חנניה ווייסמאן Chananya Weissman

Serious Tanach Study Is Almost Entirely Neglected in the Orthodox World Today

What’s Pshat?

This week’s Torah class is a fundamental lesson on “pshat”, which is the subject of much confusion.  The recording is available here.
Serious Tanach study is almost entirely neglected in the Orthodox world today.  Most people still understand Tanach on the level of a 10-year old, which is approximately when the cookie-cutter yeshiva they attended transferred them to the Gemara assembly line.
Why is it this way? Because it’s good PR for the yeshivas, and more impressive for a Bar Mitzvah boy, a little pisher, to read a complex pilpul that someone else wrote for him than something more suitable for his age and level.  And, of course, long term it’s better for shidduchim.  No one’s impressed by someone studying Chumash and Rashi (even though that’s exactly what the Chafetz Chaim was “caught” doing) and, at the end of the day, it’s all about impressing people.
That’s not the official reason it’s done this way, but it’s the truth.
And it’s a disaster.
Maybe a long time ago it was an eis la’asos and Tanach study needed to be put a little bit on the back burner.  But it’s a disaster today, on many levels.  It was never intended for Jews to be functionally illiterate when it comes to Tanach, or to permanently relate to it on a child’s level.
I have a lot to say about this.  My first year learning in Israel I was in the highest Gemara shiur and I hated it.  I confided in my night seder Rebbe, who I was close with, that we were sitting and learning Gemara all day, but I didn’t even know Chumash and Rashi.
We started a seder together in Chumash and Rashi, and I continued learning all of Tanach on my own.  It bothered me that I didn’t know Tanach.  It didn’t bother anyone else in the yeshiva, and presumably they still never bothered to open the books written by our greatest prophets.
The yeshiva was not happy with me.  I dropped out of the shiur, didn’t join another one, did my own thing, and almost got thrown out because of it.  I got into more trouble for carving out my own learning program (which included Gemara) than people who got drunk every night and fooled around, because what I was doing was dangerous to them.  I was succeeding, and I wasn’t doing it their way.  That’s an existential threat.
The same story repeated itself my second year in Israel in a different yeshiva, and in Yeshiva University.  I was told by two prominent rabbis, one in Israel and one in YU, that studying Tanach was bittul Torah.  Yes, they uttered those words.
Someone in my family, a young woman in her twenties, recently spoke proudly about how she is learning Gemara.  She later asked me in all seriousness what the big deal is about Rashi’s commentary on Chumash.  After all, she said, all he does is quote Midrashim.  She wasn’t being disrespectful, she geuninely didn’t know.
This is progress?  This is education?
For the last two years Erev Rav have been able to get away with telling people that we have to do whatever doctors say, because a pasuk says that doctors can and should heal.  They take a simple pasuk, twist it in ways that would make even a Karaite blush, and yeshiva-educated Jews have no idea how badly they are being played.
Then yeshiva-educated people, people with semicha themselves who give Torah classes, tell me in all seriousness that we have to do whatever “the rabbis” say, because of a pasuk that says we cannot veer to the right or left of what the judge tells us.  No context, no boundaries, no explanation.
Of course, this is a complete distortion (I wrote about it here and spoke about it here), but these people understand Tanach about as much as a Christian with his King James Bible.  So the pasuk says, that’s the pshat, end of story.  Go take the shot and jump off the cliff if they say so.
So yes, it matters if people are ignorant of Tanach, even if they can dazzle you with a brilliant dissection of a line of Gemara twelve different ways, which will make no practical difference in anyone’s life, except when it comes to fundraising for the yeshiva and getting the “best” shidduchim.
So Tanach has been left for children, pseudo-intellectuals who have no respect for Chazal, Bible critics, and missionaries. Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest of all men, apparently wrote three books that have nothing important to teach us.  The Rishonim wasted their time writing commentaries when they could have been learning even more Gemara.  And we should just keep the assembly line moving as it is, because maybe we will churn out a few more Talmudic scholars, even if everyone else gets turned off to Judaism, even if many of those who stick around are cold and hollow inside and just go through the motions of “being frum” in observable ways.  A little Tanach learned properly wouldn’t solve all their problems — our problems run very deep — but it would go a long way.
I have a lot more to say about this, but this is enough for now.  If you can relate to any of this, you will probably enjoy this week’s Torah class.  And if you can’t relate to any of this, you need to listen to this week’s Torah class more than you know, even if it infuriates you, because all the gedolim this, and all the gedolim that.  That’s never true anyway, I don’t care if people are infuriated, never did, and I’m not about to start now.  This needs to be said.
Because it’s tragic for Jewish adults who went through the yeshiva world to be ignorant of Tanach, and even more tragic if they think that’s exactly the way it should be.
The class is available here.

__________________________

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Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Son of Rabbi Yaacov Yosef) Against COVID and ‘Flu’ Shots

Rav Ovadia Yosef Drops a Bomb + New Torah Class

Rav Ovadia Yosef, son of Rav Yaacov Yosef, grandson of the former Chief Rabbi of Israel whose name he bears, has a weekly radio program on which he takes questions from callers.  Two weeks ago a caller brought up the covid and “flu” shots, and the fact that we hear many, many instances of heart attacks, including among children and yeshiva students, the likes of which we never heard of until now.  The caller asked what Rav Yosef had to say about this and all the terrifying things that are happening.
Rav Yosef replied that “shev v’al ta’aseh adif”, which means that in cases of doubt such as these it is better to take no action, rather than actively do something which might cause harm.  He continued that vaccines in general are a positive thing (sigh), but the recent shots were not sufficiently tested, and there are many problems with them.  Therefore, it’s better to take no action — in other words, to refrain from taking the shots.
This is what I and others were shouting from the rooftops from day one, although it’s been a long time since there was any reasonable doubt.  It’s long past time that more rabbis who aren’t actively working for the enemy do justice to their titles, and state in no uncertain terms that these shots are as forbidden as a Zyklon B shower.  (The person who shared this video with me speculated that Rav Yosef has to be very careful about what he says on Israeli public radio, even as he tries to make it clear that people should not take the shots.)
Rav Yosef then added that he knows explicitly that NONE of the grandchildren of Rav Chaim Kanievsky took the shots. He then repeated this emphatically.
The host of the radio program (whose screen must have been flashing “Red Alert!) quickly said that we rely on the instructions of the Ministry of Health, and that of course there is another side to this.
“We are confused,” replied Rav Yosef ambiguously, and they went to the next call.
The clip (in Hebrew) is available here.
On some level it is a bombshell to be told with such certainty, by a rabbi who is in a position to know, that none of Rav Kanievsky’s grandchildren took the shots, when the government and the media they control so heavily leveraged the Kanievsky name to push the accursed shots. Numerous propaganda outlets “reported” the non-existent ruling from Rav Kanievsky.
Of course, they were not actually reporting, but regurgitating what they were given to publish, touching it up a little to make it slightly different from what their colleagues in other propaganda offices were publishing for their targeted populations.  They did not investigate or perform actual journalism; the government fed them information and instructions, and they dutifully “reported” it as fact.
When will any of these “media” outlets report this extremely relevant revelation about Rav Kanievsky’s grandchildren, spoken clearly from a credible source?
When will people who lie for a living become trustworthy?  Never.
The truth is that this charade should never have gotten off the ground.  Contrary to the belief of ignorant masses and dishonest people looking to push an agenda, a tortured one-word reply to a leading question shouted in someone’s ear in a staged video does not constitute a halachic ruling, let alone a ruling that is actually binding on anyone, let alone a ruling that is binding on the entire Jewish people.
In other words, whatever the “media” was reporting in the name of Rav Kanievsky had exactly zero halachic significance.  It was all just a bunch of hot air and rhetoric.
Furthermore, even if, theoretically, all of his grandchildren did take the shots — even if they had an IV drip from the finest German pharmaceutical companies so they could be the first to take every new shot and every new booster for every conceivable medical concern — it would also have exactly zero halachic significance.
Judaism is not a cult.  Those who browbeat people with the recently invented notion of “Da’as Torah”, which has become nothing more than a virtue-signaling, kosherized form of “just following orders”, might as well be idolaters, for it is not Hashem they are serving.
There is a time and place for rabbis to adjudicate matters of doubt and offer guidance — provided that they have acquired the requisite knowledge of the matter, studied the specific question carefully from multiple angles, and arrived at an honest, independent conclusion, which they have substantiated so that they their ruling can be studied and critiqued.
Sometimes these rulings are binding on an individual, and sometimes these rulings are even binding on a community that has empowered the rabbi or local Beis Din to adjudicate for them.
Under no circumstances can a rabbi — even a pious and scholarly rabbi — simply make a declaration as if it is God’s word from Sinai.  Anyone who pretends otherwise is distorting the very foundations of the Torah, and is either a brainwashed cultist or a heretic.  Rabbis who mislead the people in this fashion are evil and should be banished from the community until such time as we have the power to judge them and punish them as they deserve, may it be soon.
So, on the one hand, this revelation from Rav Yosef is very important, because it might wake up some people about how they have been misled, and then maybe more dominoes can fall.
On the other hand, we should all have enough of a true Torah education not to fall for cheap propaganda orchestrated by the Erev Rav establishment, and tailored by phony rabbis placed in positions of influence specifically to mislead the Jewish people.
For a crash course in this fundamental area, I recommend the following material:
Don’t just follow “Da’as Torah”; learn the Torah, really learn it. The more actual knowledge you have, the better equipped you will be to ask intelligent questions, evaluate answers, and tell the difference between a genuine rabbi and a corrupt phony.
When we care enough to acquire the knowledge, we should merit to have genuine rabbis and true Jewish leaders to guide us properly.

__________________________

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Grant a Pandemic AMNESTY?!

Apology Not Accepted

Many public figures who bullied and blackmailed people into taking toxic shots are scrambling for fig leaves. It’s not yet a movement – most continue to act as if they did nothing untoward, let alone abetted a genocidal conspiracy – but it’s definitely a trend.

A recent article in The Atlantic – just another pseudo-intellectual propaganda outlet whose only place is in the bathroom, and not as reading material – called for “a pandemic amnesty”. That’s right, the sort of people who routinely try to destroy others for something they said twenty years ago now want you to forgive and forget what they did to you.

Meanwhile, they aren’t even taking responsibility for their behavior. The most they can manage is that they were misled, maybe even that they were lied to. The experts told them to call you the most malicious names, to terrorize you and your children, to force you to obstruct your breathing and take accursed shots, to denounce you to authorities – everything short of deporting you to a prison camp, and that was in the works, too. They complied without an ounce of hesitation or compassion. They complied with religious fervor and malice.

But they couldn’t have known better. Let it go.

Ben Shapiro expressed outrage at having been lied to – as well he should – but stopped short of taking responsibility for promoting this misinformation to his massive audience in condescending language. Shapiro has every right to defer to whichever expert he chooses to trust in any particular situation, but he has no right to pressure others to surrender their decision-making process to the same expert, or at all. At most he can suggest it and explain why his expert’s opinion should be given more weight than yours. Then we could have an intelligent, respectful discussion, and possibly even convince one another without resorting to abusive tactics.

Unfortunately, he joined the chorus of bullies and blackmailers. This requires real teshuva. Real teshuva means acknowledging one’s guilt, expressing sincere remorse, resolving not to repeat the mistake, taking measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again, and rectifying the damage however possible. Blaming people for lying to you doesn’t cut it.

Shapiro is right that we cannot become experts in everything, and must rely on others to guide us where our knowledge is insufficient. However, there is a big difference between deferring to a plumber’s professional opinion on how to unclog your drain and calling perfectly healthy people dopes for not deferring to the demands of Big Pharma and their stooges. Even a sick person who needs medical intervention is advised to seek multiple opinions (not multiple people who read from the same script, but independent opinions from people with actual knowledge and wisdom).

I don’t believe Ben Shapiro is a bad person, but he made a terrible mistake, and for that he needs to take responsibility. There is no shame in having been misled – I wore a mask and used hand gel in the beginning. The shame is in making excuses and saying you couldn’t have known better – especially when you make a career out of being smarter and more informed than others.

This is especially true when thousands of medical professionals and other informed people were desperately trying to warn everyone about the lies, corruption, and dangers involved with the shots. It is inconceivable that none of this information reached those who are issuing non-apologies today. Did they examine this information with an open mind? Did they consider it at all? Or did they dismiss it out of hand, with jeers?

Why is it that those issuing non-apologies failed to do so until someone from Pfizer itself admitted that they didn’t test their accursed shots for stopping the spread of whatever Covid is? Why was nothing short of an admission of guilt sufficient evidence that something was seriously amiss about the whole thing? Can a rational, intelligent person be called such if nothing else will budge him? Are we really that helpless? Is that the message? What if Pfizer and the criminal “experts” never admitted anything?

The most dangerous aspect of these non-apologies is that they leave the door open for those making them to repeat exactly the same behavior in the future. If they could not possibly have known better last time, then they have no soul-searching to do and nothing to learn from their mistake. Sure, they learned that other people did some very outrageous things, but what’s to stop those who trusted them from continuing to follow “experts” down the path of self-destruction and tyranny next time around?

We cannot be an expert on every subject, but we can ask questions, make informed decisions, and beware of deceitful people – which include “experts” and rabbis. This is, in fact, what the Torah demands of us “regular people”, as I vociferously argued all along. Besides, it’s not like the bad guys were subtle.

There is also a tendency for people to apologize on behalf of those who haven’t even issued non-apologies. It’s a disturbing phenomenon even among those who didn’t fall for the shots.

Trump’s supporters give him a free pass over his key role in promoting the shots, or they bend over backwards to argue that it was a brilliant gambit on his part to thwart something even more sinister. Israeli citizens have been excusing Netanyahu or their sold-out politician of choice because they cannot accept that they are frauds who betrayed them. How easily they fall for someone who says what they want to hear!

The most common excuse they give for the politicians who sold them out is “he didn’t know better”. Seriously? It’s their job to know better. They have all the information and experts at their fingertips, but they couldn’t do better than millions of ordinary people who were bombarded with lies and propaganda? We’re three years into this and they’re still clueless? If that’s the case, what good are they?

That people who saw through the Covid charade can offer such a lame excuse for some of the leaders who pushed it is cognitive dissonance at its finest.

The same holds true for the many prominent rabbis and medical professionals who “didn’t know better” and were “just following the experts”. They don’t get off the hook with that excuse. It’s their job to know better, too, and not just follow anyone. That’s why they get the high positions, salary, and prestige: to get it right when it matters most. People at that level aren’t entitled to make excuses. The buck stops with them.

But they aren’t even making excuses. Their followers, the people who want so desperately to believe in them, are making excuses on their behalf. They are rationalizing for those who aren’t even rationalizing for themselves.

The Torah offers the opportunity for even the greatest of sinners to repent and salvage something positive from all the carnage they caused. But they have to actually repent. Lame excuses don’t cut it, shifting the blame is unacceptable, and no one can make apologies on their behalf.

Everyone who played abetted the tyranny of the last few years – from the demons at the top, to your neighbor who verbally abused you, and everyone in between – has an obligation to repent. They have to take full responsibility for what they did, make amends however possible, and learn from their experience so that they don’t repeat this behavior in the future. (There will be more tests.)

Until then, I don’t want to hear their excuse-laden non-apologies, and I don’t want to hear others rationalizing on their behalf. If we whitewash evil behavior and overlook our own, we guarantee more of the same.

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How Long Before This Is No Longer Satire?!

2022 Yeshiva University Partners with Matchmaking Service

Chananya Weissman

October 9

Yeshiva University is teaming up with a premier matchmaking service to help its students find love. YU’s Center for the Jewish Future (CJF) had previously partnered with matchmaking website Saw You At Sinai. However, in light of recent changes to student demographics and new understandings of Orthodoxy, a bold new vision was needed.

Enter Saw You At Sodom.

“We recognized that many of our students’ needs were not being met,” said Billy Ya’al, Executive Director of Yeshiva University’s new shidduch service. “YU’s partnership with Saw You At Sodom reflects our commitment to equity and diversity.”

But this will be much more than a matchmaking service. The Center for the Jewish Future will be offering a series of workshops to tackle the challenges of finding a partner in today’s complex Orthodox world. Leading rabbis and professionals will explore a wide range of topics, including the following:

  • Should gay people be allowed and encouraged to sit on the other side of the mechitza so they can pray without distractions, like everyone else? Is the old model outdated? A halachic discussion.

  • Is it appropriate to ask out your chavrusa directly, or should you find a shadchan to suggest it? Can shteiging and shtupping go together? A panel discussion.

  • What if a Rebbe/student relationship becomes a different kind of relationship? Are we ready?

  • Gavra or Cheftza: How do you know if there is serious potential or if it’s just for fun? Dating coaches weigh in.

“It’s about time,” said Andrew Lamosya, President of the Student Pride Club. “We deserve the same opportunity to love and be loved, and a partnership with Saw You At Sodom will help right the injustice of matchmaking discrimination on campus.”

We also spoke to several single LGBTQ+ students who wished to remain anonymous for shidduch purposes.

“It’s so hard to meet a good man,” said one gay student. “There just aren’t enough good guys out there. And they all have lists.”

Many students agreed, but were unsure what could be done. “It’s God’s fault,” said one who identified as Orthodox rainbow. “But we’re working to create a larger dating pool for ourselves and our children. With the right education and messaging, the next generation will have it much easier.”

None of YU’s Roshei Yeshiva were available for comment. However, YU’s Office of the President released a statement that all Yeshiva faculty were committed to helping students love their neighbors and be loved – however their bodies and souls desire.

Not all students were satisfied with YU’s partnership with Saw You At Sodom. “They should change the name of RIETS to RIGHTS,” said a rabbinical student. “I’m also tired of hearing about separating sinners from sin. It’s not a sin to exist and to love. It doesn’t say that in the Torah.”

One administrator commented on condition of anonymity. “Some rabbis expressed concern about the changing environment, but there won’t be any serious opposition. We pay their schar in this world.”

Overall, however, there was a celebratory mood on campus. Many students were busy filling out their shidduch profiles. “Mishmar and mishkav zachor,” offered one. “The best of both worlds.”

Considering how the winds are blowing, Yeshiva University and Saw You at Sodom are a perfect shidduch.

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Keep Halacha, and You Might Never Fit in Anywhere. But It’s STILL Worth It

How Halacha is Determined

Many people are confused about how halacha (Jewish law) is determined. There are so many rabbis, so many opinions, so much information, so many divergent camps and ways of thinking. What’s a person to do?

To help make sense of it all, here is a concise overview of the main approaches for determining halacha.

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Method #1: Follow the most lenient or personally convenient opinion in all cases.

Best for: Pretending to be religious; being a menuval birshus haTorah (degenerate with the supposed permission of the Torah); bashing Jews with yiras shamayim (fear of heaven); currying favor with the goyim; eroding Orthodoxy; having your cake and eating it, too.

Pro Tip: If you can’t find lenient opinions, create them. Best done by conferring rabbinic ordination on miscreants for this very purpose, citing them as authorities, creating a precedent, then gradually normalizing what was previously unthinkable.

Warning: Your grandchildren will intermarry, become gay, or boomerang to the other extreme and become super religious.

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Method #2: Follow the strictest opinion in all cases.

Best for: Demonstrating how pious you are; making people uncomfortable; turning children off to Judaism.

Pro Tip: Outdo others who follow this method by inventing new stringencies. Rabbis can distinguish themselves by doing the same. There are always new fears and potential dangers, so the possibilities are limitless.

Warning: Every stringency is lenient in some other area (for example, if you are super strict in preventing licentious behavior, you will make it incredibly difficult for singles to date and marry); your children might write a bestselling book for the secular world about how Judaism is a cult.

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Method #3: Do whatever your social group is doing.

Best for: Playing it safe, being popular, not having to think after you learn the ropes.

Pro Tip: You only have to keep up appearances in public or when certain people are watching. The rest of the time you can chill and do what you want.

Warning: You can only function within the protective confines of your social group; your children will be defenseless against peer pressure; you live in quiet terror of your social group turning against you; you probably took a bunch of poison shots.

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Method #4: Do whatever a certain rabbi says, all the time, no questions asked.

Best for: Never having to think again; never having to take responsibility; winning arguments; feeling smart without having to learn.

Pro Tip: Get a feel for which questions to ask and how to ask them, so you get the answers you want and then piously just follow what the rebbe said.

Warning: Ignorance may be bliss, but being an ignoramus has downsides; when they interrogate you in the next world, “I was just following orders” might not be an acceptable response; it doesn’t always fly in this world either; if you picked the wrong rabbi to make all the decisions for you, you took a bunch of poison shots.

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Method #5: Combine your own learning and understanding with direction from rabbis you know and trust to make informed decisions.

Best for: Taking responsibility for your own soul; navigating new and uncomfortable situations without getting misled by fads, peer pressure, propaganda, and Erev Rav; developing a deep sense of self, while remaining true to Torah and tradition; developing a genuine connection with Hashem; avoiding death shots.

Pro Tip: Don’t lose sight of how little you know, but take a moment once in a while to appreciate how far you’ve come.

Warning: Absent a convenient way to make decisions, you will have to muddle through much of the time; you will have little to no social support; you might never fit in anywhere; you might be ostracized and even persecuted.

Bonus Pro Tip: Keep the big picture in mind. It will all be worth it.

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