Car pooling might be gaining ground for the wider community, but for Chassidim, giving lifts is so widespread that I have seen people angry for being passed by drivers they barely know, who did not offer a ride. Rabbis and Tzaddikim (holymen) rarely drive cars in our community, nor can they afford their own driver. Thus it came about that, as a twelve year old boy returning home from a funeral in Enfield, I found myself crammed in the back of a Volvo with half the local rabbinate.
Being men who do not waste time, business was being discussed. A call had come through from Hackney council’s planning department seeking clarification for the Jewish God’s preference for yellow clay. It transpired that an application had been handed in for a private, Jewish girl’s school building, in yellow brick. The council had turned the application down because the rest of the street was entirely in red brick. The application was re-submitted with the explanation that it had to be yellow, for religious reasons.
To broad smiles and indulgent grunts, we then learned that a well known and heeled family had agreed to donate the building. This was not the first school they had built for the community, and the other was in yellow brick. Humbly wishing to maximise the bang for their cash, the benefactors insisted on matching facades. I don’t remember exactly what they discussed further but the structure stands there today, in all its jaundiced glory.
Ben Locker is a writer and blogger living in Stamford Hill. He, more recently, attended a meeting of the Hackney Planning Watch in Stamford Hill library. In discussion was the proposal by the council, due to the high concentration in Stamford hill of Orthodox Jews with large families, to allow certain home-extensions that would probably not pass muster in surrounding areas. He reports that many of the local residents are angered by the perception that the Chassidim are being given preferential treatment.
Some have more personal grievances, like the fact that the light to their property is being blocked by an enormous loft conversion or an 18 foot long kitchen extension that towers over their garden fence. To be fair, these are legitimate complaints and it is obviously up to the council to make the final decision, taking the interests of all parties and the wider community into account.
In his blog he writes: ‘… I was astonished by the argument one [orthodox] person put forward that Stamford Hill has a miniscule crime rate, thanks to the Orthodox Jewish community: even going so far as to say,“when did you last hear of someone mugged by an Orthodox Jew?”
I, sadly, am less astonished. I have been hearing that justification, in its various forms, since I was twelve. Our superior children do not take drugs, wear ripped jeans or sport nose piercings, therefore we should be allowed to …[fill in the blank].
The late Gerrer rebbe once advised one of his newly proselytised disciples to adopt the knickerbocker style of short trousers with long socks. The youngster expressed his doubts about his father allowing it and mentioned the biblical commandment to honour his parents. The Rebbe dismissed the argument, saying, “It is a Mitzva to honour him, not to give him what he thinks he wants.”
A Democratic society has no problem when those with a different set of priorities express their opinions. The shtetl mentality, that teaches being noticed is bad, is wrong. Not because we have inherent rightness on our side, as some of our fundamentalists will have us believe, but because diversity is enshrined in British law. Thus if a brand new home in which to propagate God’s word to the fairer sex is more important to you than the colour coordination of the street it stands upon, you may say so unabashedly. Why, if your house's style and its aesthetic value are less important to you than the number of rooms and its real value, you have the right to express that opinion - even to lobby to have the council approve your monstrous extensions. But it is deceitful, mean and immoral to deny the same right to those that disagree with you. Yes, even if that means you will be overruled.
Unless you are the late Gerrer Rebbe talking to a bochur, it is not enough to know you are fundamentally right, you also need to have the right to impose your will by whatever means necessary. For the rest of us, rights and rightness form a very slippery slope; if only because the Mullahs are of the same opinion and mindset and far more determined.
May I wish all my readers a good holiday and may I take the liberty of reminding all, as we sally forth for our annual exposure to the outside world, that the hardships we choose to suffer for our beliefs must not be passed on to those whose lot it is to cross our path.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Friday, June 01, 2007
British Jew Bugs
Although I do not have any official figures, it is common knowledge that the divorce rate in the Chassidic community is relatively low but rising slowly as individuals living in this country are exposed to more and more of the local colour and culture. A young Chassidic woman today is quite comfortable complaining to her Rav that her man does not give her enough attention or spend quality time with her and the family.
Twenty years ago she would have been laughed out of the Rabbi’s office. With an admonition on the way out, to stop reading the goyish literature that is introducing such notions, to one whose proudest achievement should be a row of smiling babies and crusty, golden-brown Challas every Friday.
Today she is more likely to be directed to one of the semi-official counsellors who will have had some rudimentary training in a sort of marriage guidance counselling, with an emphasis on avoiding divorce at all cost. I must admit to usually being quite dismissive of these do-gooders, generally proofs of the adage that a little learning is a dangerous thing, precisely because I don’t believe relationship counsellors should have their own agenda.
The overwhelming, pious drive to avoid divorce at all cost, sometimes leads to counsellors actively assisting the stronger partner in cowing the weaker one. It is easy to fall into the trap of putting pressure on the party most likely to bend, rather than the one who has the most changing to do.
In a fair society the stronger protect the weak. To sacrifice the weak for the smooth running of the machine, is too horrible a notion to entertain, although we all know it happens.
Of course our Universities and College Union, the UCU, voted overwhelmingly in favour of seeking “a comprehensive and consistent international boycott of all Israeli institutions”. They represent the students, the loony left, the ones who are going to right the world's wrongs – with, of course, special focus on those perpetrated by societies or groups perceived to be more consistently successful than their own.
What really bugs me is the muted reaction by everybody else. Is it just because we don’t blow up trains that nobody cares very much that blatant anti-Semitism has become the hallmark of the British left? Is it just because nobody is scared of us that nobody minds that British academia has been turned into a hostile environment for anyone Jewish? Not for being Jewish, of course. But, because as Jews, they represent the State of Israel.
In an ironic twist of fate the wandering people now carry a state as their cross as they traverse Europe.
I am a British Jew and I am not prepared to carry the torch for anyone. But neither am I prepared to use a different yardstick for my people than for anybody else. I therefore never ask brown people for their views on Africa, slant-eyed ones about Tiananmen Square or short, fat, white ones with loud shirts their position on the war in Iraq. I likewise do not wish to express my views on the occupation except to declare, that if I were to feel under siege, unwelcome and unwanted in the UK, I could hardly be blamed if I recalled the justifications for fighting occupation, I heard on the BBC.
Twenty years ago she would have been laughed out of the Rabbi’s office. With an admonition on the way out, to stop reading the goyish literature that is introducing such notions, to one whose proudest achievement should be a row of smiling babies and crusty, golden-brown Challas every Friday.
Today she is more likely to be directed to one of the semi-official counsellors who will have had some rudimentary training in a sort of marriage guidance counselling, with an emphasis on avoiding divorce at all cost. I must admit to usually being quite dismissive of these do-gooders, generally proofs of the adage that a little learning is a dangerous thing, precisely because I don’t believe relationship counsellors should have their own agenda.
The overwhelming, pious drive to avoid divorce at all cost, sometimes leads to counsellors actively assisting the stronger partner in cowing the weaker one. It is easy to fall into the trap of putting pressure on the party most likely to bend, rather than the one who has the most changing to do.
In a fair society the stronger protect the weak. To sacrifice the weak for the smooth running of the machine, is too horrible a notion to entertain, although we all know it happens.
Of course our Universities and College Union, the UCU, voted overwhelmingly in favour of seeking “a comprehensive and consistent international boycott of all Israeli institutions”. They represent the students, the loony left, the ones who are going to right the world's wrongs – with, of course, special focus on those perpetrated by societies or groups perceived to be more consistently successful than their own.
What really bugs me is the muted reaction by everybody else. Is it just because we don’t blow up trains that nobody cares very much that blatant anti-Semitism has become the hallmark of the British left? Is it just because nobody is scared of us that nobody minds that British academia has been turned into a hostile environment for anyone Jewish? Not for being Jewish, of course. But, because as Jews, they represent the State of Israel.
In an ironic twist of fate the wandering people now carry a state as their cross as they traverse Europe.
I am a British Jew and I am not prepared to carry the torch for anyone. But neither am I prepared to use a different yardstick for my people than for anybody else. I therefore never ask brown people for their views on Africa, slant-eyed ones about Tiananmen Square or short, fat, white ones with loud shirts their position on the war in Iraq. I likewise do not wish to express my views on the occupation except to declare, that if I were to feel under siege, unwelcome and unwanted in the UK, I could hardly be blamed if I recalled the justifications for fighting occupation, I heard on the BBC.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Mendy in Ich
Just before Yomtov I got my hands onto a DVD of a film called Mendy; the story of the eponymous Chassidic orphan who is caught messing with a girl in the community and is thrown out. He moves in with a friend, Yanky, who had left years before and is now a tattooed, occasional tefillin wearing, whoring, drug pusher. The film follows Mendy through the first few weeks of his life with Yanky and his attractive, black, Brazilian roommate, and watches him painfully adjust to a world where morals and ethics must be decided for one’s self and where solutions as well as love can be just as hard to find as within the gefilte-fish cradle.
The film is surprisingly authentic. It is let down, for me, only by the appallingly poorly articulated Yiddish, which half the film is spoken in. For me it would have been far more genuine, not to mention comfortable to watch, had it been played entirely in English, with the classic yiddishisms left in. To me, a native speaker, the stilted Yiddish was a major irritation although those relying on the subtitling might see in it a charm of its own.
With at least one Satmar dropout on the credits the film is sometimes refreshingly and hauntingly real. When Shabbes arrives a group of ex-orthos, some bare-headed and holding cigarettes and others still wearing the traditional garb, pool together the kugel, gefilte fish and cholent they received from their families - ever hopeful of their return – then join hands to lustily welcome the Shabbes Queen, in song, to their mixed and half drunk gathering. So eerily authentic that it brought a lump to my throat.
I cannot recommend this charming film to the religiously faint of heart. There is occasional nudity and Yanky puts his tefillin on his shikse while making love to her as he whispers the brocho (blessing) into her ear, in a shockingly provocative scene that left even me unsure if I could continue to watch. I sincerely hope they were props and not the real thing! Still, I do believe that the film does tell the story rather well from the point of view of the tortured soul who leaves, and anybody who has dealings with youngsters who have left, or might, can learn much from seeing it.
For me it awakened memories that had been pushed back into the far recesses of my skeleton cabinet. In the years since I took a conscious decision to return to the fold and traded in my rebellion and individuality for a Solzhenitsyn style compromise, I have slowly grown accustomed to the comfort and security that being a paid up member affords. This film jolted me back to the time when I would have given anything ‘just to be accepted for what I am’.
Now, sitting in shul on Yomtov, I look around me at what I traded that in for. I observe the man across the table, his eyes tightly shut in concentration, his roughly woven, yellowing tallis pulled tightly round his torso and head. In his loud raspy voice the, essentially upbeat, Hallel texts he moans sound more like an audition for King Lear.
The teenager next to him is also chanting lustily, anticipating the Chazzan (cantor) in a reedy solo. Unmarried, he cannot cover his face with the Tallis so he self-consciously looks around every few minutes to see if anyone is watching him. Every so often, when his neighbour’s cacophony becomes too loud, he stops his lone performance to glare balefully at the shrouded figure’s formless back and then resolutely returns to his singular devotion. I wonder to myself whether he considers the fact that they are both ostensibly talking to the same being and if so why he thinks his own libretto is more worthy than his neighbour’s? Maybe he is really just having his personal cantorial rehearsal interrupted by the git, and the issue is more about personal space than religious fervour?
The congregation is settling down now, each having finished gurgling, whispering, singing, shouting, moaning, snarling or, like me, grudgingly and mechanically reciting the passage of Hallel. Next the Chazzan will try to wow us with his pretentious operatic variation on the traditional holiday melody. My mind drifts nostalgically back to a time years ago when I too could sway in delicious ecstasy to these primeval texts even as Supertramp’s Breakfast in America blared in the background of the squat we were hanging out in.
Although my reasons for choosing a lifestyle markedly different from the one I was brought up in, are ideological, they were not the ones that made me leave nor what brought me back, on my own terms, a couple of years later. Unlike Mendy and Yanky it was not lust and sex that drove me into the arms of the Shgatzim; only too happy to hurt my family by encouraging me. Consciously, it was my love of music and, subliminally I now believe, the search for unconditional love that were stronger than the threat of eternal damnation.
In the Shaigetz milieu I experienced genuine love. Not necessarily of a physical kind but the love that arises out of the bond between people sharing pain, adversity and the hope for a better future. A future I could not then envisage as it now is but which I would not today trade in for the happy-go-lucky existence the others in our group still alive today determinedly cling to. But I was privileged and lucky. Not everybody is, as the film Mendy eloquently shows.
The film is surprisingly authentic. It is let down, for me, only by the appallingly poorly articulated Yiddish, which half the film is spoken in. For me it would have been far more genuine, not to mention comfortable to watch, had it been played entirely in English, with the classic yiddishisms left in. To me, a native speaker, the stilted Yiddish was a major irritation although those relying on the subtitling might see in it a charm of its own.
With at least one Satmar dropout on the credits the film is sometimes refreshingly and hauntingly real. When Shabbes arrives a group of ex-orthos, some bare-headed and holding cigarettes and others still wearing the traditional garb, pool together the kugel, gefilte fish and cholent they received from their families - ever hopeful of their return – then join hands to lustily welcome the Shabbes Queen, in song, to their mixed and half drunk gathering. So eerily authentic that it brought a lump to my throat.
I cannot recommend this charming film to the religiously faint of heart. There is occasional nudity and Yanky puts his tefillin on his shikse while making love to her as he whispers the brocho (blessing) into her ear, in a shockingly provocative scene that left even me unsure if I could continue to watch. I sincerely hope they were props and not the real thing! Still, I do believe that the film does tell the story rather well from the point of view of the tortured soul who leaves, and anybody who has dealings with youngsters who have left, or might, can learn much from seeing it.
For me it awakened memories that had been pushed back into the far recesses of my skeleton cabinet. In the years since I took a conscious decision to return to the fold and traded in my rebellion and individuality for a Solzhenitsyn style compromise, I have slowly grown accustomed to the comfort and security that being a paid up member affords. This film jolted me back to the time when I would have given anything ‘just to be accepted for what I am’.
Now, sitting in shul on Yomtov, I look around me at what I traded that in for. I observe the man across the table, his eyes tightly shut in concentration, his roughly woven, yellowing tallis pulled tightly round his torso and head. In his loud raspy voice the, essentially upbeat, Hallel texts he moans sound more like an audition for King Lear.
The teenager next to him is also chanting lustily, anticipating the Chazzan (cantor) in a reedy solo. Unmarried, he cannot cover his face with the Tallis so he self-consciously looks around every few minutes to see if anyone is watching him. Every so often, when his neighbour’s cacophony becomes too loud, he stops his lone performance to glare balefully at the shrouded figure’s formless back and then resolutely returns to his singular devotion. I wonder to myself whether he considers the fact that they are both ostensibly talking to the same being and if so why he thinks his own libretto is more worthy than his neighbour’s? Maybe he is really just having his personal cantorial rehearsal interrupted by the git, and the issue is more about personal space than religious fervour?
The congregation is settling down now, each having finished gurgling, whispering, singing, shouting, moaning, snarling or, like me, grudgingly and mechanically reciting the passage of Hallel. Next the Chazzan will try to wow us with his pretentious operatic variation on the traditional holiday melody. My mind drifts nostalgically back to a time years ago when I too could sway in delicious ecstasy to these primeval texts even as Supertramp’s Breakfast in America blared in the background of the squat we were hanging out in.
Although my reasons for choosing a lifestyle markedly different from the one I was brought up in, are ideological, they were not the ones that made me leave nor what brought me back, on my own terms, a couple of years later. Unlike Mendy and Yanky it was not lust and sex that drove me into the arms of the Shgatzim; only too happy to hurt my family by encouraging me. Consciously, it was my love of music and, subliminally I now believe, the search for unconditional love that were stronger than the threat of eternal damnation.
In the Shaigetz milieu I experienced genuine love. Not necessarily of a physical kind but the love that arises out of the bond between people sharing pain, adversity and the hope for a better future. A future I could not then envisage as it now is but which I would not today trade in for the happy-go-lucky existence the others in our group still alive today determinedly cling to. But I was privileged and lucky. Not everybody is, as the film Mendy eloquently shows.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
We didn't Fight the Liars
This should be read with the original by Billy Joel keeping the rythm true.
Occupation, He hurt me,
Reasons of security,
Disengagement, Disappointment,
Dis is unity.
Kosher meat, Mobile phones,
Hats, snoods and no-fly zones,
Knickerbockers, White sockers,
Frummers follow me.
Chassidic Tish, Funny food,
Beisdin with the fangs removed,
Contraception, contradiction,
Twice a week is still a lot.
The Tzaddik’s son, The other one,
Courts deciding which one won,
The Besht is dead, The Rebbe’s not,
How much longer have we got?
We didn’t fight the liars
We saw them praise each other
As they destroyed our brothers
We didn’t fight the liars
as the fat cats bought them
We just helped support them
Na nach nachman nuts,
Separate seating on the bus
Chauvinism, Feminism,
Cheque Agunot cry.
Denier numbers, Thigh high seams,
Pederast protection schemes,
Orange ribbons, Gay parades,
Good boys don’t ask why.
Sadya Grama’s Romemut,
Slifkin’s book is staying put.
Artscroll, Steinzalz,
Kahati’s work in Russia banned
Viznitz, Satmar, Bobov twice,
Holy city, Rabbi Veiss,
Shtreimels with kaffiyeh shawls,
Carers of our promised land.
We didn’t fight the liars
We saw them praise each other
As they destroyed our brothers
We didn’t fight the liars
As the fat cats bought them
We just helped support them
Hip Hop, Chassidic bands,
Holies eating with their hands,
Manichewitz, Tam Tams,
Gatchkes in the pool
Tzedaka scams, family trees,
Dor yesharim booking fees,
Blood-sucking with a tube,
TV kids expelled from school.
Nasty rabbis in Iran,
Contact with the Taliban
Kehilla grants, not a chance,
Though the numbers seem so clear
All in all it’s pretty sad
but let me tell you something glad,
Many more will learn to fear,
the Shgatzim on the blogosphere.
We didn’t fight the liars
We saw them praise each other
while they destroyed our brothers
We didn’t fight the liars
as the fat cats bought them
We just helped support them
on and on and on and on...
Occupation, He hurt me,
Reasons of security,
Disengagement, Disappointment,
Dis is unity.
Kosher meat, Mobile phones,
Hats, snoods and no-fly zones,
Knickerbockers, White sockers,
Frummers follow me.
Chassidic Tish, Funny food,
Beisdin with the fangs removed,
Contraception, contradiction,
Twice a week is still a lot.
The Tzaddik’s son, The other one,
Courts deciding which one won,
The Besht is dead, The Rebbe’s not,
How much longer have we got?
We didn’t fight the liars
We saw them praise each other
As they destroyed our brothers
We didn’t fight the liars
as the fat cats bought them
We just helped support them
Na nach nachman nuts,
Separate seating on the bus
Chauvinism, Feminism,
Cheque Agunot cry.
Denier numbers, Thigh high seams,
Pederast protection schemes,
Orange ribbons, Gay parades,
Good boys don’t ask why.
Sadya Grama’s Romemut,
Slifkin’s book is staying put.
Artscroll, Steinzalz,
Kahati’s work in Russia banned
Viznitz, Satmar, Bobov twice,
Holy city, Rabbi Veiss,
Shtreimels with kaffiyeh shawls,
Carers of our promised land.
We didn’t fight the liars
We saw them praise each other
As they destroyed our brothers
We didn’t fight the liars
As the fat cats bought them
We just helped support them
Hip Hop, Chassidic bands,
Holies eating with their hands,
Manichewitz, Tam Tams,
Gatchkes in the pool
Tzedaka scams, family trees,
Dor yesharim booking fees,
Blood-sucking with a tube,
TV kids expelled from school.
Nasty rabbis in Iran,
Contact with the Taliban
Kehilla grants, not a chance,
Though the numbers seem so clear
All in all it’s pretty sad
but let me tell you something glad,
Many more will learn to fear,
the Shgatzim on the blogosphere.
We didn’t fight the liars
We saw them praise each other
while they destroyed our brothers
We didn’t fight the liars
as the fat cats bought them
We just helped support them
on and on and on and on...
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
The Oyvey Office
Most who leave the Chassidic fold, fail miserably in their new lives. Aliens from a parallel universe, they are poorly equipped to deal with the harsh realities of western culture; the shallowness and the self-preservation. Coming from a world where a familiar face is a trusted friend, they confuse flirtation with sincere friendship and think ‘How do you do?’ is a question. Divided from their newfound family by a common language, they are not attuned to what is being clearly stated between the lines, even when it looks like they understand. While their companions happily watch their project tentatively taste his new freedom, they naively mistake their amiability for true concern. Sooner or later they end up, scared, lonely, let down and depressed, with no one left to turn to and nowhere to go.
Menachem Lang of Bne Beraq did not fall by the wayside completely. He was a budding cantor when he left at twenty and he is putting his experiences to good use in his new acting job in a theatre in Herzeliya, playing a part based on his own life. One part of him that does not come out in the show is the bit where he was sexually abused by some young adults in the community. Armed with the indignation that exposure to western culture accords such deeds, and a hidden camera crew from Israel’s Channel 10 he set out to confront his molesters. ( Text video -Hebrew)
Menachem comes across to me as a walking advert for staying put. He obviously does not realise how shallow he comes across, his outbursts sometimes seem rehearsed and when he adlibs, his positions become closer to his accused. He even seems a little unsure at times what is actually bothering him. All these are classic to victims of abuse and I am sure he needs help but my feeling is that he needs someone to advise him to return to a culture he knows and understands.
The three bearded men he identifies and interviews in the TV documentary were never charged although they all seem to admit the basic facts on camera. The reason, in a nutshell, is because "in the Charedi community such issues are dealt with internally" says the narrator.
I am aware that the situation in Israel is different than here. The Batei Din in Israel (rabbinical courts) are quasi legal bodies and in cities like Bne Beraq they represent a real force on the ground and enjoy widespread approval ratings despite the scepticism of those like me who prefer transparency and structure. Yet even there some prominent Rabbis have recently started advising people to report all forms of sexual abuse directly to the police.
It is laughable to expect our local Batei Din in London or Manchester to take on the function of society’s policemen. They simply lack the power or the influence, not to mention the expertise. Yet our Rabbis, in their infinite wisdom, insist on sticking to the rules and principles they were taught in a different age. Still dutifully fulfilling, to the letter, the orders they were given by their long dead generals in a battle that moved on decades ago. Still industriously firing their salvos at targets that have long ceased to exist, while the enemy has moved on and is busy pillaging the villages.
On the other side of the spectrum sit a group of Jews who also live somewhere in cloudcuckooland. The Neturei Karta movement has never been a savoury one although I have no argument with their founding principle, that the Zionists have no monopoly over the Jewish people. But my initial unease at posters on the lampposts on the Hill in the 80s stating “The Zionist state is a misfortune for the Jewish people”, has steadily developed into alarm and disgust as their disassociation turned to denouncement and blind hatred of all Jews but themselves. Indeed their actions illustrate better than any of their arguments the one undeniable truth; No one has the right to speak for a people without a clear mandate.
The pitiful morons’ latest escapade, strutting their stuff for all the world in Iran at a holocaust deniers conference was condemned by virtually all religious bodies in Israel, the US and the UK (except those deeper in bed with them than we all had suspected), albeit often in terms sometimes ambiguous at best. It is patently obvious that this rush of virtuous indignation and horror, that even a prayer vigil under the window of the dying Arch-terrorist Arafat in Paris and numerous highly publicised appearances in Shabbes clothes, black-silk-and-beaver-fur-fig-leaves for murderers and terrorists, failed to provoke, was not spontaneous. Rather, it was only the insistent prodding of secular Jewry, livid that their sacred cow, the holocaust, had been touched, that decided our seers that now it was important to make it known to the world that the NK do not speak for all Jews.
Our religious leadership has at last done the right thing, and expressed their disgust that a few individuals should try to hijack the garb we wear and the way we look to express views that are abhorrent, not only to practically all Jews but possibly almost everybody bar the Iranians and a few of their loony supporters. Still it is a scandal that even with an issue as clear to everybody as this, it is only when the wider world gets involved that suddenly (most of) our leadership springs valiantly into action. Our leaders are being led by circumstance, sometimes reacting, acting all the time but never taking a positive step to tackle problems from the core.
I believe that a good percentage of our leaders are good men. They are learned and pious and often well-meaning. They can not however, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as streetwise. They often do not know the distinction between opinion and fact, politics and law, wants and needs. They are out of touch with their communities and trying to apply rules and methods that might have been effective once but do not apply to the world I grew up in, far less the one my kids did. Worse, lacking any form of central leadership and hopelessly divided by personal interests, they and the orthodox media are forcing the mindset and rulings coming out from Bne Beraq and Jerusalem upon us, for lack of any original solutions to problems unique to us here in the UK and Europe.
There needs to be a central Orthodox Rabbinical Council for Europe, to deal with European problems from a European perspective. This council has to contain members from all orthodox groupings and must be professionally advised on law, health and politics, just as any governing body must. Until then in my opinion many of our learned Rabbis must be considered as sweet and wholesome but not much more. As innocent as smoothies and just as relevant.
Menachem Lang of Bne Beraq did not fall by the wayside completely. He was a budding cantor when he left at twenty and he is putting his experiences to good use in his new acting job in a theatre in Herzeliya, playing a part based on his own life. One part of him that does not come out in the show is the bit where he was sexually abused by some young adults in the community. Armed with the indignation that exposure to western culture accords such deeds, and a hidden camera crew from Israel’s Channel 10 he set out to confront his molesters. ( Text video -Hebrew)
Menachem comes across to me as a walking advert for staying put. He obviously does not realise how shallow he comes across, his outbursts sometimes seem rehearsed and when he adlibs, his positions become closer to his accused. He even seems a little unsure at times what is actually bothering him. All these are classic to victims of abuse and I am sure he needs help but my feeling is that he needs someone to advise him to return to a culture he knows and understands.
The three bearded men he identifies and interviews in the TV documentary were never charged although they all seem to admit the basic facts on camera. The reason, in a nutshell, is because "in the Charedi community such issues are dealt with internally" says the narrator.
I am aware that the situation in Israel is different than here. The Batei Din in Israel (rabbinical courts) are quasi legal bodies and in cities like Bne Beraq they represent a real force on the ground and enjoy widespread approval ratings despite the scepticism of those like me who prefer transparency and structure. Yet even there some prominent Rabbis have recently started advising people to report all forms of sexual abuse directly to the police.
It is laughable to expect our local Batei Din in London or Manchester to take on the function of society’s policemen. They simply lack the power or the influence, not to mention the expertise. Yet our Rabbis, in their infinite wisdom, insist on sticking to the rules and principles they were taught in a different age. Still dutifully fulfilling, to the letter, the orders they were given by their long dead generals in a battle that moved on decades ago. Still industriously firing their salvos at targets that have long ceased to exist, while the enemy has moved on and is busy pillaging the villages.
On the other side of the spectrum sit a group of Jews who also live somewhere in cloudcuckooland. The Neturei Karta movement has never been a savoury one although I have no argument with their founding principle, that the Zionists have no monopoly over the Jewish people. But my initial unease at posters on the lampposts on the Hill in the 80s stating “The Zionist state is a misfortune for the Jewish people”, has steadily developed into alarm and disgust as their disassociation turned to denouncement and blind hatred of all Jews but themselves. Indeed their actions illustrate better than any of their arguments the one undeniable truth; No one has the right to speak for a people without a clear mandate.
The pitiful morons’ latest escapade, strutting their stuff for all the world in Iran at a holocaust deniers conference was condemned by virtually all religious bodies in Israel, the US and the UK (except those deeper in bed with them than we all had suspected), albeit often in terms sometimes ambiguous at best. It is patently obvious that this rush of virtuous indignation and horror, that even a prayer vigil under the window of the dying Arch-terrorist Arafat in Paris and numerous highly publicised appearances in Shabbes clothes, black-silk-and-beaver-fur-fig-leaves for murderers and terrorists, failed to provoke, was not spontaneous. Rather, it was only the insistent prodding of secular Jewry, livid that their sacred cow, the holocaust, had been touched, that decided our seers that now it was important to make it known to the world that the NK do not speak for all Jews.
Our religious leadership has at last done the right thing, and expressed their disgust that a few individuals should try to hijack the garb we wear and the way we look to express views that are abhorrent, not only to practically all Jews but possibly almost everybody bar the Iranians and a few of their loony supporters. Still it is a scandal that even with an issue as clear to everybody as this, it is only when the wider world gets involved that suddenly (most of) our leadership springs valiantly into action. Our leaders are being led by circumstance, sometimes reacting, acting all the time but never taking a positive step to tackle problems from the core.
I believe that a good percentage of our leaders are good men. They are learned and pious and often well-meaning. They can not however, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as streetwise. They often do not know the distinction between opinion and fact, politics and law, wants and needs. They are out of touch with their communities and trying to apply rules and methods that might have been effective once but do not apply to the world I grew up in, far less the one my kids did. Worse, lacking any form of central leadership and hopelessly divided by personal interests, they and the orthodox media are forcing the mindset and rulings coming out from Bne Beraq and Jerusalem upon us, for lack of any original solutions to problems unique to us here in the UK and Europe.
There needs to be a central Orthodox Rabbinical Council for Europe, to deal with European problems from a European perspective. This council has to contain members from all orthodox groupings and must be professionally advised on law, health and politics, just as any governing body must. Until then in my opinion many of our learned Rabbis must be considered as sweet and wholesome but not much more. As innocent as smoothies and just as relevant.
Monday, December 11, 2006
My Clothes and I
Writing this blog has made feel much more comfortable in my skin as a Chassid. It has helped clarify to me what is positive within and about our community and lifestyle, at the same time as making me realise that I need not always feel responsible for the collective. Just as they should not for me.
Through the discussions I have had with some powerful people, strangely prepared, even eager, to reason with The Shaigetz, I have learned to temper some criticisms which were based on faulty assumptions. That they treat my alter ego as an equal despite resolutely ignoring me, tells me to stop seeing myself thorough the other’s perspective and get on with my own life. To one brought up in the understanding that everything the individual does reflects upon 'the community' and God, and under the menacing shadow of Chillul-Hashem (desecration of His name), and the causing of any negative portrayal of Him or them, this was a big lesson.
Today I can prepare to for an important meeting without checking in the mirror to see if my peyos aren't showing from behind my ears, where I carefully used to tuck them away, almost invisibly, when I wanted to make a good impression. I also no longer worry about where I will leave my hat when I go somewhere where no Chassid has ever trodden. I bear it with me, only respectfully removing it when I enter a room.
Despite looking more the Chassid than ever, I no longer avoid contact with my fellow man and even fraternise with the locals shamelessly. I have discovered that most are, at best, mildly intrigued by the reason for my ‘funny’ attire while many of the rest are convinced that the Chassidic garb is our equivalent of the Catholic vestments. Very few realise that somebody like me was never given the choice to wear anything else and could only do so by tearing himself away completely from family and friends. Nor could they possibly imagine how embarrassing it is, how uncomfortable it feels, to have someone look at you and smile to themself when you are wearing funny clothes you don’t want to be seen wearing at all.
Once past the initial surprise, I find most British people to be remarkably apathetic about my appearance and if I have found people disturbed by it, it was either Muslims who use us as easy targets for venting their hatred of Israel and the Israelites, or fellow Jews embarrassed by my ‘spectacle’.
So when I strolled through my supermarket pushing my trolley I was relaxed and enjoying myself. Before me, blocking the gangway, was a store packer pushing a pallet of goods on a forklift. I was in no special hurry so I waited a few minutes until she had ended. After she had turned the corner and cleared the path I moved forward pushing aside a wooden pallet that had been left lying, so my wagon could pass. The employee who was now returning to collect the pallet started hurling personal insults at me adding that I, one of ‘those what does’nt has to work’ had disturbed her in doing hers. It seems from her ranting that ‘they’ do that.
I must admit to being more disturbed than I would have expected. After all I was no stranger to such incidences in my youth and to be honest it is only in the recent few years that we have come to expect it in a different accent only.
I have no doubt that if I call the store I will learn that she had had a hard day and was going through a difficult period. I will be assured that the company takes such incidences very seriously (it will be made clear that this applies not only for anti-Semitism but for racism of any sort – just in case we get cocky about our special privileges) and that the culprit will be duly disciplined. I will furthermore be urged to remember that the manager of the branch has always had a very good relationship with my people. That the list of kosher products on offer has indeed been steadily rising in recent years testifies to the value they place on that custom.
I didn’t contact the management. Not because, from long experience, I already know the contents of that letter but because of the reactions of the people around me when it happened. I was shocked that nobody reacted as an employee shouted remarks denigrating an entire community at a customer, regardless of whether or not he had disturbed her work. I was more shocked that some other customers banded around her as I wandered off, listening to her story and agreeing with her, unified in their condemnation. But for the first time in a long time I realised that my dress really does set me apart. Not because it actually disturbs anyone but because it is so easy to identify the culprit when one party looks different. And the saddest truth of all is, I am not sure I would be any different.
Through the discussions I have had with some powerful people, strangely prepared, even eager, to reason with The Shaigetz, I have learned to temper some criticisms which were based on faulty assumptions. That they treat my alter ego as an equal despite resolutely ignoring me, tells me to stop seeing myself thorough the other’s perspective and get on with my own life. To one brought up in the understanding that everything the individual does reflects upon 'the community' and God, and under the menacing shadow of Chillul-Hashem (desecration of His name), and the causing of any negative portrayal of Him or them, this was a big lesson.
Today I can prepare to for an important meeting without checking in the mirror to see if my peyos aren't showing from behind my ears, where I carefully used to tuck them away, almost invisibly, when I wanted to make a good impression. I also no longer worry about where I will leave my hat when I go somewhere where no Chassid has ever trodden. I bear it with me, only respectfully removing it when I enter a room.
Despite looking more the Chassid than ever, I no longer avoid contact with my fellow man and even fraternise with the locals shamelessly. I have discovered that most are, at best, mildly intrigued by the reason for my ‘funny’ attire while many of the rest are convinced that the Chassidic garb is our equivalent of the Catholic vestments. Very few realise that somebody like me was never given the choice to wear anything else and could only do so by tearing himself away completely from family and friends. Nor could they possibly imagine how embarrassing it is, how uncomfortable it feels, to have someone look at you and smile to themself when you are wearing funny clothes you don’t want to be seen wearing at all.
Once past the initial surprise, I find most British people to be remarkably apathetic about my appearance and if I have found people disturbed by it, it was either Muslims who use us as easy targets for venting their hatred of Israel and the Israelites, or fellow Jews embarrassed by my ‘spectacle’.
So when I strolled through my supermarket pushing my trolley I was relaxed and enjoying myself. Before me, blocking the gangway, was a store packer pushing a pallet of goods on a forklift. I was in no special hurry so I waited a few minutes until she had ended. After she had turned the corner and cleared the path I moved forward pushing aside a wooden pallet that had been left lying, so my wagon could pass. The employee who was now returning to collect the pallet started hurling personal insults at me adding that I, one of ‘those what does’nt has to work’ had disturbed her in doing hers. It seems from her ranting that ‘they’ do that.
I must admit to being more disturbed than I would have expected. After all I was no stranger to such incidences in my youth and to be honest it is only in the recent few years that we have come to expect it in a different accent only.
I have no doubt that if I call the store I will learn that she had had a hard day and was going through a difficult period. I will be assured that the company takes such incidences very seriously (it will be made clear that this applies not only for anti-Semitism but for racism of any sort – just in case we get cocky about our special privileges) and that the culprit will be duly disciplined. I will furthermore be urged to remember that the manager of the branch has always had a very good relationship with my people. That the list of kosher products on offer has indeed been steadily rising in recent years testifies to the value they place on that custom.
I didn’t contact the management. Not because, from long experience, I already know the contents of that letter but because of the reactions of the people around me when it happened. I was shocked that nobody reacted as an employee shouted remarks denigrating an entire community at a customer, regardless of whether or not he had disturbed her work. I was more shocked that some other customers banded around her as I wandered off, listening to her story and agreeing with her, unified in their condemnation. But for the first time in a long time I realised that my dress really does set me apart. Not because it actually disturbs anyone but because it is so easy to identify the culprit when one party looks different. And the saddest truth of all is, I am not sure I would be any different.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Society Of Members
Few of my Chassidic friends approve when I am seen socializing with friends who are not religious. The goyim I am seen with pose fewer problems because the possibility of considering one a friend is so remote to a Chassidic Hiller. Eric is a very non-observant Jew. A highly extrovert and deliberately provocative man, he is the one that challenged me most on my journey to here. More than the philosophers and the Rabbis, the societies of thinkers and the earnest helpers, he is the one who asked the awkward questions that I always avoided asking myself. Would you? Why wouldn’t you? Do you? How do you know you do? Strangely enough his skepticism has reinforced my beliefs more than much earnest discourse.
His lifestyle was much more shocking to me than I ever admitted. I have had my morals doing flip-flops in their bathrobes as I, for instance, debated behind a fascinated gaze whether to soon to say ‘bon appetite’ to a yid I was watching frying his treife quail thighs in butter? I have learned along the way that there are rules that have to be adhered to in society and when religion is taken out of the equation what we are left with is respect. I do not have to approve of what he eats and I may believe he will suffer eternal damnation for doing it but I do not actively stop him from doing as he pleases. That is his right I have to respect just as he must understand that I won’t taste. I further believe that once my disapproval has been noted it is neither polite nor helpful to keep mentioning it again.
So when he dropped into my kitchen on barbecue-night with a bundle wrapped in newspaper I was faintly amused and expected some large salmon he would propose we bung on the barbeque or a dead snake for me to use as a doorstop. Instead the damp paper proved to contain a raspy mound of fresh whelks. Eric knows I don’t eat seafood and a colony of live sea snails in my kitchen really was not welcome. Of course I enjoy a joke as much as the next man and I am well aware that my irreligious friends do eat all the creepy crawlies they can lay their hands on. But I have to draw the line somewhere and with fruits-de-mer in my sink you needed a binoculars to look back for it, despite assurances as to how delicious they taste in garlic butter and his gleeful anticipation of what some of the more religious guests might say when they were produced.
To be fair, as soon as he realised that I really was bothered by his gastropod snack surprise he beat a hasty retreat with them and apologised profusely. After my wife had stopped hyperventilating (and poured a few gallons of bleach down the plughole) normality returned and this little episode was duly forgotten until this week’s hullabaloo in Jerusalem with the Pride Parade reminded me of it. I was trying to explain to a colleague that although I do believe the act is a sin, I am not anti-gay. Still, I do not feel that a Pride Parade should be held in Jerusalem. As I had said to Eric, “What you do in your own space is your business but it is disrespectful to me when you wave your perwinkle around in my kitchen.”
I have never quite figured out why a group of people who complain they are discriminated against find it helpful in gaining respect to flaunt their sexuality around in public. Indeed if the gay community wanted to prove they are just another part of society they would do better to march neatly attired through the town and let everybody see how normal they are. Instead they prance along semi-naked, flashing references to every kind of depravity they can think of in a demonstration that tries to force their hedonistic lifestyle down the throats of everybody watching, only to go all bitchy when the Rabbis don’t get aroused. Or are they hoping that seeing them semi-naked all oiled up in black leather thongs we will be reminded of our tefillin and take a sudden liking to them?
The Pride Parade is not about gaining acceptance for homosexuals to live their lives as they see fit. It is a celebration of homosexuality and as such its place is not in Jerusalem. The promoters would know that if they weren’t so intent on becoming identified with their organs. Indeed I suppose they can hardly disagree with me when I suggest that instead of getting themselves accepted as members of society they have turned themselves into a society of members; what you’d call in simpler English a bunch of pricks!
His lifestyle was much more shocking to me than I ever admitted. I have had my morals doing flip-flops in their bathrobes as I, for instance, debated behind a fascinated gaze whether to soon to say ‘bon appetite’ to a yid I was watching frying his treife quail thighs in butter? I have learned along the way that there are rules that have to be adhered to in society and when religion is taken out of the equation what we are left with is respect. I do not have to approve of what he eats and I may believe he will suffer eternal damnation for doing it but I do not actively stop him from doing as he pleases. That is his right I have to respect just as he must understand that I won’t taste. I further believe that once my disapproval has been noted it is neither polite nor helpful to keep mentioning it again.
So when he dropped into my kitchen on barbecue-night with a bundle wrapped in newspaper I was faintly amused and expected some large salmon he would propose we bung on the barbeque or a dead snake for me to use as a doorstop. Instead the damp paper proved to contain a raspy mound of fresh whelks. Eric knows I don’t eat seafood and a colony of live sea snails in my kitchen really was not welcome. Of course I enjoy a joke as much as the next man and I am well aware that my irreligious friends do eat all the creepy crawlies they can lay their hands on. But I have to draw the line somewhere and with fruits-de-mer in my sink you needed a binoculars to look back for it, despite assurances as to how delicious they taste in garlic butter and his gleeful anticipation of what some of the more religious guests might say when they were produced.
To be fair, as soon as he realised that I really was bothered by his gastropod snack surprise he beat a hasty retreat with them and apologised profusely. After my wife had stopped hyperventilating (and poured a few gallons of bleach down the plughole) normality returned and this little episode was duly forgotten until this week’s hullabaloo in Jerusalem with the Pride Parade reminded me of it. I was trying to explain to a colleague that although I do believe the act is a sin, I am not anti-gay. Still, I do not feel that a Pride Parade should be held in Jerusalem. As I had said to Eric, “What you do in your own space is your business but it is disrespectful to me when you wave your perwinkle around in my kitchen.”
I have never quite figured out why a group of people who complain they are discriminated against find it helpful in gaining respect to flaunt their sexuality around in public. Indeed if the gay community wanted to prove they are just another part of society they would do better to march neatly attired through the town and let everybody see how normal they are. Instead they prance along semi-naked, flashing references to every kind of depravity they can think of in a demonstration that tries to force their hedonistic lifestyle down the throats of everybody watching, only to go all bitchy when the Rabbis don’t get aroused. Or are they hoping that seeing them semi-naked all oiled up in black leather thongs we will be reminded of our tefillin and take a sudden liking to them?
The Pride Parade is not about gaining acceptance for homosexuals to live their lives as they see fit. It is a celebration of homosexuality and as such its place is not in Jerusalem. The promoters would know that if they weren’t so intent on becoming identified with their organs. Indeed I suppose they can hardly disagree with me when I suggest that instead of getting themselves accepted as members of society they have turned themselves into a society of members; what you’d call in simpler English a bunch of pricks!
Monday, October 16, 2006
The Package Deal
The sukkah is intended to remind us of when we were taken out of Egypt. The children of Israel were grandiosely rescued from a despotic, tyrannical Pharaoh who had greedily enslaved them for generations before finally, in fits of paranoid fear, murdering all their male offspring. Chased by the Pahaoh's troops they were led triumphantly from the country through a path in a sea miraculously split before them. Once they had passed, the waters tumbled back in over the Egyptian army, eliminating it in its entirety in one glorious, fell swoop. The soldier's spoils, financed entirely by the labours of those they had been chasing, moreover, did not sink into the deep with them but were washed up on the shores for the refugees to gather.
To celebrate these awe-inspiring miracles we gather once a year in a temporary structure, symbolic of the supernatural protection and care we received then and over the years following that awesome rescue and a testament to the pillars of cloud and fire that surrounded the Israelites as they trod the desert toward their Promised Land. That the Israelites, even despite these obvious displays of raw, divine might, hardly behaved like the best of Catholics and His eternal patience with them, must be an integral part of that story.
There is nothing glorious about the sukkahs I saw this year on the Hill and nothing that even remotely evokes the dazzling magnificence of that divine deliverance. A ‘temporary structure’ as basically defined by the law has ‘to have three or more walls and get protective shading from an unconverted vegetable source. We have laws stating how high or law the walls must be but only the roof of the structure has to be temporary. A kosher sukkah must be under the open sky and then be covered by raw vegetable matter.
Like much in our society, Sukkot has become an occasion that has little to do with its original purpose. Proud sukkah owners today proudly show off how discreetly their sukkah blends in to the house as their comfortably centrally heated and air-conditioned sukkah-cum-morning room’s glass dome slides noiselessly away to reveal the open sky masked by the commercially available, perfectly stitched bamboo mat that once a year is rolled over the waiting beams to fulfil the letter, if not the spirit, of the laws.
In a grotesque parade of bad taste, most sukkot are furthermore decorated with gaudy and tacky christmas decorations, from paper apples, shiny stars and baubles to paper chains, tinsel and flashing fairy lights. Like the society around us, we seem to be intent on proving that we too can sell the soul of our traditions to Hong Kong.
The Rosh Hashana-Yom Kippur period is designed to be a time for stocktaking, learning the lessons from the year past and accepting resolutions for the one upcoming. Over Sukkot we are reminded that though we can be a stiff-necked people God still loves us and He is capable of protecting us from any threat. We learn that although we as a people can be prone to bouts of self-assured rightness these can also be suspect. We learn that we have a tendency to be argumentative and sometimes just plain obnoxious and that we have to learn to fight these urges. In short we have to remember that being religious is about more than the external trappings.
When the length of someone’s beard or his wife’s skirt becomes more important than his piety or deeds, when the shape of a Chassid's hat becomes more important than his upbringing and knowledge, when in shul you can be witness to infantile jealous bickering for the privilege of shushing people during the davening and those whose job it is to represent us seem to be more intent on furthering their own agenda, when eating kosher becomes about whose supervision you support rather than what's inside the package (or should be) one starts to wonder how much more of our religion has become just a tackily decorated temporary structure.
To celebrate these awe-inspiring miracles we gather once a year in a temporary structure, symbolic of the supernatural protection and care we received then and over the years following that awesome rescue and a testament to the pillars of cloud and fire that surrounded the Israelites as they trod the desert toward their Promised Land. That the Israelites, even despite these obvious displays of raw, divine might, hardly behaved like the best of Catholics and His eternal patience with them, must be an integral part of that story.
There is nothing glorious about the sukkahs I saw this year on the Hill and nothing that even remotely evokes the dazzling magnificence of that divine deliverance. A ‘temporary structure’ as basically defined by the law has ‘to have three or more walls and get protective shading from an unconverted vegetable source. We have laws stating how high or law the walls must be but only the roof of the structure has to be temporary. A kosher sukkah must be under the open sky and then be covered by raw vegetable matter.
Like much in our society, Sukkot has become an occasion that has little to do with its original purpose. Proud sukkah owners today proudly show off how discreetly their sukkah blends in to the house as their comfortably centrally heated and air-conditioned sukkah-cum-morning room’s glass dome slides noiselessly away to reveal the open sky masked by the commercially available, perfectly stitched bamboo mat that once a year is rolled over the waiting beams to fulfil the letter, if not the spirit, of the laws.
In a grotesque parade of bad taste, most sukkot are furthermore decorated with gaudy and tacky christmas decorations, from paper apples, shiny stars and baubles to paper chains, tinsel and flashing fairy lights. Like the society around us, we seem to be intent on proving that we too can sell the soul of our traditions to Hong Kong.
The Rosh Hashana-Yom Kippur period is designed to be a time for stocktaking, learning the lessons from the year past and accepting resolutions for the one upcoming. Over Sukkot we are reminded that though we can be a stiff-necked people God still loves us and He is capable of protecting us from any threat. We learn that although we as a people can be prone to bouts of self-assured rightness these can also be suspect. We learn that we have a tendency to be argumentative and sometimes just plain obnoxious and that we have to learn to fight these urges. In short we have to remember that being religious is about more than the external trappings.
When the length of someone’s beard or his wife’s skirt becomes more important than his piety or deeds, when the shape of a Chassid's hat becomes more important than his upbringing and knowledge, when in shul you can be witness to infantile jealous bickering for the privilege of shushing people during the davening and those whose job it is to represent us seem to be more intent on furthering their own agenda, when eating kosher becomes about whose supervision you support rather than what's inside the package (or should be) one starts to wonder how much more of our religion has become just a tackily decorated temporary structure.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Stand Up or Shut Up
Heaven, the saying goes, helps the man who helps himself. The Yiddish equivalent translates as ‘Blessed are the hands that do it alone’. Despite the giggles I could raise just by pausing for a moment here with the appropriate expression on my face, I do accept the validity of the sentiment expressed.
In Yeshiva one of the things that was drummed into us was the issue of Emuna and Bitochon. Literally translated the first is faith and the latter trust and that is how they are used in our school of thought. We are taught that it is incumbent upon us to believe He makes everything happen according to a very tightly controlled plan in which every single thought, every single heartbeat from the king’s down to that of the louse on his head is divinely controlled and meshes into its very specific place in the universal tapestry. The obvious question that arises as to how free will can exist within a framework of preordination is generally considered to be out of bounds for our puny little brains. Likewise, how it is possible that anything has been around forever?
Naturally these are questions you cannot shake off once they have arisen. My Rebbes were not prepared to discuss them with me; telling me instead that I am a Shaigetz for thinking about them. I did of course and in developing my own answers to the theological dilemmas I also came to the realisation that I am proud to be a Shaigetz.
The question of divine intervention and how it works is not only an abstract one. There are two well-documented schools of thought within Judaism, the one Chassidim subscribe to maintains that even inanimates have their lifespan and every movement within it planned from the outset and the other believes that the laws of nature are only interfered with for humans who deserve it. Neither gives very clear instructions on how to decide when it is acceptable to sit back and let Him be in control and when it is necessary to make an effort yourself although all agree that sometimes one must.
Chassidim take Emuna to stand for unwavering faith in the Lord and the knowledge that He is in control over everything. Bitachon is translated into the assurance that ultimately whatever happens to you is for the good. If you have enough Emuna and Bitachon life can only be plain sailing. The alarming rise of social anti-Semitism in Britain, the tough economic situation of the illiterate school-leavers, the growing worldwide threat of Muslim terrorism and Great Britain’s increasing kowtowing to a growingly sophisticated Muslim PR machine that must be gleefully penning Tony Blair’s name to a growing list of European leaders they have helped topple, all this does not keep you awake at night if you have enough faith in He who sees the big picture.
I once asked my mentor whether having Emuna and Bitachon allows me to sit back and observe life. More specifically whether a sum of money I had lying around should be invested for the future or could be used to make my life more comfortable now. I feared that investing in the future displayed a lack of faith in His ability to supply me with all I need at any given time. His reply was that I can only sit doing nothing allowing God to run my life if I honestly and truly rely on Him alone. To use the cyclists Prayer formula and ask for help only when the hill is steep while relying on gravity to take me back down does not go down well in the heavenly applications department apparently.
Many Chassidim might therefore be forgiven for watching passively from the sidelines as what I believe is a growing threat to our security and wellbeing on this continent develops. They have their Emuna and Bitachon that will get them through with smiling faces to whatever awaits them and thus need and ask for nobody’s help. Those however who have built their entire Jewish identity, not to mention their positions of importance and comfort in this land on the promise of ‘never again’ will probably be punished for lying as well as their lack of Emuna not to mention Bitachon.
In Yeshiva one of the things that was drummed into us was the issue of Emuna and Bitochon. Literally translated the first is faith and the latter trust and that is how they are used in our school of thought. We are taught that it is incumbent upon us to believe He makes everything happen according to a very tightly controlled plan in which every single thought, every single heartbeat from the king’s down to that of the louse on his head is divinely controlled and meshes into its very specific place in the universal tapestry. The obvious question that arises as to how free will can exist within a framework of preordination is generally considered to be out of bounds for our puny little brains. Likewise, how it is possible that anything has been around forever?
Naturally these are questions you cannot shake off once they have arisen. My Rebbes were not prepared to discuss them with me; telling me instead that I am a Shaigetz for thinking about them. I did of course and in developing my own answers to the theological dilemmas I also came to the realisation that I am proud to be a Shaigetz.
The question of divine intervention and how it works is not only an abstract one. There are two well-documented schools of thought within Judaism, the one Chassidim subscribe to maintains that even inanimates have their lifespan and every movement within it planned from the outset and the other believes that the laws of nature are only interfered with for humans who deserve it. Neither gives very clear instructions on how to decide when it is acceptable to sit back and let Him be in control and when it is necessary to make an effort yourself although all agree that sometimes one must.
Chassidim take Emuna to stand for unwavering faith in the Lord and the knowledge that He is in control over everything. Bitachon is translated into the assurance that ultimately whatever happens to you is for the good. If you have enough Emuna and Bitachon life can only be plain sailing. The alarming rise of social anti-Semitism in Britain, the tough economic situation of the illiterate school-leavers, the growing worldwide threat of Muslim terrorism and Great Britain’s increasing kowtowing to a growingly sophisticated Muslim PR machine that must be gleefully penning Tony Blair’s name to a growing list of European leaders they have helped topple, all this does not keep you awake at night if you have enough faith in He who sees the big picture.
I once asked my mentor whether having Emuna and Bitachon allows me to sit back and observe life. More specifically whether a sum of money I had lying around should be invested for the future or could be used to make my life more comfortable now. I feared that investing in the future displayed a lack of faith in His ability to supply me with all I need at any given time. His reply was that I can only sit doing nothing allowing God to run my life if I honestly and truly rely on Him alone. To use the cyclists Prayer formula and ask for help only when the hill is steep while relying on gravity to take me back down does not go down well in the heavenly applications department apparently.
Many Chassidim might therefore be forgiven for watching passively from the sidelines as what I believe is a growing threat to our security and wellbeing on this continent develops. They have their Emuna and Bitachon that will get them through with smiling faces to whatever awaits them and thus need and ask for nobody’s help. Those however who have built their entire Jewish identity, not to mention their positions of importance and comfort in this land on the promise of ‘never again’ will probably be punished for lying as well as their lack of Emuna not to mention Bitachon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)