Break up or die!

Some time ago, Abandoning Eden wrote the following story on her blog. (Abandoning Eden is an ex-religious woman who at the time of writing this letter was engaged to B, a non-Jewish man.

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I just got a call from my brother E, who is in Israel. This is the first time in his life he has ever called me. And he called from Israel.

What was so important you may ask? That was my question too...was something on his mind? Why was he calling me for the first time from a different country? (and he's coming back next week, it's not like he's going to be there all year).

He started going on about how he went to a lecture with a very important rabbi, and was talking to the rabbi afterwards about me. And the rabbi said something that he had to tell me, and he didn't want to tell me, cause he thought it would make me very mad, etc. etc.

Of course I thought that the Rabbi had told him that he couldn't ever talk to me again. So I get all nervous as I hate confrontation.

Then more preamble: He wants to tell me this thing the rabbi said, but I have to agree to listen to all of it first and try not to get mad. He wants to tell me 2 things first: 1. My parents did not put him up to this, and he never talked to them about me at all and 2. That he didn't want to make me mad, but he felt that he had to tell me this, even though he didn't want to.

And what did this Rabbi say that was so important my little brother called me for the first time ever, from a different country?

The Rabbi said that one of three things will happen with me and B. Either B will fully convert to Judiasm, or we will break up, or B will die within a year.

Let me repeat that. A big fancy Rabbi in Israel told my little brother that unless his big sister's fiance converts or breaks up with his sister, his sister's fiance will die within a year.

I shit you not.

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Follow-up: It's been over a year since that phone call. B hasn't converted, they're happily married and no one's died. What a surprise!

These Are Torah Values?

Harry Maryles, over at his blog, Emes Ve-Emunah does a good job of highlighting some of the utter trash that is spewed by hate-filled rabbis in the name of Torah. Apparently, last week Yated printed an article about how Modern-Orthodox Jews really have goyish kups because they didn't stand by side with the chareidi community on the Rubashkin and Slonim issues.

I understand that chareidim would have problems with Modern Orthodoxy for a lot of reasons, but this is just sick. There's nothing torahdik about defending prejudice and rallying around a crook (despite his overly harsh sentence, he's still a crook). To see rabbonim and communal leaders stand up and defend such things as the torah way to behave and think is the grossest distortion of torah ever. And for them to say this during bein hamitzarim, when we are supposed to be minimizing sinas chinam amongst ourselves, only makes it worse.

It's All About Power

It took me a very long time to realize that so much of what rabbis tell people is the "torah" way of doing things is actually simply behaviors that are meant to reinforce a group-think culture which gradually isolates a person from other influences so that the rabbi can be the primary influence on a person. This is especially common in chareidi high schools where rabbeim try very hard to gain greater influence over their charges than their parents already have.

There were so many outrageous ideas that I was told by my rabbeim throughout my high school years, I wouldn't know where to start. It's embarrassing to admit it, but the truth is that as an impressionable young bochur who wanted to to do what he thought was right, I bought into so many of them, hook, line and sinker.

• When my rebbe told us that having a tzchup (an amount of hair in the front of your head that most anyone who does't have a buzzcut has) was assur becasue it was a chatzitza for our tefillin, guess who immediately went out and got a short haircut?
• When my rebbe told us that having Christian Dior shirts was tantamount to avodah zara (due to their "Christian" name brand), guess who threw out half his wardrobe?
• When my rebbe told us that going to sports games was forbidden according to halacha, who do you think refused to accompany his family on their chol hamoed outing?

These, and so many other such instructions, had the intended effect of causing me to stop looking towards my family, my former society, or even my own conscience, as any sort of ethical guide, and instead see my rebbe (and those like him) in yeshiva as the only viable source of moral authority.

It's not surprising to me that such tactics work on young kids. By their very nature, adolescents are at a vulnerable stage in their life, easily susceptible to charismatic figures. What's much more frightening is that these same techniques are now frequently employed on adults too. Rabbonim have gained so much power and the masses of frum yidden seemed to have surrendered their brains to whatever their rabbis tell them that we now see adults also fall for these same kinds of tricks where a rav declares a normal, everyday activity or object suddenly unkosher. The result being that people must now utilize only very specific, rabbinically approved versions of these items.

When will people realize that all these new restrictions have absolutely nothing to do with being a more ehrlciher yid or with serving Hashem better but are all about power-hungry rabbonim trying to gain more control and influence? Wake up, people!

Introduction

I spent many years in yeshiva where I dutifully lived my life according to what my rabbeim told me to do. Following my yeshiva years, I continued to adhere to what my rabbeim and rabbonim told me was the right way to conduct myself. Much of their instruction was very wise and served me well. But a lot of it was absolute, unadulterated BS. And that's what this blog is meant to be about: a venue for those of us who have had our rabbis feed us lies to share those experiences.

Unfortunately, there are many rabbis out there who abuse their position of authority and manipulate the people who look up to them to serve their own interests. Rabbis can be good people, but they can also be charlatans who spout nonsense in the name of torah. I've seen rabbis do all sorts of horrible things: turn children against their parents, advise people on issues they know absolutely nothing about, threaten death to people if their advice is not heeded, get sexually inappropriate with their followers, and of course, claim to know exactly what god wants of those who they have control over.

There is a great crisis of faith going on now in the Orthodox community. People no longer trust their rabbis like they used to. This breakdown of trust is because of all these fraudsters who dress themselves up in the name of torah and as a result of the idiotic things they say and do, cause the masses of good, frum yidden to become disillusioned. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." I want to make these stories of manipulative, deceitful, and untorahdik rabbis to be well known, so that people will know what to look out for, and the kind of rabbi to avoid. Maybe then, we will be privileged to have real torah leaders who lead lives of true integrity.