העורך Editor

Are the Best Things in Life Free?

First of all, who cares? We make money because we have goals beyond our individual lives.
And the adage is false to boot if you count the opportunity cost of time and effort. Achieving love, friendship, and health does demand some money (friends are acquired with gifts, Rabbi Bartenura “וקנה לך חבר”, wives must be supported, אסיא דמגן במגן…) and also much time and thought.
In that sense, the best things in life are emphatically NOT free.

Rabbi Sternbuch – Charedi Establishment Personified

The opening of Rabbi Sternbuch’s letter is the very concentrate of Charedi wickedness.

(I keep delaying this post until I get the time to understand and comment on the rest of the epistle, but I don’t know when that will be. I assume the rest doesn’t weaken the message of the start. And better something than nothing.)

I quote and comment:

אודות מה שמערערים לאחרונה על העופות שכל בית ישראל אוכלים זה עשרות שנים בכל מקומות מושבותיהם…
הנה ראשית דבר, כיון שנהגו כל בית ישראל – ובכללם גם גדולי וצדיקי עולם – לאכול את העופות המקובלים אצלינו, זה לכשעצמו כבר מספיק בכדי להכשיר את העופות, וחס ושלום מלפקפק על כל עם ישראל ועל גדולים וצדיקים במשך הרבה שנים ולומר שכולם נכשלו באכילת עוף טמא, ודבר זה עדיף גם ממסורת, ועל כן אין לנו להיכנס במשא ומתן האם העופות כשרים או לא, אלא אם באנו לדון אין לנו אלא לדון מדוע הם כשרים, אך המציאות בוודאי ברורה שכלל ישראל כולו בכל מקומות מושבותיהם בראשות גדולי וצדיקי עולם לא נכשלו באכילת עופות טמאים.

Has all Klal Yisra’el never sinned?! No rabbi is so ignorant as to imagine such a thing.

To be clear, I don’t have a handle on the Halachic truth on the Braekel chickens myself, nor did I read the rest of the letter. But that’s not the issue here. The issue is Rabbi Sternbuch and his heretical meta-Halachic axiology.

Nor is he alone; if only (Halevai)! Rabbi Sternbuch is to the Charedi establishment what the foolish child is to his parents in the old joke.

Which joke?

There’s a knock on the door. The child opens the door and tells his parents who’s there. The parents respond with one voice: That unkind, ugly nudge? Tell her we’re not home. And the child innocently tells the neighbor: My parents said you are unkind and ugly and a nudge and also to tell you they aren’t home…

R’ S. might be right in every single Halacha, both here and elsewhere (for argument’s sake). But when someone says so explicitly his highest ideal is not the search for God’s truth but the preservation of the false pride of human inerrability, he is calling himself a liar. Why should we then trust one word he has to say? And he seems to have hinted at this in previous works as well. How are Sternbuch’s “Buchs” (Yiddish: books) – at least from the Chazakah onward, any different from those written by Arnold Ehrlich, Louis Jacobs, Shlomo Aviner, and so on?!

Here is the full epistle:

Download (PDF, 206KB)

At least Rabbi Sternbuch is consistent. His defense of women’s wigs (“Das Vehalachah“) was just as intellectually dishonest and bereft, and it was written for the exact same reason as the above on fowl Masores; Rabbi Ovadia Yosef had prohibited an action customary among many Jews, especially in Rabbi Sternbuch’s community. This was the same thinking behind the book he wrote attacking “Heter Mechira” – his own community had not accepted it. The truth in Hashem’s eyes was never relevant. It never is with these people.

The fact Jews have done XYZ is neither equivalent nor greater than the concept of “Masores” in Yoreh De’ah, no matter the numbers or the purported unknowability of the prohibition involved. This is utter ignorance.
R’ S. goes on to say it gives Hashem great pleasure His sons do not sin:
ומבואר בזוה”ק שבשעה שהשטן בא לקטרג שעם ישראל חוטאים, אומרים לו הבא עדים, והוא יורד למטה ומביא מה ששומע מרבנים המקטרגים על ישראל, ולכן ראוי לנו לפרסם האמת שאין כאן נדנוד חשש, והקב”ה נהנה שבניו לא חטאו.
Presumably, this is also true of Jews overcoming their sinful desire to lie about their other sins so as to disable the general Mitzvah of Teshuvah…
Enough for now.
For a similar post about the worst enemies of Judaism: current rabbis, that is, please see this link.

Ten Facts about Hyehudi You May Have Missed

  1. Our About page is non-descriptive, I mean hardly descriptive, even undescriptive (and nondescript, too).
  2. “This is not a news site“; we keep it unpredictable. We try to discuss the upcoming Parsha or Holiday.
  3. The editor wishes you would all copy him and start your own, competing playgroup. Until then, please send us your articles (especially in English)!
  4. Our site theme (skin) is free: Lifestyle, by themehit.com. For now, anyway.
  5. Some of our content, is, pssst, controversial…
  6. It’s not your VPN/ad blocker/internet filter/old computer; we do abjure ads (and refuse donations). Send us good Jewish readers instead.
  7. Rafi Farber endorsed us. Yes! For real!
  8. I try to schedule the day’s articles for Nine AM.
  9. Who is our intended reader? Read this.
  10. We don’t discuss the Beis Hamikdash nearly as deeply as I wish.

Linking Sins and Negative Events

  1. Important event X occurs (be it a common tragedy or a one-time affair).
  2. Rabbi Y says X is punishment for doing/not doing Z (Rabbi Shach, Rabbi Steinman, Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi).
  3. Some Jews mock the rabbi; how does he know?
Here’s my point of view:
When prophets explained the ultimate cause of events it was prophecy. When Chazal explained events it was Ru’ach Hakodesh. This is not exactly theodicy. It’s not “how could it happen?” but “why did it happen?”
When this sort of explanation is used today, it’s not meant as Ru’ach Hakodesh of the event itself but as the observance of a practical, personal Mitzvah to think certain thoughts and utter certain words which will, in turn, have a positive effect upon the Mitzvah observance of that person and /or those whom he influences, as the case may be (my only complaint is I would invariably mention some other Mitzvah).
But the Y speakers sound confident?
I posit that’s confidence in the importance of Z and confidence in Teshuvah in general.

Per Dr. Yeshayahu Leibowitz (and my own epistemology), we don’t know anything at all about Hashem. Rather, we make choices with our free will. Since man was created with an obvious tendency to seek explanations of what occurs to him, we are commanded to self-assuredly imagine the cosmic theories of events which cause us to do additional Mitzvos. Individual and national imputations of Divine Providence were never meant to be anything else.

And, just like the rest of religion, this is not a scientific hypothesis!
Brachos 5a:
אמר רבא ואיתימא רב חסדא אם רואה אדם שיסורין באין עליו יפשפש במעשיו…
This is especially the case for leaders (be they the right leaders or not).
Rambam Ta’anios 1:3:

אבל אם לא יזעקו ולא יריעו אלא יאמרו דבר זה ממנהג העולם אירע לנו וצרה זו נקרה נקרית הרי זו דרך אכזריות וגורמת להם להדבק במעשיהם הרעים ותוסיף הצרה צרות אחרות הוא שכתוב בתורה והלכתם עמי בקרי והלכתי עמכם בחמת קרי כלומר כשאביא עליכם צרה כדי שתשובו אם תאמרו שהוא קרי אוסיף לכם חמת אותו קרי.

This doesn’t mean we get the specifics right, but the general lesson is certainly correct.
Shabbos 55a:

אמר רב אמי אין מיתה בלא חטא ואין יסורין בלא עון…

And again, those who mock this (unless they are speaking to “philosophical listeners” alone) are encouraging Torah law-breaking, be they right or wrong. The fact there are so many such individuals in our time should not be surprising, of course.
Maybe this is the intention of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Chayei Moharan 454:
אמר: עוד יהיה זמן שמי שיהיה כשר פשוט יהיה חידוש גדול כמו הבעל שם טוב.
Update:
Hours after writing this, I met someone vexed by a related topic and summarized this article for him (amazing Hashgacha Pratis, right…?).
So he asked me: What about Emunah?
I Answered: Emunah is, in fact, another Mitzvah. We aren’t Cursedians with beliefs/dogmas, upon which rest commandments (although, in truth, they have no “commandments” as such).