans,” as in “Three Minnesotans Arrested for Terror Plot.” Hey – the problem is not Minnesota, the land of the nice, but people who have come from abroad to take advantage of Minnesota Nice to wreak havoc on America.

Justice Robert Jackson, famed Nuremberg prosecutor, once wrote that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” In times of war and danger, there have always been provisions that have been suspended temporarily with the recognition that society would revert to the norms once the dangers passed. The backlash against Trump would seem to indicate that America wishes to gamble the security of its citizenry in order to retain the unity of the Constitution, while the backlash against the backlash means that not everyone is as keen on that compromise as the elites feel the rest of the nation should be.

In the meantime, Trump’s unrealistic suggestions are a diversion from the sad reality that the US has already been infiltrated by radical Muslims, America’s borders remain porous and accessible to all intruders, the seam is still exploited by Muslims who are quick to claim victimhood whenever Muslims attack the innocent and the government hasn’t a coherent plan or even a clue how to avert the next incident, except reliance on luck or Providence.

Good luck with that, G-d bless, and Happy Chanukah.

14 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

“The Eye Sees, The Ear Hears” (Avot 2:1)

Posted on December 3, 2015 | 7 comments

A few years ago, one of my congregants told me the following story: while in a supermarket she overheard an exchange between a non-Jewish mother and child. The mother had apparently caught the child attempting to shoplift a candy bar. She slapped the child’s hand and admonished him severely: “We do not steal!” My congregant anticipated that this moment would be seized by the mother as a wonderful opportunity to broach with her young child the concept of values, morality, and decency. The mother, however, explained to her child: “We do not steal! Don’t you see there are cameras all around the store? If you steal, you will get caught and go to jail. Is that what you want?”

Chalk that up as a missed opportunity. But is this very approach not uncommon in our community, as well? How often do we communicate that the real crime is not the illicit behavior, but rather getting caught (or worse: the real crime is getting caught and implicating others in order to receive more lenient treatment)?

What the mother neglected to convey was any sense of a higher morality. And what is too often missing from our world is the reality that G-d is watching – that there really is a Master of the Universe who dictated His morality to us, that our personal perfection is measured by our ethical attainments in relation to our fellow man, and that there is reward and punishment for same.

Have we become too “sophisticated” to think in those terms? Is the awareness that “Hashem is here, Hashem is there, Hashem is truly everywhere” relegated only to songs for children? We might struggle to sense G-d’s presence during tefila, and occasionally succeed, but too often we have left any consciousness of G-d in shul or the Bet Midrash, and His reality is missing from our workplaces and in our dealings with money. Perhaps we were better off when we were less sophisticated, and just lived with emunah peshutah.

An elderly Chafetz Chaim is reported to have been sitting apprehensively, even tormented, and when questioned he explained that he was worried about his final judgment. He noted that having published and sold many books in his lifetime, perhaps he was culpable for mistakes that he or the proofreader had not caught. Or that the binding on some of the volumes was inferior. “And in Heaven I will be asked how this can possibly be justified. Those book sales were a mikach ta’ut, and I will owe money to people whom I cannot repay. Surely I must recognize that these concerns are not simply scholarly musings about civil law and liabilities, but whether I will have to walk through the fires of Gehinnom because I stole money from another person” (Kovetz Maamarim, Rav Elchanan Wasserman, Volume 2, page 76).

It is helpful, although not essential, to anticipate our eventual punishment for sin in such a graphic way. But even short of that, it suffices to recognize the grave harm caused to our quest for moral perfection by our indifference to theft or our lust for other people’s property. For many people, challenges to their integrity would be rectified upon internalizing “I have set G-d before me always” (Tehillim 16:8) and the application of that formula to our daily lives. One who is constantly aware of G-d’s presence cannot sin. Utilizing tefilla as a vehicle to reconnect with G-d and His moral code – especially Mincha, in the middle of the work day – instead of just perceiving the act of prayer as the fulfillment of an obligation – a verbal quota that must be satisfied daily – could help in this regard. A “shiviti” sign on one’s desk or the study of Torah during breaks might serve as a similar reminders. In Rav Soloveitchik’s formulation, one reciting vidui should pound his chest at “lefanecha,” “for the sin committed before You,” because every sin is a denial that we are in G-d’s presence. That distance from G-d –the chasm brought about through fraudulent conduct – is another form of Gehinnom and can induce even more misbehavior.

“A person is recognized through three things: his cup, his pocket, and his anger”(Eruvin 65b). That is to say, one’s true character emerges firstly when he is under the influence of alcohol, thirdly when his emotions are running wild – and secondly when he is doing business with other people, and whether or not he deals honestly with them. We need to realize that how we treat money, people, businesses, partners, clients, government, investors, employers and employees is also part of our divine service, and perhaps even the defining element of our divine service.

As noted, none of these issues are new to Jewish life. The Talmud teaches that “most people are guilty of theft, a minority is guilty of sexual sins, and everyone succumbs to some form of evil talk” (Bava Batra 165a). Rav Yisrael Salanter perceived in the juxtaposition of the first two transgressions the necessity for similar safeguards. “Just like it is forbidden to seclude oneself with another man’s wife because of a fear of sin, so too it is forbidden to seclude oneself with another man’s money for fear of theft; in fact, it is an even more stringent requirement, as few surrender to sexual immorality but most people are guilty of theft” (Cited in Tenuat Hamussar (Rav Dov Katz), Volume 1, Page 358).

Apparently, Chazal recognized that the temptation to take liberties with someone else’s money – by stealing, cheating, cutting corners, employing shtick and the like – is too great to resist. It is a failing to which the “majority” succumb. That, of course, is meant as a challenge to us and not a rationalization.

If it sounds like the Jewish people could use a renaissance of the Mussar movement (such as the one pioneered by Rav Salanter) in terms of recognizing our obligations in G-d’s world towards Him and towards each other, and in terms of making the reality of G-d a tangible presence in every aspect of our lives – so be it. It is long overdue. Yeshivot must be especially sensitive to teaching Seder Nezikin or Choshen Mishpat and leaving the impression that neither is applicable to modern life but represents an idyllic vision of conduct best suited to angels. Rabbis in shuls should make pursuit of integrity a consistent theme in their drashot and shiurim, and as something realistic and expected and not merely aspirational or the realm of tzadikim. That can only be done by the study of the great mussar works – Chovot Halevavot, Mesilat Yesharim, Orchot Tzadikim, etc.. And something else.

We need to stigmatize criminal or unethical conduct. The offender should feel the disdain of the community, much like the spouse or child abuser is (or should be) scorned. Granted, it is not always simple in practice, as often the spouse and children of the offender are innocent and need public support. But they can be supported financially and/or emotionally without needing to wear ethical blinders or minimizing the gravity of the offense. Ethical lapses that presage a criminal bent – e.g., not paying employees on time – should be pointed out to the offender in a direct way with the expectation that the matter be rectified immediately.

Part of the reason why unethical conduct has not been stigmatized is the execrable correlation in Jewish life of money and honor. Money plays too dominant a role in Jewish life, and gives too much standing to those who donate it. As organizations depend on money as their lifeblood, and as organizations proliferate in Jewish life, more and more attention is paid to who gives and how much, and there is less and less interest in the provenance of that money. We need to end the kesef=kavod equation, even if that is easier said than done. Honor should be bestowed on people who exemplify good values, and not those who merely possess large portfolios.

Additionally, the undue emphasis on results and status rather than process unwittingly (or wittingly?) leads teenagers to conclude that their parents would rather have them cheat their way into the Ivy League than succeed on their own in some lesser academic clime. Parents should impart to children that virtue matters more to them than scholastic or material success. On the other side of the spectrum, parents do a disservice when they choose an educational protocol for their children that leaves them incapable of earning a decent, honest living. Worse, they fulfill the Talmudic injunction: “whoever does not teach his child a profession (or trade) teaches him thievery” (Masechet Kiddushin 29a).

It is simply mindboggling that in part of our world that boasts of its meticulous fidelity to the Torah this mandate is routinely and widely ignored. Parents who do not provide their children with the education or skills needed to support themselves have failed in one of the most essential aspects of parenting.

Modern life has also presented an especially critical dilemma that undoubtedly plays a significant role in much of the low-level deception that occurs in Jewish life. Cheating on taxes is rampant in American life in all sectors of society, attributable to simple greed, discontent with government, and even occasionally the arcana or unfairness of the tax laws. The acquisition of money as a desideratum in its own right, together with the power and prestige that riches often bring to the holder, leads even extraordinarily wealthy people to connive for even more. But in our world, the cost of living a Jewish life is obscenely expensive and also plays a role in inducing moral mischief. We are simply living beyond our means and beyond normalcy. There are families with children in yeshiva elementary and high schools that are paying over six figures in tuition. Few can sustain that. Conversely, those elements of Jewish life that are perceived as “necessities” (clearly, some are but many aren’t) – yeshiva tuition, summer camp, Pesach in a hotel, Yom Tov expenses, clothing, vacations, residence in communities with a crushing real property tax burden, the need to maintain appearances among one’s friends, neighbors and peers, et al – all place tremendous pressure on the bread-winner. In fact, to maintain our lifestyle, being a bread-winner is not enough; one has to own a successful chain of bakeries.

That pressure often eventuates in the corner-cutting that usually heralds some ethical lapse. And so we need to reduce our material footprint in the world. Rav Shlomo Efraim Lunschitz, the Kli Yakar (Devarim 2:3), famously lambasted his generation (16^th-17^th century Prague) for their materialistic excesses that contributed nothing to their spiritual lives and aroused the jealousy of the non-Jewish world. “Vihamaskilim yavinu likach mussar,” and the intelligent will draw the appropriate lessons from it. Much unethical conduct is prompted by the need to sustain fancy houses, cars, clothing, and vacations – and the image that is engendered by it –with a percentage sliced off for tzedaka as a salve for the conscience and to further bolster that image.

Finally, and this pains me to write, I have heard too often from people that “we are entitled” because of the historical injustices inflicted on the Jewish people. The entitlement mentality currently entices most Americans (there is even a faux legal defense for misconduct termed “affluenza,” a condition which allegedly induces the wealthy and especially their children into risky, self-indulgent and criminal behavior), but has an especially pernicious manifestation for Jews. The argument goes something like this: “They murdered us and plundered our assets during the Holocaust, the Communists cheated, robbed, persecuted and enslaved us. We are entitled. It is payback time.” In other words – if I understand the argument correctly – the historical injustice of the maltreatment of innocent European Jews by Christians and Communists can be (partially) rectified by the deceptions practiced on innocent Americans by American Jews. The argument is rooted in the considerations that all governments are the same, that the Czar is the Kaiser is the President, that autocratic monarchies are the same as constitutional republics, and – most pertinent – that there is no Torah that governs Jewish conduct. As such, the argument is a moral travesty, notwithstanding that it serves, for some, as a rationalization for misbehavior vis-à-vis one’s obligations towards the general society.

“Every talmid chacham (scholar, and for these purposes it has been observed, all religious Jews qualify as “scholars”) whose inside is not as his outside is not a true scholar… He is even called abominable” (Yoma 72b). Piety cannot be measured in the spheres of public worship or private scholarship while morality in private or money matters is deficient. As the Gemara there continues, it bespeaks a lack of reverence of Heaven, an utter disregard of G-d. “Woe to the … Torah scholars who are engaged in Torah study but have no awe of Heaven…Alas for the one who does not own a courtyard (i.e., has no fear of Heaven) but makes a gate for the courtyard (i.e., Torah study).” For some, the Torah is the elixir of life; for others, it is the drug of death, because its study can cause one to have an inflated sense of self, promote the haughtiness that the rules don’t all apply to him because he has made a unique arrangement with the Creator, and thereby deaden the ethical impulses that Torah study usually animates. Such is the inevitable result of Torah study (and observance of Mitzvot) without Yir’at Shamayim.

The entire Torah system is the vehicle that G-d gave us to perfect our souls and to have us gain eternal life. Money, of all things, can never be allowed to become an impediment to those goals. To avert that personal catastrophe, we must re-stigmatize criminality, take forceful measures to avoid temptation, learn mussar, moderate our materialistic pursuits, decentralize the role of money in Jewish life, shatter the kesef=kavod equation, teach our children that ethical greatness is the accomplishment we most value, eschew the historical rationalizations for misbehavior, and, above all, cultivate a pervasive sense that G-d is watching us. Because He is.

That closeness to G-d will then be the defining element of our Avodat Hashem in all its diverse contexts and foster our natural inclinations for righteousness. And we will yet merit that “the remnant of Israel will not act corruptly nor speak any falsehood…and I will make you into a good name and for praise among all the peoples of the earth” (Tzefania 3:13, 20).

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought, Philosophy, Tefillah

The Jayvee Team

Posted on November 26, 2015 | 11 comments

By now, it should be obvious that the real Junior Varsity team is not ISIS but instead occupies prime real estate in the White House. It is Obama and company who have been outsmarted, outmaneuvered and (willingly) been rendered irrelevant by Islamic terrorists across the globe when they otherwise haven’t been aiding and abetting Islamic terror, as in Iran. It has been more than a century since the United States has been perceived as so feckless and useless on the world stage, its leaders specializing in increasingly vacuous speeches that portray an alternate reality to the murder and mayhem that is sweeping the planet.

Nothing more typifies that alternate reality than memories of the Nobel Peace Prize bizarrely awarded Obama in 2009 for reasons yet unknown and in retrospect are quite risible. Can one recollect a winner of the Peace Prize who then presided over so much war, destruction, loss of innocent life, proliferation of evil and triumph of evildoers? Perhaps the Peace Price awarded in 1973 to Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho for the Paris Peace Accords, for their role in “Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam.” At least then something had been negotiated – and at least Le Duc Tho had the integrity to refuse the award, perhaps anticipating that 18 months thereafter, South Vietnam would be defeated and would cease to exist.

The Jayvee team in the White House has made the world a much more dangerous place, with radical Islamic terror spreading and with a complete inability and unwillingness on Obama’s part to even name the enemy, much less confront it (and this does not refer to climate change). Perhaps he would be wise to take to heart this news report that depicts the future of Belgium, Europe and is soon coming to a theater near us.

Frankly, there is an abundance of amateurish leadership around the globe, and Israel is no exception. Make no mistake: the Jewish victims of Arab terror in Israel are clear and bloody signs of Netanyahu’s failed leadership. Every day – every day – there are stabbings and shootings, dead and wounded, and every day there are powerful, evocative, emotional and heartfelt speeches about what will be done, speeches that invoke the strength and resilience of the Israeli people and their steadfastness in the face of the terror onslaught.

But speeches which praise the Israeli people’s vigilance and call on them to protect themselves against the guns and knives of the Arab enemy underscore the abject failure of this Israeli government in the primary function of government: to protect their citizens from harm. Everyone knows there are measures that can be taken that keep hostile Arabs away from their favorite crime scenes, and everyone knows that there are measures that can be employed to deter these wanton attacks on Jews. Everyone knows what they are and most – except for the loony left – would recognize and support these wartime measures as prudent and necessary.

Pre-emption is insufficient when the attacks require nothing more than a child with a knife or an adult with a gun or a car. That the effective deterrence is not undertaken leads to the inevitable conclusion that – as happens too often – too many official Jews are comfortable being in the position of victims than they are doing the difficult and sometimes nasty work of defeating the enemy. Israel suffers, like the rest of the world, in not having real, transformative leadership – individuals who wish to change a bad dynamic by being proactive and prescient. PM Netanyahu – who, we are told, naturally deserves support at this critical time, to rally around the flag, etc. – has benefited from that pattern. He is a classic run-out-the-clock politician, keeping the seat warm while ensuring that no one else – whom

he considers worse than and therefore unfit to lead – takes the position from him.

He might be right about that (he also might be wrong) but one cannot recall a single measure that he has utilized that has dramatically changed anything in Israel’s favor since he has been prime minister for almost seven years. Everything is defensive, everything is always on hold (including building in Judea and Samaria), everything is designed to ensure the survivability of his coalition just a little longer. Everything is designed to just kick the can down the road a little further. There is no long range plan, just the short-term attrition of Jewish life – more dead, more wounded, more terrorized, more empty streets and stores and the eager expectation of the next eloquent speech.

We have grown accustomed to the pervasive Western reluctance, and perhaps fear, of naming the enemy we are facing. Obama and his acolytes are masters at this obfuscation, labeling the enemy “violent extremism,” which might be a tactic of the enemy but is assuredly not the enemy itself. (Proof? I tried to research this “enemy” on Wikipedia, source of all modern knowledge. Strangely, it has no entry for “violent extremism.” So how is one supposed to fight an enemy that hasn’t even been identified on Wikipedia??)

Just like Obama is nebulous and euphemistic when it comes to identifying the enemy of civilization, PM Netanyahu also falls back on euphemisms and clichés. By every reasonable account, by his statements and his actions, Mahmoud Abbas is an enemy of Israel and a fomenter of terror against Jews. But Israel’s prime minister will never use that language, as it serves his purposes to prop up that preposterous evildoer. That may serve Netanyahu’s purposes, but it doesn’t serve Israel’s purposes.

Henry David Thoreau said very insightfully (quote found at www.thelandofisrael.com, a wonderful website) that “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” The world today is hacking at the branches of evil – focusing on capturing this terrorist or thwarting that act of terrorism – but studiously ignoring the root that continues to grow and spread and dominate.

The fear of giving evil its name did reach its farcical limits Monday night before the NFL football game. Robert Kraft, Patriots owner and proud supporter of Israel, was asked and agreed to have a moment of silence before the game in memory of young Ezra Schwartz Hy”d, the American yeshiva student gunned down in cold blood by an Arab terrorist last week at the Gush Etzion junction. And the moment of silence took place on national television.

It left me – forgive the Patriot pun – somewhat deflated. There was no mention that Ezra was Jewish, that he was murdered in Israel, or that he was murdered by Muslim-Arab terrorists. None of that. He was killed, like too many others, by terrorists, while “studying abroad,” the announcer said. The average American viewer must have thought he was murdered in Paris, or Mali, or some other place on the globe where last week Muslims killed innocent people.

Does it matter? Of course it matters. Netanyahu’s effort to link terror against Israelis to terror against Frenchmen and others has failed. The world doesn’t buy it, Obama/Kerry don’t buy it – not because it isn’t true but because they have convinced themselves, and Israel has failed to refute it well enough, that terror against Israel is justified – because of whatever – occupation, settlements, Temple Mount, Israel’s existence, etc. Terror in Paris, Mali, London, Madrid, New York and anywhere else is the unnamed evil against the purely innocent. In Israel, they would claim, both sides are wrong and engender not the murder of innocents but a “cycle of violence.”

It would have sent a powerful statement to announce the moment of silence “in memory of Ezra Schwartz who was murdered by Arab terrorists al Kiddush Hashem, Ha’am, v’ha’aretz,” but that would never happen. But why could it not be mentioned that he was murdered in Israel? This is where trepidation mixed with political correctness renders good people incapable of confronting Islamic terror.

I can almost hear the discussions in Patriot land, from the lawyers and the PR people: “You can’t mention Muslims or Arabs for obvious reasons. You can’t mention that the victim was Jewish – too parochial. You can’t mention that the murder happened in Israel, because Gush Etzion is in disputed territory and the world doesn’t recognize it as Israel. You can’t say it happened in Palestine because…well, there is no such thing as Palestine and that would anyway tick off most Jews. So we will just say he died in a terrorist attack ‘abroad.’ ‘Abroad’ covers it. The Jews will be happy because they will read into it what they wish, and few else will know what the announcer is talking about, except that we are all against terror especially if we keep the source of terror conveniently amorphous.”

I assume that Kraft’s heart was in the right place and his intentions were noble, and suppose that even mentioning the word “terrorism” was the great breakthrough; nor should Kraft himself be criticized at all for the bland execution. This is the world we live in, with even accurate sentiments diluted and sifted to eliminate the slightest offense to even the most evil of human beings. This is the world that is the legacy of the Jayvee team in the White House that flies around the globe dispensing empty rhetoric, promoting a retreat from leadership, an acquiescence to terror, hollow displays of force and exhibiting sheer petulance when challenged. Perhaps in the rhetoric vs. action department, Obama and Netanyahu despise each other so much because they are so similar. Good people deserve better.

Meanwhile, the good people await today’s body count, and tomorrow’s, r”l.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel