The Funniest Outreach Speech Ever

 https://youtu.be/5kaX-jOlmGI

Rabbis who want to dominate their students

Maharik (12:62) There are some rabbis who want to dominate their students more than is appropriate and they assert that whoever has been a student even as a child is forever subordinate to them and can never disagree with them on any issue. They claim that this is true even if the student has become their equal or even their superior in learning because they assert that even if the rabbi has clearly erred or behaves incorrectly, that disagreeing with the rabbi is the same as contradicting G-d or other such claims. The answer to this is that even if the student is forever subordinate to his teacher as the rabbis assert, nevertheless it is quite obvious that this is only in relationship to honoring him by standing up for him. However, concerning matters of Heaven, eg. Chillul Hashem, there is no requirement to honor his teacher. This can readily be seen in the many examples in the Gemara such as the events with Rabban Gamliel (Berachos 26b)

Train your mind

 Train your mind to be calm in every situation today

...... if you wish to lead tomorrow

Safety standards in Israeli society

  Compare these bleachers in America to those of Karlin Stolin in Givat Ze'ev

See the cross beam supports? There are many of them. And the whole thing is permanent, bolted into a concrete slab. Compare to this. 

Where are the cross beams? Is that what the wood and zip ties are supposed to accomplish? The main supports are much thinner. These are the bleachers that took the life of this sweet boy Meir Gloibermen z'l. 

and this young father:

Mordechai Binyamin Rubinstein, z’l, 23

The KS bleachers are temporary.  And unlike in America, where there is much more personal space between people, the KS bleachers get packed with people who are rocking up and down. 

Here's what bleachers at an American football game generally look like during a game:

Here's bleachers during this tisch:

The bleachers in israel are very steep, thus packing in lots more people.

You don't need government involvement.  You need an engineer who has been to normal countries and you need to listen to him.

There was an engineer, but he approved only the lower part of the structure. "“Everything was okay on Friday, when I made my inspection,” the engineer said. “I checked the bleachers and although I had one small objection, they were perfectly stable.” He added that, “For some reason, on Sunday they decided to add several rows above the existing structure, and they did that themselves. It seems like they didn’t have enough materials to do so, and what’s more, no one checked those extra rows that they added. No one authorized them.”  https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/306524

So we heard from the KS spokesman that they had the permits. But it seems, they didn't have permits for the part that collapsed, the part they built themselves.

Safety standards in Israel are poor. I see it all the time, whether it be electric bikes racing down the sidewalks, people letting 4 year olds roam around by themselves, leaning wood planks against walls, nails sticking out of metal. We Jews are so good at memorial services, weeping, and writing sifrei Torah for the deceased. We are not so good at preventing injury.

Rav Avigdor Miller on Crossing at a Red Light

Q:

Should a person wait and not to cross at a red light when there is no traffic?

A:

No, he shouldn’t wait. Only that he has to check to make absolutely sure that there is no traffic. It’s common sense.

However, I must tell you that the matter of crossing the street when there is traffic is not a simple matter. Because people all think that nothing could ever happen to them. People are careless with their lives because they think that nothing could happen to them. It only happens to other people. You know, that this is an instinct in human beings. Just as they lived until now, and just like they’re alive right now, so they think it’s going to continue. And then suddenly it happens.

You have to make it a policy of yours to learn from experience. So whenever we hear of an accident, we should never let that opportunity go by. We should know that it’s מן השמים that the news came to us, in order to warn us. Whatever happens to anybody should not be repeated by us. It says in the פסוק the following: ככלב שב אל קיאו – “just like a dog returns to what he vomited out,” כן כסיל שב באולתו – “so is a fool who repeats his foolishness” (Mishlei 26:11). It means this: A dog ate something in the street. He shouldn’t have eaten it but he did. And after he ate it, he saw that he couldn’t keep it down. So he gave it forth again. Now, that dog should have understood that it’s not for him. But because he’s a foolish dog, so he goes back and he eats it again. Now I don’t even believe such a dog exists. But humans like that do exist. If some misfortune happened because of your carelessness, it should have been a lesson, and you should never forget it. But even smarter than that, is a man who doesn’t wait that it should happen to him. If it happens to somebody else, that’s enough of a lesson for the wise person. He learns from others, from other people’s misfortunes. And that’s the great wisdom of experience – that you don’t wait for it to happen on your own hide, but you make sure to learn from other people’s misfortunes.

And that’s a very important principle. Whatever news you get, whatever you hear – and you’re hearing all the time – it should enter your ears. Somebody crossing the street was hit by a car. A child drowned in a pool. A grandchild was visiting his grandparents and he fell out of the window because there were no safety guards. When you hear these things, it should enter your heart like an arrow. And make it a principle, “I’m going to watch out for that thing.”

TAPE # 405

Mark Twain

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. Mark Twain

Rav Avigdor Miller on Lessons From Tragedy

Q:

What should we think about when we hear about the girl who lost her life by being run over by a bus in Borough Park?

A:

We should think first of all that the first lesson is ושמרתם את נפשותיכם. Parents have to be very careful. It’s important to teach children to be very, very careful. That’s one thing. And children should learn not to venture in the street unless they go with other adults. Never cross the street yourself; when other people are crossing then you cross together with them. Wait for adults! And it’s good advice for grown people too. Don’t cross at busy intersections by yourself; wait for some more people to gather together and then the motorists will see them. At nighttime especially! People wear black hats and black suits; they can’t see you unless you carry a mirror. I carry a mirror sometimes when I cross the street at night, so that they should see the reflection. Don’t cross the streets in your dark suits unless you’re crossing with other people. That’s number one. Don’t think it’s a small lesson. That’s lesson number one.

Lesson number two: Hakodosh Boruch Hu has plans. We don’t know what the plans are but there’s no question that this girl is going to be taken to the Next World and Hakodosh Boruch Hu will reward her. Actually, He did it for a certain purpose. If the purpose was to teach other people to be careful, so she sacrificed her life to teach other people to be careful. So Hashem says, “Look, you didn’t want it but still you did it so I am going to reward you for being a sacrifice to help other people save their lives.” And they take her into Gan Eden and they make her very happy with her reward.

You want to know what else Hashem had in mind? Let Him know; you’ll find out maybe someday when you’ll get there. But what we should know now is that everything Hashem does is for a very important purpose. And even if it’s only for the purpose of teaching us the necessity of ונשמרתם את נפשותיכם, that we should all be more careful in crossing streets and that it shouldn’t happen again, it’s a worthwhile thing.

Rav Avigdor Miller, TAPE # 988

Outside to inside

I always repeat what the old Lubavitcher Rebbe once said. They came to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I think it was the previous one, Rav Yosef Yitzchak zichrono levrachah, and they told him, “Your talmidim are deceiving the world. They're putting up a front as if they are frum Jews. They're acting very frum but they're not really that frum!” So what did the Rebbeh say? He said they should keep on deceiving the world until they deceive themselves too. He said the gemara says if someone deceives the public in order to get charity, hamatzveh es betno, if he acts like he has a swollen belly, vehamekapeach es shoko, or he acts like his foot is chopped off, he bends his knee up, eino niftar min haolam ad sheyavo liyedei kach, the end will be that's how it will turn out. If you pretend, then what you pretend to be will happen. “That’s what’s going to be with my chassidim too – they’ll pretend and pretend and pretend, and they’ll become better and better just because of that; the frummer they act, the frummer they’ll become.”

Rav Avigdor Miller, Toras Avigdor, Emor, 5781

Beitzah 25b

 "The Torah was given to the Jews because they are overly aggressive and the Torah serves to moderate their energy and subdue their heart." Rashi, Beitzah 25b

"Why was the Torah given to the Jews? Because they are aggressive and stubborn.....If the Torah had not been given to Israel no nation or tongue could withstand them." Talmud, Beitzah 25b

Israeli Society's Antisemitism Problem

(article written for the last election)

Israeli Society's Antisemitism Problem

 

“On the Israeli side, the Jewish population in Palestine, the yishuv, was 90% secular at the time. And the leadership of the yishuv was almost totally secular. The military leadership, the political leadership. It was a very secular society. You get an optical illusion when you look back from 2016 when Israel has become much more religious or a larger part, segment of its population is religious. But in 1948 the people who counted and actually the vast majority of the population was of course non-religious. In fact they were children, or actually the people themselves, who had rebelled against religion. This is what Zionism was all about, partly, against rebelling against the old world of their fathers, which was a religious world. They rebelled also against God. So they didn’t approach the war at all as a religious war, not the generals, not the politicians, not Ben-Gurion, not Sharet, not Allon, not Dayan. They were irreligious people, maybe even they were anti-religious, so the religious people saw them.” (Benny Morris on “A New Look at the 1948 Arab-Israeli War,” Wilson Center, 43:15)

 

As Benny Morris, one of Israel's top historians, tells us, the country was founded by rebels against Jewish tradition. So, one would not be crazy to worry that such people would produce a society that is hostile to religious people. Listening to former defense minister Avigdor Lieberman and his cheering section over the past two months, we see that is exactly the situation.

Israel is a strange place. If a 1st grader in Chile were to ask why the Israeli authorities razed a Palestinian school, she'd be pounced upon as a vicious antisemite. The Israeli press would never let up on her. Israeli politicians from every party would denounce her from the Knesset floor. She would be barred from ever entering Israel.

However, Mr. Lieberman just spent two months in a full blast assault on Charedi Jews in Israel that was reminiscent of you know what. “If the word Haredim were replaced by ‘Jews’ – we would say that it was an article from Europe,” Shas leader Aryeh Deri noted, adding “The only thing missing was him saying we have big noses or don’t bathe.”  

It took a Charedi man to say it. The non-Charedi part of the country has been silent if they haven't been cheering Lieberman on. No doubt they love quips like these:

 

"we won’t allow for the whole country to become Shtreimel wearers”

 "the time has come that something be demanded of them in return for once” 

"We are in favor of a Jewish state, we are against a halachic state."

 

Lieberman is very concerned about so-called Charedi power and he wants all of Israeli society to know it. Again and again, he referenced "Charedi coercion" even as he single-handedly held up  formation of a new government and forced the country into expensive new elections. A headline in the self-proclaimed fair and liberal Times of Israel said, "Liberman is right to protest ultra-Orthodox coercion". Yaakov Katz of the Jerusalem Post wrote, “FOR TOO LONG, this country has been ruled by a haredi minority.” Charedim don't get a break on any side within Israeli society.  Meanwhile the Charedi parties agreed to compromise offers. Reportedly, Lieberman issued unprecedented political demands for political appointments. He claims he took a stand against those rascally Charedim and their power.

Last I checked, there are no Charedim on the High Court, nor have there ever been. There has never been a Charedi Prime Minister.  No Charedi President. There are few Charedim in the Prime Minister's cabinet. Here's the list of the outgoing cabinet positions.

 

Portfolio	Minister	Party
Prime Minister Minister of Defense Minister of Health	Benjamin Netanyahu		Likud
Minister of Foreign Affairs[14]  Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister of Transportation	Yisrael Katz		Likud
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development	Uri Ariel		The Jewish Home
Minister of Construction	Yoav Galant		Kulanu
Minister of Culture and Sport	Miri Regev		Likud
Minister of the Interior Minister of the Development of the Negev and Galilee	Aryeh Deri		Shas
Minister of Religious Affairs	Yitzhak Vaknin[15]		Shas
Minister of the Economy	Eli Cohen		Kulanu
Minister of Education Minister of Diaspora Affairs	Naftali Bennett		New Right
Minister of Finance	Moshe Kahlon		Kulanu
Minister of Jerusalem Minister of Environmental Protection	Ze'ev Elkin		Likud
Minister of Internal Security Minister of Strategic Affairs Minister of Information	Gilad Erdan		Likud
Minister of Tourism Minister of Immigration and Absorption[16]	Yariv Levin		Likud
Minister of Justice	Ayelet Shaked		New Right
Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy, and Water	Yuval Steinitz		Likud
Minister of Regional Cooperation Minister of Communications	Tzachi Hanegbi		Likud
Minister of Science, Technology and Space	Ofir Akunis		Likud
Minister for Senior Citizens	Gila Gamliel		Likud
Minister of Welfare and Social Services	Haim Katz		Likud
Minister in the Prime Minister's Office	Ayoob Kara		Likud

 

Three of the thirty posts are held by Shas, one of them the Ministry of Religious Affairs -- that’s 10 percent, not exactly dominant. Do you see anybody there from those alleged power-brokers of United Torah Judaism?:No, you do not. I have tell you that you don't see it because you might imagine that you do. After all, doesn't everyone know the Chassidic rebbes dominate the country? Do we actually have to examine whether it's true?

No Charedi has ever led the Bank of Israel. There are no Charedi billionaires based in Israel. In fact, Charedim are amongst those with the lowest income in the country. There are no major Israeli newspapers or television channels that are led by Charedim. If there is a Charedi in charge of any of Israel's major corporations I can't picture him or her. Is there one? Are there two? I suppose it's possible. Anything is possible.

And then there's the military, the most powerful institution in the country. There has never been a Charedi Chief of Staff. The leadership of the military generation after generation has quite clearly not populated by Charedim. Has there ever been a Charedi general or police chief of a major city? On and on it goes. But somehow, those Charedim are so powerful that we must all stop them. We must make a stand. 

But what about social control? Lieberman is concerned that the country is headed towards theocracy.  Does a gay-pride parade of 250,000 people take place in a theocratic country? Do 10% of pregnancies end in abortion in a theocratic country? (I am not condoning either of these.) One wonders if Lieberman has ever visited Tel-Aviv. The bathers on those beaches don't appear to be under any theocratic control -- neither do the men and women on the streets of Tel-Aviv. Is is amazing how Israelis can brag about how different they are from the neighboring Arab states and at the same time complain about theocracy. Has Lieberman been to Haifa? A restaurant owner there told me that the city won't allow him to build a Succah. Yes, there's a control problem in Israel, but it isn't Charedi control.  

There is not another country in the western world that would tolerate such a barrage of hostility against religious Jews --  those streimel-wearers -- as what we just saw from Lieberman. Since 1945, there might not be a country of any kind that would allow it. Only in the so-called Jewish state is such antisemitism embraced.

Antisemitism you say? Yes, antisemitism. If being "anti-Israel" makes one antisemitic, then so does being "anti-Charedi." Charedim are too Jewish for some people, particularly those who work in the fashion of the founders of the country. Charedim are reminders of what they were rebelling against. Sure, you can be a little Jewish, but these loonies take it way too far, no?

One of the big challenges for Charedi olim is enduring the anti-Charedi sentiments that blast from every pore of Israeli society. In America, the clerk at the gas-station in Iowa might stare at your yarmulka for a second. She might even give you a blessing as an African-American woman did to a friend of mine in Virginia. She said, "I heard that anyone who blesses you is blessed. So I'm going to bless you." That's America. 

Then there's Israel. Olim come trying to escape the antisemitism they are told is erupting all over the world (so they are told) but walk in many cases into a hostility worse than the kind their great-grandfathers remembered from the 1920s in the Ukraine.

It's hard to unpack hatred which itself is an illogical impulse. In the Charedi world many say that the hostility stems from feelings of guilt about not living Torah lives, but that's a theory, impossible to prove.  And of course a Chiloni will object to that idea as what's to feel guilty about? If you ask Chilonim, they'll refer inevitably to military service. Evidently, in their eyes the only meaningful way of contributing to a society is via a government program. Those Charedim refuse to serve. (Actually, 30% of Charedi males serve in the military.) 

I have been been waiting for years to hear somebody ask respectfully, why do many refuse? This rather than the knee-jerk impulse of condemnation: they are bums, they have no gratitude, they want us to do the work. Instead ask why. Pose a question. We learn when ask questions. 

The Charedim clearly are not bums. You trying waking up everyday and spending an hour in prayer no matter the weather or how tired you feel. They are not undisciplined people. They live a life that is chock full of rules of the kind that Lieberman abhors. They fast five times a year. Let him try that. They are not disloyal people. They are upholding the traditions of everyone's great-grandparents. They live conservative lives.  

I wasted considerable time over the last few weeks reading at least three-dozen articles in the mainstream press on Charedim and the draft and did not see one single Chiloni writer ask the question. Why do Charedim not want to serve? Why?

Since you did not ask, I'll tell you: they do serve. They serve God. The question is why do Chilonim refuse to serve. See, it's the same question for the controversy over the draft is a religious one. The military was founded and designed in large part as an assimilation mechanism into secularity. The very anti-religious David Ben-Gurion referred to the military as "the melting pot" through which “that human mixture which is flowing from many exiles, [can] be smelted, refined, and purified of its foreign and worthless dross.” As writer Zvi Zameret notes, “this dross no doubt included many of the commandments that condition behavior between man and His Maker, commandments which Ben-Gurion did not value.” The Israeli military was designed to create secular Israelis. Anshel Pfeffer of Haaretz explained it well in his article, “Forget Judaism – the Military Is Israel’s State Religion.” He wrote, “But as far as any form of Israeli secularism, or religion, goes, the IDF is the most powerful one Israel has today. It’s the closest thing we have to a state religion. It’s certainly the strongest stream of Judaism.”

This is what Charedim are opposing. They have their reasons. They aren't bums and ingrates. Military training in most countries is designed to train young people to follow orders from strangers and to kill. People don't naturally do such things. The military does this by breaking them down. The Israeli military uses those same conditioning mechanisms to brainwash soldiers in ideology that Charedim find abhorrent - that no divine being protected us in exile and that only the guns and tanks of the IDF will ever do it. For those who are unschooled in religious thought, this is an heretical idea. It pervades Zionist thought, Israeli society, and the military in particular. 

To Charedim, religion is life. To the founders of the country, getting away from religion was life. They built the country in their image. See the problem? It is a massive cultural contrast. But it isn't the Charedim coming after the Chilonim for the most part. Yes, there is rabbinical control (more Dati Leumi than Charedi) over marriage licensing and certain activities on the Sabbath in many places, but not much more than that. In the sum of things, Chilonim have way more control over the country than Charedim do. It isn't even close. And the Charedim aren't coming after the Chilonim even remotely on the scale that Chilonim are coming after the Charedim via educational  policy and most of all via the draft. 

And the Charedi response to that? To employ the most tired of Israeli cliches, the Charedim have a right to defend themselves. They see the military as heretical and a threat to their values. This isn't just about Torah study, it's about an entire way of life.

Given that the the State of Israel has not been invaded by another country in half a century, the Chilonim really need to consider just letting it go. They already see the Charedim as living in another century, in another world. Look at them as a nation apart like they do the Arabs who also don't serve - don't serve the military. As I said, 30% of Charedi males do enter the military. It’s enough already.

But what about money, don't the Charedim extort money? Tell me, did you go to private school? Most of the private schools I have seen in Israel are Charedi schools. And even the ones who get state funding are mostly privately funded. This is another one of the little truths that are not spoken of in Israel. Charedim bring in billions of shekels from overseas. Israel doesn't exactly have a Western European welfare system. If Charedim are eating and living under roofs, it isn't because of the largess of the Israeli government. It comes from working and from overseas donations. And by way, one of the reasons more Charedi men don't work is because working eliminates their draft exemption. The Israeli government is the biggest cause of Charedi unemployment.

Have you ever seen Charedi school buildings? On the outside of any building of any substance you'll see references to places like Brooklyn, NY and Los Angeles. That's where the money comes from, not from the Israeli government. Many Charedi children attend school in trailers.

Not so the secular Israelis. They have lovely buildings, paid for by the Israeli government, well taxpayers ultimately. Somehow this isn't called extortion. It's just normal. Kids go to public school. But if Charedim ask for half the money that Chiloni schools get they are branded extortionists. 

On and on it goes. The doublespeak, hypocrisy, and ignorance directed at Charedim in Israel indicates that the founders of the country succeeded in creating a European society -- and by that I mean an antisemitic one with its very own version of blood libels. Nevertheless, Israeli politicians and journalists will continue to brand people all over the world as antisemites for daring to ever utter the slightest criticism against Israeli anything, except when it concerns Charedim. And not only that, certain Israeli Chilonim will lead the way on those attacks. Reportedly, the Knesset seats for Lieberman's party are projected to increase from 5 to 9. His antisemitism, ah anti-Charedism, struck a chord it seems with some Israelis. May God protect us from the antisemites.