That is what Rabbi Hershel Schachter should have asked next.
And the answer is that the Rabbanut prohibits because of a combination of politic considerations (i.e. non halachic considerations) and a misguided sense of piety brought about by the exilic mindset: we are not allowed to do anything we haven’t done of late, and that’s the way God wants it.
Once in a while, though, I would see something that made me stop, stand up, and pace around in circles. It wasn’t that what I read was particularly exciting, or important. It was just that it was startling. It changed—ever so slightly—how I thought about the world.
Greenwald said that that reaction was normal when people started reading through the documents.
Intelligence professionals talk about how disorienting it is living on the inside. You read so much classified information about the world’s geopolitical events that you start seeing the world differently. You become convinced that only the insiders know what’s really going on, because the news media is so often wrong. Your family is ignorant. Your friends are ignorant. The world is ignorant. The only thing keeping you from ignorance is that constant stream of classified knowledge. It’s hard not to feel superior, not to say things like “If you only knew what we know” all the time. I can understand how General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, comes across as so supercilious; I only saw a minute fraction of that secret world, and I started feeling it.
…
I started doubting my own security procedures. Reading about the NSA’s hacking abilities will do that to you. Can it break the encryption on my hard drive? Probably not. Has the company that makes my encryption software deliberately weakened the implementation for it? Probably. Are NSA agents listening in on my calls back to the US? Very probably. Could agents take control of my computer over the Internet if they wanted to? Definitely. In the end, I decided to do my best and stop worrying about it. It was the agency’s documents, after all. And what I was working on would become public in a few weeks.
I wasn’t sleeping well, either. A lot of it was the sheer magnitude of what I saw. It’s not that any of it was a real surprise. Those of us in the information security community had long assumed that the NSA was doing things like this. But we never really sat down and figured out the details, and to have the details confirmed made a big difference. Maybe I can make it clearer with an analogy. Everyone knows that death is inevitable; there’s absolutely no surprise about that. Yet it arrives as a surprise, because we spend most of our lives refusing to think about it. The NSA documents were a bit like that. Knowing that it is surely true that the NSA is eavesdropping on the world, and doing it in such a methodical and robust manner, is very different from coming face-to-face with the reality that it is and the details of how it is doing it.
ר’ יעקב מארוקו ז”ל מספר בספרו (שאגת מעונה) את אשר עבר עליו ועל שני חבריו בהיותם בצ’נסטוכוב המשוחררת, ממש לאחר שנוצחו הגרמנים ימ”ש, וזה לשונו:
באחד מאותם הימים טיילנו שוב ברחובותיה של העיר, הפעם התענגנו עונג יחודי אליו שאפנו במרוצת החדשים האחרונים בסתר לבנו: על מרצפות רחובותיה של העיר מושלכות היו גופותיהם הפגורות של הגרמנים ההרוגים. דמם ובני מעיהם שפוכים לצידם, והגויות עצמן שסועות לאברים אברים.
התקרבנו יותר ויותר, עד שהבחנו שאנו כבר דורכים עליהם ברגלינו… ירקנו בשאט נפש לעבר הפגרים ופתע חשנו איך פורץ לו, בלא משים, ריקוד משונה… ידענו שנעלינו מתלכלכות בדמם החייתי, המשוקץ… אך מה לנו ולנעלים?! הלב תבע את שלו, ואנו רקדנו ובכינו… בכינו ורקדנו… ונפשנו מתעלפת בקרבנו, והיפחה עולה ובוקעה…
זכרנו את נבואת הכתוב: “ישמח צדיק כי חזה נקם, פעמים ירחץ בדם הרשע” (תהלים נח. יא) וידענו כי עתה מתגשמת היא. ואף אם רק בזעיר אנפין “רוחצים” אנו בדמם, הנה הולך וקרב יום חדש. תקופה שונה מאירה לנו פניה, ואנו שואלים לקיומן של נבואות נוספות! הוי, לו יקוים בנו “יוצאים מחושך וצלמות” (תהלים קז. יד) ולוואי נזכה לראות איך “העם ההולכים בחושך ראו אור גדול” (ישעיה ט’ א’) לוואי!!…
והלך רקודנו ועצם, וגבר, וגבה, וגם רבים מבני המקום שאינם יהודים הצטרפו אלינו. אחזו בכפות ידינו ומעגלים מעגלים של רוקדים רמסו את הפגרים. ובעוד הריקוד מתלהט, זלגו מן העינים דמעות רותחות מהולות בתמצית דם הלב שנסחט. ונשרו הדמעות על נבלות הפגרים שלמרגלותינו.
באותה שעה מדמה הייתי לנגד עיני רוחי כאילו כל מליוני הקדושים קמו ונפנו ממקומם הנשגב שבהיכלות העליונים שם בגן העדן, קמו ובאו להצטרף אלינו, למחולנו, ויחד חגגנו את חג השחרור מחוזק יד הזדון שהיתה מונפת ומאיימת. יחד רמסנו את נבלותיהם וכל שבנו זועק ומשווע: נקמה! נקמה!!
בעינים יוקדות ועצומות למחצה ממליחות הדמעות שהציפו אותן, הרמנו רגלינו ויצאנו במחול… מחול עועים, שהיה בו, לצערנו, גם הרבה הרבה מטרוף הדעת. עם זאת חשנו באותם רגעים, כי גם הפסוק “הפכת מספדי למחול לי” (תהלים ל’ י”ב) התקיים בנו במלואו.
ובעוד המחול המשונה שלא היה אלא תולדת השמחה לאיד, שב וסב על עצמו, הרגשנו מהן המילים המזדמרות מפינו במלוא גרון: “כן יאבדו כל אויביך ה’!” כן יאבדו!… כן יאבדו!!… שבנו ושרנו מאות פעמים כפזמון חוזר – וצקון לבנו משתפך ברבים: אנא ה’, כן יאבדו!”…
ידענו בתת המודע כי מחול חרבות מעין זה, שטרוף הדעת חובר אליו, אינו מאותם שהיינו רגילים אליהם. ידענו כי בן ישראל – על הדם לא רקד מעודו. אך כלום היו תקופות נוספות בהן זרמו פלגי דם עצומים שכאלו?! הרגשנו בעומק לבנו כי אם נמנע מעמנו לפגוע במרצחינו עוד בהיותם בחיים, בחיים הכלביים… אזי לכל הפחות עתה נוכל לשפוך חמתנו וזעמנו האצורים בנו, אך מחלחלים ושואפים לבוא לידי ביטוי.
תם רקוד המות הנורא. אך גם אז הוספנו לפרוק כעסנו הצבור: השלכנו אבנים גדולות על גלי הפגרים, אף כיסינו אותם באשפה, ורק קולות לעג של הגויים שסביבנו, מנעו מאתנו להמשיך.
הללו הפטירו לעברנו בארסיות: “מדוע לא סקלתם חיות פרא אלו באבנים בעוד בחיים חיותם?!”… ואנו – שחשנו באנטישמיות המבצבצת ממילותיהם, חדלנו באחת ממעשי הנקמה ששפעו מתוכנו.
This fascinating letter of the Lubavitcher Rebbe came from an email list. This letter is not included in the collections of letters that are published and circulated, and the name of the recipient and date are missing– this looks like a section of a draft. If anyone knows how to date a manuscript like this or if anyone knows who this letter may have gone to, please share. I typed up the interesting parts, because the scan quality is very poor. Click on image to read the original with what looks like the Rebbe’s handwritten markings and edits to R’ Nissan Mindel’s text.
Excerpts from the Rebbe’s letter:
“I must touch upon another, even more delicate, matter concerning the teachings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch whom you mention in your letter. There has been a tendency lately to apply his approach in totality, here and now [added: for Americans born and ~?~] in America! While it is understandable that the direct descendants of Rabbi Hirsch or those who were brought up in that philosophy, should want to disseminate his teachings, I must say emphatically that to apply his approach to the American scene will not serve the interest of Orthodoxy in America, with all due respect to his philosophy and approach which were very forceful and effective in his time and in his milieu. R. Hirsch wrote for an audience and youth which was brought up on philosophical studies, and which were permeated with all sorts of doctrines and schools of thought, and disciplined in the art of intellectual research, etc. Thus it was necessary to enter into long philosophical discussions to point out the fallacy of each and every thought and theory, which is incompatible with Torah and Mitzvoth. There was no harm in using this approach, inasmuch as the harms had already been there, and if it could strengthen Jewish thought and practice, it was useful and to that extent, effective. However, here in the United States we have a different audience and a youth which radically differs from the type whom R. Hirsch had addressed originally. American youth is not of the philosophical turn of mind. They have neither the patience nor the training to delve into philosophical discussions, and to evaluate different system and theories when they are [added: induced to go to college and] introduced to all sorts of ideas, including those that are diametrically opposed to the Torah and Mitzvoth, and there are many of then, since there are many falsehoods but only one truth. This approach can only bring them to a greater measure of confusion. Whether or not the final analysis and conclusions will be accepted by them, one thing is certain, that the seeds of doubt will have multiplied in their minds, since each theory has its prominent proponent bearing impressive titles of professors, PhD’s, etc.
Besides the essential point and approach is “Thou shalt be wholehearted with G-d, they G-d.” The surest way to remaining a faithful Jew is not through philosophy but through the actual experience of the Jewish way of life in the daily life, fully and wholeheartedly. As for the [?] “Know what to answer the heretic,” this is surely only one particular aspect, and certain does not apply to everyone. Why introduce every Jewish boy and girl to the various heretics that ever lived?
The whole problem is a delicate one, and I have written the above only in the hope that you may be able to use your influence with certain circles in Washington Heights, that they should again re-examine the whole question and see if the R. Hirsch approach should be applied to the American scene. My decided opinion is, of course, that it should not, and I hope that whatever measure of restraint you may accomplish through your influence will be all to the good. I hope to hear good news from you also in regard to this.
[…]
I want to take this opportunity to mention another point which we touched upon during our conversation, and which I followed up in writing. I refer to the movement of “Torah v’Derech Eretz,” alluding to the saying of our Sages that Derech Eretz comes before Torah. However the term “Derech Eretz” is interpreted as a college education, and it is claimed to be the doctrine Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch of blessed memory.
As you will recall, I made the point in my previous letter on this subject that in my opinion, with all due respect to this policy and school of thought which had their time and place, ‘they are not at all suitable for American Jewish youth and for present times and conditions, especially in the United States. I even made so bold a move as to try to enlist your cooperation to use your influence to discourage the reintroduction of this movement on the American Jewish scene, since it is my belief that your work carries a great deal of weight in these circles here.
I want to note with gratification that on the basis of unofficial and behind the scenes information which has reached me from the circles in question, the point which I made with regard to the school of thought that has been gaining evermore adherents. It is becoming increasingly recognized that a college education is not a vital necessity and is not even of secondary importance. Many begin to recognize that the Torah, Toras Chaim, is, after all, the best s’chorah, even as a career.” In the light of this now reappraisal, attendance at college is being recognized as something negative and interfering and with detracting from the study of Torah. So much for the younger generation…”
