Please Read This To Travelling Youngsters!

Caution: Dangerous Substances

By Avraham Dov Greenbaum

Naama Yissachar returned home recently on the Israeli Prime Minister’s plane. This was ostensibly a reason to rejoice: A young woman sitting among criminals in a Russian prison had been set free. Still, it is worthwhile to remember what she had done. No, she did not disseminate Yiddishkeit under cover of darkness, and no, it is not the KGB era. She also did not run a red light and kill someone, chalilah. She “just” served as a courier to transport forbidden substances into Russia. “Just” 9.6 grams of a prohibited drug.

And why is that something that should interest readers of Hamodia — the clean, quality newspaper of chareidi Jewry that usually avoids stories that reflect ugliness and abomination? Because this is not the first time — and possibly not the last — that young people have been caught breaking this law. Prior to Yissachar, there were many incidents that left parents distraught and anguished after their children were caught “just” transporting a few grams, and at this time, there are Israeli bachurim sitting in prisons around the world after being convicted of this crime.

It might happen because of a lack of awareness or willful blindness, and we are addressing this as per the recommendation of Rabbanim and educators who have taken on the challenge to warn people so that others should not fall into the same trap.

It’s very tempting, on the one hand, and challenging on the other. Foolish teenagers tend to fall for temptations. It is big money and not a very big risk. It could cover the costs of their tickets to Lizhensk or Kerestir, and they may even have some change to buy a pack of Marlboros or some Drambuie. All they have to do is take an envelope or a little bag and travel to Warsaw via Belgium/France/Florida/Luxembourg.

You’d have to be a real wimp to forgo such an opportunity. But, more notably, you have to be mature and realistic to say no to such a tantalizing offer: kivrei tzaddikim plus a pidyon nefesh all in one package.

I met Yaakov Yosef Greenwald in the winter of 5773. He had just finished serving more than five years in a Japanese prison. He had traveled to Japan at the age of 17 and returned, battered, at the age of 22, losing his prime years as a bachur in a Japanese prison.

It was all going smoothly. Greenwald and two friends from yeshivah were on the way home from a trip to daven in Lizhensk. It was Adar 5767. At around 4:00 a.m. Tokyo time, the plane with the three boys landed. Having been deceived, and having made erroneous assumptions, they came to Chiba Airport, wheeling their loaded suitcases, without knowing or understanding what exactly was in them. They would only find out at customs inspection — by which time it was too late.

With their luggage in hand, they exited to the terminal. Their childish naïveté did not take into account the impact made by the sight of three bachurim wearing yeshivah chaletlach and curled peyos. If that was not enough, the language barrier was the clincher. Their stammering in Yiddish and hand motions made further evasion impossible. The Japanese temperament, as they would learn in the years to come, did not allow for any cutting of corners. They were taken to a side room for a more thorough questioning by an augmented team that had been summoned for the incident. The suitcases were opened, and the rest is history.

“The room where I spent five years,” Greenwald told me, “was isolated and horrible. Four walls in a depressing gray, with just one small, barred window allowing in some sunlight. They’ve never heard of insulation in Japan. The extreme weather seems to be tailor-made for torturing prisoners. In the winter, the room is a bone-chilling freezer. In the summer it’s like a sauna, as the fiery heat fries the body and addles the mind, with nowhere to go for [relief].

“The daily schedule is rigid and arbitrary. The prisoners are awakened early in the morning. The three meals are served according to a ridiculous schedule. Breakfast is served at six in the morning. At eleven o’clock lunch is served, and supper is at four in the afternoon. The rest of the day, the prisoner is subject to the rumblings of his stomach, except for a bit of fruit that he can purchase in the canteen.” Greenwald lost nearly 100 pounds while in prison.

I met him when he was broken and scarred, yet realistic and determined: “We have to tell the story of what happened to me and my friends to all young people who dream of getting rich and making fast money from some dubious courier job.” And that is what we are here to do now.

An educator who is heavily involved in this issue offers a few piercing points to ponder:

  1. Border control in most places today is on the lookout for illegal substances; dogs patrol the terminals and search, smelling out the materials. Don’t say, “It won’t happen to me.”
  2. A young chareidi person in some remote location in the world is a magnet for heightened searches and questioning.
  3. The punishments today in most countries are very harsh.
  4. Not everyone is as lucky as Naama Yissachar, who got out so fast. Most of them rot in prison for many years.
  5. The money that the couriers are promised will not be enough to pay for supplementing the meals in the prison canteen.

Another painful point: When all is said and done, the bachur who knows what he is risking and winds up in prison, chalilah, is not even there for making a kiddush Hashem or for some heroic act. It is possible that there aren’t even grounds for helping him. As Chazal say, “Someone who does not have daas must not receive compassion.” He is not a martyr. Someone who causes himself to get into such a situation should know that it is very doubtful that he will be able to withstand it and emerge healthy and whole, and he should remember that there is no one standing behind him.

He got into the mess — he must face the music.

Did You Know the Gedolim Actually OPPOSED the Entebbe Rescue?

Yitzchak Rabin yemach shemo asked Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef if he should use “diplomacy” or military action. Shut “Yabia Omer” (Part 10 C.M. 6) records a joint meeting consisting of Rabbi Elayashiv, Rabbi S.Z. Auerbach, Rabbi Betzalel Zolty, Rabbi B.Z. Abba Shaul, and others.

What was their ruling? Against.

אמנם ברור הדבר ששחרור המחבלים הנדרשים טומן בחובו סכנות רבות, אולם בהיות היהודים החטופים נתונים בסכנת נפשות ממש באופן מיידי…

Rabin went ahead, anyway, as we know.

Rabbi O.Y. then used the same twisted logic in permitting a bloody prisoner exchange for Gilad Shalit, as discussed by Rabbi bar Chaim here.

The Charedi history school textbooks all praise the operation, omitting this teeny-tiny detail of self-defeating, defeatist “Da’as Torah”.

As the Charedi establishment organs bleat: ברוך שמסר עולמו לשומרים

P.S., See here for Rabbi Chaim Greineman’s view.

The Chazon Ish’s Tzedakah Counterfactual

Kovetz Iggros C.I. part two, 93:

… אחשוב לנכון מאד לאדם לזכות במצוה זו, ולבטוח כי לא יאונה חלילה עי”ז שום הפסד, כמבואר בשו”ע סי’ רמ”ז ס”ב וז”ל לעולם אין אדם מעני מן הצדקה ולא דבר רע ולא היזק מתגלגל על ידו שנאמר והי’ כו’ הצדקה שלו’.

ואם לפי ראות עינים בדבר הפרטי לא ימצאנו, אבל בכללות כאשר כל מזונותיו של אדם קצובין וכל חסרונותיו קצובין, אין הפסד חלילה מן הצדקה רק ברכה מתוספת…

Here is an original image:

Read more about counterfactuals on Wikipedia.

Historian Rabbi Berel Wein on the Hagiography of Pre-WWII Judaism

INACCURACIES

There is an old rabbinic anecdote that relates that once a rabbi was called upon to deliver a eulogy for someone who had no redeeming social value whatsoever. The rabbi was naturally hard pressed to think of anything positive to say about this evil person. So, when he spoke, he solemnly pronounced: “No matter how evil the deceased truly was he was still a far better person than was his brother!”
The Halacha allows for exaggeration in delivering a eulogy. But when this is liberally and untruthfully applied to past Jewish history it becomes a dangerous threat to normative Jewish life. Part of the great problems that plague religious Jewish life in our times is that a fantasy world – a completely inaccurate picture of European Jewish life before World War II, has been propagated and hallowed.
Because of this distorted picture of the past, a distorted view of present Jewish society has taken hold. And, it is this distorted view that is responsible for much of the current dysfunction in religious Jewish societies the world over.
There have been attempts to somehow correct our hindsight but, in the main, they have failed to do so because of the determined opposition of zealots who perpetuate inaccuracies and constantly create new fantasy stories to buttress their ideologically driven view of past Jewish life.
I am not in favor of exposing all faults of European Jewry and I am also willing to accommodate the many exaggerations about the truly positive aspects of that pre-World War II society. But, without a balanced and somewhat accurate portrayal of what that society really looked like, it will be difficult for our society to move forward in a positive and constructive fashion.
There was a time when people believed that pictures never lied and that one picture was worth a thousand words. That unfortunately is no longer true. Computers, airbrushing and other modern means of altering photographs have made pictures from the past suspect.
There is a famous photograph of the sainted Chafetz Chaim sitting outside of his house talking to his eldest son, Rabbi Aharon Leib Poupko. In the original photograph the wife and daughter of the Chafetz Chaim are standing directly behind him. In a new and completely hagiographic biography of the Chafetz Chaim this picture has been reproduced in the book, except that the women in the picture have disappeared completely from the scene.
This premeditated inaccuracy was mandated by the desire to make the past somehow resemble the fantasy-imagined world of the guardians of current political correctness in our religious world of today. Once, many years ago in Monsey, my congregation’s sisterhood sponsored the sale and distribution of a generic vegetarian cookbook of exotic recipes. The cookbook contained an illustration of a young boy who was bareheaded. The ladies spent the entire night covering the boy’s head with a magic marker yarmulke.
I am also reminded of pictures of famous Eastern European rabbis who were forced to take passport or other official photos in a bareheaded pose, whose photos were later retouched (not very artfully at that) to make them conform to present accepted piety. This probably falls between acceptable exaggeration and unacceptable inaccuracy but it is indicative of the spirit of our times.
The inaccuracies and fantasy portrayals of the Jewish past are but one of the many symptoms of what I feel to be the major underlying malaise within much of religious Jewish society. That underlying problem is the insecurity of the religious Jewish society in facing the new Jewish world that now exists.
This world is one of modernity gone rampant, of communication that is instant and all-inclusive, of a Jewish state with all of the social, political, theological and religious challenges that such a state entails, and of a completely different economic and professional work environment than existed a century ago.
Frightened by these immense challenges, unaccustomed to being a distinct minority in the Jewish world itself, and having been forced to be on the defensive by the attacks of the secularists, the traditional Jewish world has been loath to engage these problems. It prefers to repaint and revisit the past instead of facing the present.
It is frightened and regressive instead of being confident and optimistic. This is truly ironic, for current Jewish society and its demographics have once again proven, seemingly against all odds, the resilience of Torah and tradition in all sections and climes of the Jewish world.  As such our education should be geared towards self-pride and optimism, reality and how to cope in our current world. There should be less emphasis on denigrating others and fearing their ideas, and less trepidation of technological advancements.
Shabat shalom
Berel Wein