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Does the Government Protect Us from Disease?

The Meat-Packing Myth

09/19/2019

[Editor’s Note: The Hill reports today on how the Trump administration has approved new rules to cut back the budget on federal met inspection. The Hill’s article highlights how the old myths behind the genesis of federal meat inspection are still very much alive and well. In The Progressive Era, Murray Rothbard examined how it was the inspectors themselves who wanted inspection for reasons that had nothing to do with improving the quality of food.]

One of the earliest acts of Progressive regulation of the economy was the Meat Inspection Act, which passed in June 1906.  The orthodox myth holds that the action was directed against the “beef trust” of the large meat packers, and that the federal government was driven to this anti-business measure by popular outcry generated by the muckraking novel, The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, which exposed unsanitary conditions in the Chicago meat-packing plants.1

Unfortunately for the myth, the drive for federal meat inspection actually began more than two decades earlier and was launched mainly by the big meat packers themselves. The spur was the urge to penetrate the European market for meat, something which the large meat packers thought could be done if the government would certify the quality of meat and thereby make American meat more highly rated abroad. Not coincidentally, as in all Colbertist mercantilist legislation over the centuries, a governmentally-coerced upgrading of quality would serve to cartelize — to lower production, restrict competition, and raise prices to the consumers. It, furthermore, socializes the cost of inspection to satisfy consumers, by placing the burden upon the taxpayers instead of on the producers themselves.2

More specifically, the meat packers were concerned to with combating the restrictionist legislation of European countries, which, in the late 1870s and early 1880s, began to prohibit the import of American meat. The excuse was to safeguard the European consumer against purportedly diseased meat; the probable major reason was to act as a protectionist device for European meat production.

Partly at the behest of the major meat packers, Chicago and other cities imposed and then strengthened a system of meat inspection, and the Secretary of the Treasury, on his own and without Congressional authorization, set up an inspection organization to certify exported cattle as free of pleuropneumonia in 1881. Finally, after Germany prohibited the importation of American pork, ostensibly because of the problem of disease, Congress, responding to the pressure of the large meatpackers, reacted in May 1884 by establishing a Bureau of Animal Industry within the Department of Agriculture “to prevent the exportation of diseased cattle” and to try to eliminate contagious diseases among domesticated animals.

But this was not enough, and the Department of Agriculture kept agitating for additional federal regulation to improve meat exports. Then, in response to the hog cholera epidemic in the United States in 1889, Congress, again pressured by the big meat packers, passed a law in the summer of 1890 compelling the inspection of all meat intended for export. But the European governments, claiming to be unsatisfied because live animals at the time of slaughter remained uninspected, continued their prohibitions of American meat. As a result, Congress, in March 1891, passed the first important compulsory federal meat inspection law in American history. The Act provided that all live animals must be inspected, and it managed to cover most animals passing through interstate commerce. Every meat packer involved in any way whatever in export had to be inspected in detail by the Department of Agriculture, and violations were punishable by imprisonment as well as fine.

This rigid inspection law satisfied European medicine, and European countries swiftly removed their prohibition on American pork. But the European meat packers were upset in proportion as their physicians were satisfied. Quickly, the European packers began discovering ever higher “standards” of health — at least as applied to imported meat — and European governments responded by reimposing import restrictions. The American meat industry felt it had no other choice but escalating its own compulsory inspection — as the minuet of ever higher and hypocritical standards continued. The Department of Agriculture inspected more and more meat and maintained dozens of inspection stations. In 1895, the department was able to get Congress to strengthen meat inspection enforcement. By 1904, the Bureau of Animal Industry was inspecting 73% of the entire U.S. beef kill.3

The big problem for the large packers was their smaller competitors, who were able to avoid government inspection. This meant that their smaller rivals were outside the attempted cartelization and benefited by the advantage of being able to ship uninspected meat. To succeed, the cartel had to be extended to, and imposed upon, the small packers.

Continue reading…

From Mises.org, here.

In America the Central Bank Still Feigns Independence, Hah…

Bill Dudley’s Noble Lie

By 

Ron Paul Institute

September 10, 2019

Former Federal Reserve official Bill Dudley’s recent op-ed calling for the Federal Reserve to implement policies that will damage President Trump’s reelection campaign states that such action would be unprecedented. Dudley claims the Federal Reserve bases its policies solely on an objective evaluation of economic conditions. This is an example of a so-called noble lie — a fiction told by elites to the masses supposedly for the people’s own good, but really designed to maintain popular support for policies that benefit the elites. Dudley’s noble lie is designed to bolster a rapidly (and deservedly) eroding trust in the Federal Reserve. The truth is the Federal Reserve has always been influenced by, and has always tried to influence, politics.

President George H.W. Bush and other members of his administration blamed his 1992 defeat on then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s refusal to reduce interest rates. Greenspan was more cooperative with Bush’s successor, Bill Clinton. Lloyd Bentsen, Clinton’s first Treasury secretary, wrote in his autobiography that the Clinton administration and the Federal Reserve had a “gentleman’s agreement” regarding support for each other’s policies. Greenspan also boosted President George W. Bush’s “ownership society” agenda by lowering interest rates after 9-11 and the collapse of the tech bubble, thus creating a housing bubble.

Ben Bernanke, Greenspan’s successor, facilitated both Bush W. Bush and Barack Obama’s bailouts, “stimulus” spending, and massive welfare-warfare spending with record-low interest rates and quantitative easing. Speculation that the Fed was keeping interest rates low during the 2016 presidential campaign in order to help Hillary Clinton was fueled by the revelation that a Federal Reserve governor donated to Clinton’s campaign.

Presidents have always tried to influence the Fed — usually pushing for lower rates to (temporally) boost the economy. President Richard Nixon was recorded joking with then-Fed Chair Arthur Burns about Fed independence. President Lyndon Johnson shoved Fed Chair William Martin against a wall after an interest rate increase. Johnson’s frustration may have been because he realized that the success or failure of his guns and butter policies was largely out of Johnson’s control. The success or failure of presidents’ agendas is often determined by a secretive central bank’s manipulations of the money supply. No wonder presidents spend so much time trying to influence the Fed.

The Fed’s history of influencing, and being influenced by, presidents is one more reason why Congress should pass the Audit the Fed bill. Auditing the Fed is supported by almost 75 percent of Americans across the political spectrum, including such leading progressives as Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard.

My Campaign for Liberty is leading a major push to get a majority of Congress members to cosponsor Audit the Fed in order to pressure House and Senate leadership to hold a vote on the bill. The American people have had enough of noble lies about the Federal Reserve. It is time for truth; it is time to audit the Fed.

From LRC, here.

Is Planned Obsolescence a Government-Granted Monopoly, a Sign of Our Wealth, or an Illusion?

One of our readers writes:

Alas, they, like I think the majority of corporate entities, feel that it is cheaper to maintain the appearance of quality through creative editing, marketing, positioning, etc, than to, in fact, maintain quality. Yes, I distrust companies.

Even my ‘Free Range’ expensive beef is no longer as soft as it was when it was first introduced a couple of years ago.

A relative’s original Braille watch lasted 14 years. The last 3 Braille watches (four, really, if you include the fact they replaced one and it, too, broke) lasted 1 year, 1 month, and 1 week, respectively.

It is my disappointment that companies have the calculus that the appearance of quality costs much less than real quality.

I believe this fits into the category of “Vatimaleh ha’aretz chamas”, as I understand Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch’s definition.

Ad kan.

Well, I say planned obsolescence is mostly an illusion, (and the majority of the rest – see this about appliances – is probably neutral, though government obstacles to new businesses surely contribute to the entrenchment of poor companies. Most customers want to buy things cheaper now, and then buy a replacement with new features later). And Rabbi Hirsch is misread.

Here’s a surprisingly insightful piece of original research in Wikipedia on “Survivorship Bias” (subtitles deleted):

A commonly held opinion in many populations is that machinery, equipment, and goods manufactured in previous generations often is better built and lasts longer than similar contemporary items. (This perception is reflected in the common expression “They don’t make ’em [them] like they used to”). Again, because of the selective pressures of time and use, it is inevitable that only those items which were built to last will have survived into the present day. Therefore, most of the old machinery still seen functioning well in the present day must necessarily have been built to a standard of quality necessary to survive. All of the machinery, equipment, and goods that have failed over the intervening years are no longer visible to the general population as they have been junked, scrapped, recycled, or otherwise disposed of.

Though survivorship bias may explain a significant portion of the common perception that older manufacturing processes were more rigorous, there are other processes that may explain that perception, such as planned obsolescence and overengineering. It is difficult to directly compare and determine whether manufacturing has become overall better or worse. Manufactured goods are constantly changing, the same items are rarely built for more than a single generation, and even the raw materials change from one era to the next. Capabilities and processes in materials science, technology, manufacturing, and testing have all advanced immensely since the 20th century, undoubtedly raising the potential for similar increases in durability, but pressures on production costs and time have also increased, resulting in manufacturing shortcuts that often result in less durable products. Overall, the contemporary consumer probably has access to and experiences a much wider range of product durability than past generations. Again, bias arises from the fact that historical goods of poor quality are no longer visible, and only the best produced items of the past survive to today.

Just as new buildings are being built every day and older structures are constantly torn down, the story of most civil and urban architecture involves a process of constant renewal, renovation, and revolution. Only the most (subjectively, but popularly determined) beautiful, most useful, and most structurally sound buildings survive from one generation to the next. This creates another selection effect where the ugliest and weakest buildings of history have long been eradicated from existence and thus the public view, and so it leaves the visible impression, seemingly correct but factually flawed, that all buildings in the past were both more beautiful and better built.

Read more on Wikipedia here.

Ceasing Large Denomination Banknotes Is PART of the ‘War on Cash’

Banning Cash

By 

March 21, 2012

Under cover of its multiplicity of fabricated wars on drugs, terror, tax evasion, and organized crime, the US government has long been waging a hidden war on cash. One symptom of the war is that the largest denomination of US currency is the $100 note, whose ever-eroding purchasing power is far below the purchasing power of the €500 note. US currency used to be issued in denominations running up to $10,000 (including also $500; $1,000; $5,000 notes). There was even a $100,000 note issued for transactions among Federal Reserve banks. The United States stopped printing large denomination notes in 1945 and officially discontinued their issuance in 1969, when the Fed began removing them from circulation. Since then the largest currency note available to the general public has a face value of $100. But since 1969, the inflationary monetary policy of the Fed has caused the US dollar to depreciate by over 80 percent, so that a $100 note in 2010 possessed a purchasing power of only $16.83 in 1969 dollars. That is less purchasing power than a $20 bill in 1969!

Despite this enormous depreciation, the Federal Reserve has steadfastly refused to issue notes of larger denomination. This has made large cash transactions extremely inconvenient and has forced the American public to make much greater use than is optimal of electronic-payment methods. Of course, this is precisely the intent of the US government. The purpose of its ongoing breach of long-established laws regarding financial privacy is to make it easier to monitor the economic affairs and abrogate the financial privacy of its citizens, ostensibly to secure their safety from Colombian drug lords, Al Qaeda operatives, and tax cheats and other nefarious white-collar criminals

Now the war on cash has begun to spread to other countries. As reported a few months ago, Italy lowered the legal maximum on cash transactions from €2,500 to €1,000. The Italian government would have preferred to set a €500 or even €300 maximum limit but reasoned that it should permit Italians time to adjust to the new limit. The rationale for this limit on the size of cash transactions is the fact that the profligate Italian government is trying to reduce its €1.9 trillion debt and views its anticash measures as a means of cracking down on tax evasion, which “costs” the government an estimated €150 billion annually.

The profligacy of the Italian ruling class is in sharp contrast to ordinary Italians who are the least indebted consumers in the eurozone and among its biggest savers. They use their credit cards very infrequently compared to citizens of other eurozone nations. So deeply ingrained is cash in the Italian culture that over 7.5 million Italians do not even have checking accounts. Now most of these “bankless” Italians will be dragooned into the banking system so that the notoriously corrupt Italian government can more easily spy on them and invade their financial privacy. Of course Italian banks, which charge 2 percent on credit-card transactions and assess fees on current accounts, stand to earn an enormous windfall from this law. As controversial former prime minister Berlusconi noted, “There’s a real danger of crossing over into a fiscal police state.” Indeed, one only need look at the United States today to see what lies in store for Italian citizens.

Meanwhile, the war on cash in Sweden is accelerating, although the involvement of the state is less overt. In Swedish cities, cash is no longer acceptable on public buses; tickets must be purchased in advance or via a cell-phone text message. Many small businesses refuse cash, and some bank facilities have completely stopped handling cash. Indeed in some Swedish towns it is no longer possible to use cash in a bank at all. Even churches have begun to facilitate electronic donations from their congregations by installing electronic card readers. Cash transactions represent only 3 percent of the Swedish economy, while they account for 9 percent of the eurozone and 7 percent of the US economies.

A leading proponent of the anticash movement is none other than Bjorn Ulvaeus, former member of the pop group ABBA. The dotty pop star, whose son has been robbed three times, believes that a cashless world means greater security for the public! Others, more perceptive than Ulvaeus, point to another alleged advantage of electronic transactions: they leave a digital trail that can be readily followed by the state. Thus, unlike countries with a strong “cash culture” like Greece and Italy, Sweden has a much lower incidence of graft. As one “expert” on underground economies instructs us, “If people use more cards, they are less involved in shadowy economy activities,” in other words, secreting their hard-earned income in places where it cannot be plundered by the state.

The deputy governor of the Swedish central bank, Lars Nyberg, gloated before his retirement last year that cash will survive “like the crocodile, even though it may be forced to see its habitat gradually cut back.” But not everyone in Sweden is celebrating the dethronement of cash. The chairman of Sweden’s National Pensioners’ Organization argues that elderly people in rural areas either do not have credit or debit cards or do not know how to use them to withdraw cash. Oscar Swartz, the founder of Sweden’s first Internet provider, a supporter of the phasing out of cash, argues that without the adoption of anonymous payment methods, people who send money and make donations to various organizations can be “traced every time.” But, of course, what the artless Mr. Swartz does not see is that this is the whole point of a cashless economy – to make even the most intimate economic affairs of private citizens transparent to the state and its fiscal and monetary apparatchiks, who themselves hate and fear transparency like vampires do sunlight. And then there are the benefits that accrue to the government-privileged banking system from the demise of cash. One Swedish small businessman shrewdly noted the connection. While he gets charged 5 kronor (80¢) for every credit-card transaction, he is prevented by law from passing this on to his customers. In his words, “For them (the banks), this is a very good way to earn a lot of money, that’s what it’s all about. They make huge profits.”

Fortunately, the free market provides the prospect of an escape from the fiscal police state that seeks to stamp out the use of cash through either depreciation of central-bank-issued currency combined with unchanged currency denominations or direct legal limitation on the size of cash transactions. As Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian School of economics explained over 140 years ago, money emerges not by government decree but through a market process driven by the actions of individuals who are continually seeking a means to accomplish their goals through exchange most efficiently. Every so often history offers up another example that illustrates Menger’s point. The use of sheep, bottled water, and cigarettes as media of exchange in Iraqi rural villages after the US invasion and collapse of the dinar is one recent example. Another example was Argentina after the collapse of the peso, when grain contracts (for wheat, soybeans, corn, and sorghum) priced in dollars were regularly exchanged for big-ticket items like automobiles, trucks, and farm equipment. In fact, Argentine farmers began hoarding grain in silos to substitute for holding cash balances in the form of depreciating pesos.

As has been widely reported recently, an unlikely crime wave has rapidly spread throughout the United States and has taken local law-enforcement officials by surprise. The theft of Tide liquid laundry detergent is pandemic throughout cities in the United States. One individual alone stole $25,000 worth of Tide detergent during a 15-month crime spree, and large retailers are taking special security measures to protect their inventories of Tide. For example, CVS is locking down Tide alongside commonly stolen items like flu medications. Liquid Tide retails for $10–$20 per bottle and sells on the black market for $5–$10. Individual bottles of Tide bear no serial numbers, making them impossible to track. So some enterprising thieves operate as arbitrageurs buying at the black-market price and reselling to the stores, presumably at the wholesale price. Even more puzzling is the fact that no other brand of detergent has been targeted.

What gives here? This is just another confirmation of Menger’s insight that the market responds to the absence of sound money by monetizing highly salable commodities. It is clear that Tide has emerged as a subsidiary local currency for black-market, especially drug, transactions – but for legal transactions in low-income areas as well. Indeed police report that Tide is being exchanged for heroin and methamphetamine and that drug dealers possess inventories of the commodity that they are also willing to sell. But why is laundry detergent being employed as money, and why Tide in particular?

Menger identified the qualities that a commodity must possess in order to evolve into a medium of exchange. Tide possesses most of these qualities in ample measure. For a commodity to emerge as money out of barter, it must be widely used, readily recognizable, and durable. It must also have a relatively high value-to-weight ratio so that it can be easily transported. Tide is the most popular brand of laundry detergent and is widely used by all socioeconomic groups. Tide also is easily recognized because of its Day-Glo orange logo. Laundry detergent can also be stored for long periods without loss of potency or quality. It is true that Tide is somewhat bulky and inconvenient to transport by hand in large quantities. But enough can be carried by hand or shopping cart for smaller transactions while large quantities can easily be transported and transferred using automobiles.

Just like the highly publicized war on drugs that the US government has been waging – and losing – for decades, it is doomed to lose its surreptitious war on cash, because the free market can and will respond to the demand of ordinary citizens for a reliable and convenient money.

From LRC, here.

Why Did Hebrew ‘Religious’ Media Slander Rabbi Amnon Yitzchak – DECADES Before His Political Run?

Popular Rabbi: The Shin Bet Deems Me More Dangerous Than Terrorists: An Interview with Rav Amnon Yitzhak

By Tzvi Fishman –
Rav Amnon Yitzhak

Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak, a controversial “baal teshuvah rabbi” whose lively appearances pack stadiums in Israel, is coming to New York for an evening of Torah on June 25 at the Master Theater on Brighton Beach Avenue. The Jewish Press spoke to him in advance of his visit.

The Jewish Press: I’m sure many of our readers would like to know why you dress the way you do.

Rabbi Yitzhak: Two reasons: 1) to follow the laws of modesty according to the custom of my Yemenite ancestors; 2) to protest the crime the secular Zionists committed in the early years of the state of Israel when they stripped Yemenite immigrants of their traditional garb and cut off their peyot.

You did not grow up observant. What sparked your path of teshuvah?

One day when I was 24 years old, I visited my parents in their home in Tel Aviv. As I gazed at their bookcase, an unexpected memory popped into my head. I remembered that at my bar mitzvah, someone gave me a book instead of a check. And sure enough, on the shelf was the gift, Kitzur Shulchan Aruch – a book I had never opened before.

On the very first page it is written: “‘I have set the L-rd always before me’ – this is a cardinal principle of the Torah and a fundamental rule among the righteous who walk before the L-rd… as it is said: ‘Can a man hide himself in secret places that I cannot see him?’”

Immediately, a spirit of teshuvah filled my being with the recognition that Hashem views all of our deeds. From that moment on, I studied all the books on Judaism I could find. For several years, when I wasn’t sleeping or catching a quick bite to eat, I would learn with a never-ending enthusiasm.

How did you go from learning to teaching?

The learning never stops. In fact, teaching is the best way to learn. One day, a neighbor asked me a question about Judaism, and he enjoyed my answer so much that he invited me to meet with some people from the neighborhood to answer their questions as well.

That’s how it all started – from one chug bayit to the next, one synagogue shiur after the other, one packed hall after the next, until I became known as the “baal teshuvah rabbi.” I discovered that there were myriads of people who needed to activate their spiritual batteries. After attending a single lecture, literally thousands were inspired to start their own journeys of return.

How did you keep your own batteries charged?

After years of my teshuvah and kiruv work, I took a break to concentrate on my own learning. I sat in the Chazon Ish Kollel in Bnei Brak and studied diligently for several years under the tutelage of HaRav HaGaon Yehuda Shapira, of blessed memory, meriting to be his disciple and aide for 26 years.

He was a special tzaddik, a master of Jewish law, with a keen understanding of the world. The Steipler conferred with him on certain halachic questions, and Rav Shach would ask his advice on certain matters as well.

When I founded the Shofar Organization, Rav Shapira agreed to act as president. When I started making public appearances again, small auditoriums couldn’t hold the crowds. So we began to rent large auditoriums – and then soccer and basketball stadiums – in city after city throughout the country.

We were on the road for three decades. We distributed massive amounts of my audio cassettes and 22 million CDs for free. With our videos on YouTube and our programs on Shofar TV, we touched the lives of millions of Jews.

Why do you think your lectures have been so successful? What about your message do you think grabs people?

Its clarity and sharpness, without unnecessary embellishment, spiced with humor and a willingness to call a spade a spade. The public was attracted by truths it hadn’t heard before, told in a straightforward style, heart to heart, and backed by intellectual argument and sound reason.

In almost all of your appearances, you invite men up to the stage to put on a kippah, and weeping women eagerly volunteer to wear a head covering for the first time. It seems too perfect to be true.

Most of the time, these people have listened to my tapes and watched our videos before coming to a lecture. Their hearts have already been awakened by Torah. When they see me live at a lecture with 10,000 other people like them, the group energy is the jolt of electricity they need to light up their darkness and spark a new beginning.

You have often spoken about the dangers of television and the Internet. Yet, you yourself use media to bring people closer to the Torah.

Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. After our appearances continued to fill auditoriums and stadiums in city after city, the secular media initiated a smear campaign against me. They feared our success in returning thousands to Judaism would alter the demographics in the country and threaten the rule of the secular elite. Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shabak, stated: “Rav Amnon Yitzhak represents a greater threat to Medinat Yisrael than the terror waged against us.”

So, following the advice of HaRav HaGaon Yehuda Shapira, zt”l, we used their own weapons against them, as it says: “And he snatched the spear from the hand of the Egyptian, and he killed him with his own spear” (II Samuel 23:21). Through the Internet and TV, we succeeded in entering every home in Israel, turning teshuvah into a nationwide trend.

Not everyone in Israel has started to grow long peyos, though.

Not everyone, not yet. Nevertheless, with all of the secular Zionists’ opposition to the teshuvah movement, it has flowered in every corner.

A few years ago, you formed a political party but didn’t win enough votes to enter the Knesset.

As is widely known, I don’t vote in Israel’s elections, neither Knesset nor municipal council elections, and I don’t encourage others to vote either. However, HaRav Sheinman, of blessed memory, told me, “If a person has the power, it is a mitzvah to rescue others.”

So after we saw that voter surveys predicted we would receive eight or nine seats in the Knesset, we formed a party and started to campaign.

Why don’t you vote?

When I started appearing before the public, I asked the gaon, HaRav Shmuel Wosner, of blessed memory, what to answer people who ask me whom to vote for. He told me it was best not to take a stand. His counsel has guided me until today.

Additionally, political candidates don’t act according to their promises. Instead, they make compromises to preserve their seats in the Knesset – even if it means betraying the people who voted for them.

What were you hoping to achieve in the Knesset?

To help guide government policy from the inside by using our Knesset representation to influence decision-makers and by having information from inside sources close to me – things the general public don’t know. That way, I could analyze issues in a truthful manner without the political considerations, compromises, and deals that characterize politics.

Unfortunately, instead of fighting Yair Lapid, the Shas Party put all of its efforts into besmirching me out of fear that it would lose its monopoly over the Sefardi community. It did everything it could to sabotage our campaign, conveniently forgetting that I had aided its success in a substantial manner by influencing tens of thousands of Sefardi voters to return to Torah observance, with the help of Heaven.

The story is widely known and recorded in documentary films. Even after the elections, its incitement against me continued in a poisonous campaign of hatred and slander until HaRav HaGaon Yaacov Yosef, the son of HaRav Ovadia, of blessed memories, told them that they were “spilling blood in a witch hunt of slander without trial, and trampling on many prohibitions of the Torah.”

All because of jealously?

It begins with the fire of jealousy, and then the lust for power and honor and the obsession to control the monies that government coalition members have access to becomes all-consuming. We became anathema to the existing religious establishment when it saw that the public – including tens of thousands of Sefardi Jews – were attracted to my brand of Avodat Hashem in a way that hadn’t occurred before in Israel, surpassing all other efforts combined and sparking an unparalleled wave of teshuvah without any political connections or funding or connection to any charedi community.

If you look through the newspapers of the charedi and daticommunities for a span of several decades, you won’t find a favorable article on our success in any one of them even though we filled stadiums time and again with people hungry for a more inspiring understanding of Torah than they had encountered before. Secular newspaper chronicled the phenomena at length, but to the Torah monopoly in Israel, Amnon Yitzhak didn’t exist.

To my great chagrin, many young people in the charedi world have stumbled away from the path of Torah, and there is no one in the community who knows how to stand in the breach and prevent them from falling. These unfortunate souls don’t have a spiritual figure who can give them the advice they need, yet across the street we are lighting up the lives of people who are as distant from Torah as you can get, literally changing their lives in an evening – something you can witness at every lecture.

What do you think is causing the ever-increasing assimilation and alienation from Judaism throughout the world?

The biggest factor is the mega-expansion of the media – computers, Internet, smartphones, and the like – which are available to everyone, and the sudden exposure to all the impure cultures and temptations in the world along with spurious philosophies of life, which seduce people with their glib, intellectual, and seemingly rational façade.

All of this frightening bilbul (confusion) is only a click away. A person no longer has to disguise himself and sneak off to another city to satisfy his passions. Things that were considered forbidden in the past are accepted as the norm today.

Even if there are rabbis in the charedi world who possess the skills to save people from this tidal wave of pollution, they choose to keep themselves cloistered, for understandable reasons, in their sheltered ghettos, leaving the nation’s sheep to wander without a shepherd who knows how to relate to them in the proper manner to bring them back to the fold.

The Chatam Sofer explains in the introduction to his Responsa on Yoreh De’ah that Avraham Avinu was unique in that, with miserut nefesh and lack of concern for his own spiritual standing, he went out to the world, day and night, to save mankind from the falsehood of idolatry – a model of the Torah educator so lacking today.

What does it profit the world if a rabbi works on himself in the confines of his home until he becomes a great tzaddik and turns into an angel while the rest of mankind turns into beasts? Hashem has enough angels in his celestial abode.

Noach also was an outstanding servant of Hashem, but he was a private tzaddik. The flood was threatening his wayward generation, but he lacked the right style and language to relate to them. In the end, he could only save himself and his family.

Avraham is Avraham because he didn’t think of himself. He was driven to enhance the glory of G-d in the world and to make known His Kingship over all of the earth, even if it meant closing the Gemara to bring the distant closer to the word of Holy One Blessed Be He. The greatness of Avraham derives from his readiness to place the needs of the klal over his personal righteousness. Since we’re Avraham’s offspring, that’s the path that should guide us all.

Reprinted from The Jewish Press.

Tzvi Fishman is a recipient of the Israel Ministry of Education Award for Creativity and Jewish Culture. His many novels and books on a variety of Jewish themes are available at Amazon Books, including four commentaries on the teachings of Rabbi Kook. Recently, he has published “Arise and Shine!” and “The Lion’s Roar” – 2 sequels to his popular novel, “Tevye in the Promised Land.” In Israel, the Tevye trilogy is distributed by Sifriyat Bet-El Publishing. He is also the director and producer of the feature film, “Stories of Rebbe Nachman,” starring Israel’s popular actor, Yehuda Barkan. He can be contacted via his website: www.tzvifishmanbooks.com