A Lashon Hara Video That Completely Misses The Point.

A YouTube video was recently released dealing with the dangers of telling Lashon HaRah on the internet.  However, the video completely misses the point and fails to identify the real problem.

First of all, here's the video:

The narrator blames all this on Lashon HaRah (evil speech) and, in truth, that's a part of the problem here.  However, it's a very small of the problem.  The real problem (which the video does not address) is the community itself.

It seems to be made up of people who are
– busybodies (whose business is it what the Rebbe or anyone else in the community buys at the butcher>)
- judgmental (because you eat chicken the Rebbe isn’t entitled to ever eat anything better?)
- selfish (heaven forbid that someone else actually have something that they, themselves don’t have)
– unable to be dan l’kaf z’chus
– superficial in their understanding of what makes someone moral (the Rebbe isn’t a good role model because he bought a rack of lamb?)
– idle (really? In half an hour all these people have nothing better to do than bash someone online?)
– gossip mongers (well, it is a part of the problem, but clearly not the most important part. If the people in the community didn’t have the above traits, this last bit wouldn’t matter as much).
Lashon Harah is not the real problem here. The real problem is the attitude of the people in this community.
The Wolf
- See more at: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/ywn-videos/259254/watch-a-rebbes-life-is-destroyed-in-minutes.html#comment-633995

It seems to be made up of people who are
– busybodies (whose business is it what the Rebbe or anyone else in the community buys at the butcher>)
- judgmental (because you eat chicken the Rebbe isn’t entitled to ever eat anything better?)
- selfish (heaven forbid that someone else actually have something that they, themselves don’t have)
– unable to be dan l’kaf z’chus
– superficial in their understanding of what makes someone moral (the Rebbe isn’t a good role model because he bought a rack of lamb?)
– idle (really? In half an hour all these people have nothing better to do than bash someone online?)
– gossip mongers (well, it is a part of the problem, but clearly not the most important part. If the people in the community didn’t have the above traits, this last bit wouldn’t matter as much).
Lashon Harah is not the real problem here. The real problem is the attitude of the people in this community.
The Wolf
- See more at: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/ywn-videos/259254/watch-a-rebbes-life-is-destroyed-in-minutes.html#comment-633995

It seems to be made up of people who are

– busybodies who should just mind their own business (why is it their concern what the Rebbe or anyone else in the community buys at the butcher?)

- judgmental (because you eat chicken the Rebbe isn’t entitled to ever eat anything better?  You're happy you didn't end up married to him because he bought a rack of lamb?)

- selfish and envious (heaven forbid that someone else actually have something that they, themselves don’t have.)

– unable to be dan l’kaf z’chus (judge favorably -- he could have gotten the money as a gift or from some private tutoring or any number of other legitimate ways.)

– superficial in their understanding of what makes someone moral (the Rebbe isn’t a good role model because he bought a rack of lamb or because he might have splurged once in a while?)

– idle (really? In half an hour all these people have nothing better to do than bash someone online?)

– gossip mongers (well, it is a part of the problem, but clearly not the most important part. If the people in the community didn’t have the above traits, this last bit wouldn’t matter as much).

Lashon Harah is not the real problem here. The real problem is the attitude of the people in this community.  I'm tempted to think that if the Rebbe gets kicked out of this community, it just might be the best thing that ever happened to him.

The Wolf

To Every Thing There is a Season, and a Time to Every Purpose Under the Heaven

My parents raised me to believe that one must take the feelings of others into account when speaking and doing things.  Before you open your mouth to speak, think about how the message is going to be received on the other end.  Is this the right thing to say -- and, if it is, is it the right time/place to say it?

I'd be lying if I said that I always lived up to that ideal.  There are times when I've said things that did hurt others.  While I can't remember saying things that were intentionally meant to hurt others, there were things that were said that, in retrospect, should not have been said -- or at least not when I said them.  As Shlomo taught us, there is a time and a place for everything.  There is a time to speak, and there is a time to be silent.

Yesterday -- just a day after the three murdered teens in Israel were buried, Aron Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe, launched into a speech where he placed the blame for the murder of the teens on their parents.  He stated that the community is required to state that the parents are guilty for the deaths of their sons and that they must do teshuva for living in such an unsafe area.

One of the hallmarks of a Jew, the Talmud teaches us, is that they are compassionate (Yevamos 79a).  They take the feelings of others into account.  They do not inflict unnecessary pain and, when pain must be inflicted, it is kept to a minimum.

I understand (even if I don't agree) with the Satmar Rebbe's position vis-a-vis the legitimacy of the State of Israel.  I understand his positions (again, even if I don't agree) regarding living in certain places.  But there is a time and a place for your personal theology and in the faces of grieving parents a day after they bury their children is not it.

It doesn't matter if the Satmar Rebbe is right or wrong regarding his hashkafah.  Let's say, just for the sake of argument that he is correct.  It doesn't matter.  Let him save his comments for another day.  If a parent is (God forbid) sitting shiva for a child who died in a bicycle accident, the shiva house is not the time or place for a lecture about the rules of the road.  If someone loses a child (God forbid) in a car accident, you don't say to them at the shiva house "See, I told  you they should always wear seat belts!"  To do so is to just pour salt into the already festering wound.   There is a time and a place and a way to talk of these things, but in a fiery speech on the day after the burial is not it.  Save it for another day, another venue and another form.

May the families of the teens be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

The Wolf

 

When Quoting Pesukim (Bible Verses) Is Heretical.

I suppose it's one thing to be afraid of heretical ideas (supposed or actual) that might cause one to lose faith in their principles.  It's not an approach I approve of (I was never a believer in burying  your head in the sand), but it is one which is common in yeshivish circles.

However, I find it puzzling that the modertators of the Yeshiva World CoffeeRoom are not only afraid of heretical ideas, but they're actually afraid of actual verses from the Torah.

Take, for example, the recent thread titled What exactly did we get on Shavuos?   In the thread, one person stated the following:

According to the opinion that it was bit by bit ("megillah, megillah nisnah") Moshe wrote down the Torah from Breishis until Matan Torah right then. 

I pointed out that even the portion of the Torah leading up to Mattan Torah could not have been written with the exact text that we currently have.   When asked to elaborate, I did so.  The post I responded with was as follows:

Sh'mos chapter 16 (the chapter discussing the gift of the manna) is before written before the chapter of Mattan Torah and takes place chronologically before Mattan Torah. Nonetheless, the text of the chapter as we have it today must have been written during the last year in the wilderness -- not at Sinai.

The proof of this, comes from verse 35 where it says that they ate the manna for forty years until they arrived at the land of Canaan. At the time of Mattan Torah, they had not yet been sentenced to wander the wilderness for forty years.

Obviously, at a minimum, you have to say that that verse was inserted before Moshe's death in the fortieth year.

To me, this seems obvious.  If chapter 16 of Exodus were given as we currently have it on Sinai, then wouldn't the Israelites have asked Moshe "Hey, what's this business about not getting to the Land of Canaan for forty years?"  Clearly, this verse at a minimum (and perhaps the entire chapter) was written, at the earliest, in the fortieth year in the wilderness.

Apparently, however, even this is unacceptable to the moderators at the CoffeeRoom.  Apparently they are so wedded to the notion that everything from B'raishis until Yisro had to be written as we have it at Mattan Torah that they seem willing to completely ignore the verse that testifies to the fact that it could not have been written before the last year in the wilderness.  My response was deleted. 

I then followed up with a simple question to them:

Really?!   Is what I posted such kefira that it had to be censored?  Is it not something that a normal person could determine simply by reading the pesukim?

That, too, was deleted without response.  My guess is that the moderators of the CoffeeRoom view reading and quoting the pesukim with their simple menaing as heretical.

The Wolf

Remembering My Blessings

I've been going through a bit of a rough patch in my life.  Things aren't exactly going according to plan in various circles of my life and, truth to tell, it's been getting me down of late.  I sometimes (probably selfishly) bemoan (largely to myself) how my life isn't exactly the rose garden I thought it would be.

Truth to tell, it's not nearly as bad as my emotions would tell me.  I do have a roof over my head.  I'm not going hungry.  I have a good job.  Eeees and I are still madly in love with each other after all these years.  I am relatively healthy, as are the members of my family.  There are lots of people who would love to have all my problems, as long as they came with the good parts of my life as well.

I was given a reminder of this point recently, when I volunteered to work at the annual TAFKID Purim carnival.  TAFKID is an organization that is devoted to helping the families of children with special needs (both physical and mental).  They provide support and advocate for these children.  At the carnival, I get to interact with the children -- of all levels of disability.  I see those that are high-functioning, and those that are confined to wheelchairs and barely able to communicate.

In many ways, it hurts to see these children.  It hurts to see that many of them will not have the opportunity to have the things that I have come to take for granted in my life -- the ability to walk; to marry and have children; to hold a job; the ability to express myself and make my wants and desires known without too much difficulty.  They and their families face hardships and challenges that I, thank God, do not know.

It's sometimes very easy to focus on our own problems and forget the blessings that HKBH has given us.  Perhaps it's a good thing that I volunteer here and, at least once in a while, am reminded that, despite my own personal problems, I still have it pretty good in life.

The Wolf

Fighting Smoking Is A Battle Worth Fighting

Rabbi Yair Hoffman wrote a recent editorial (publish on 5TJT and republished on YWN) about the dangers of smoking among our youth.   He starts out with an over-the-top picture of a young widow-to-be who is losing her husband to cancer because he smoked when he was younger.  Yes, it's a sappy scenario, but the bottom line is that smoking does kill.  It's really that simple.

Rabbi Hoffman places a good portion of the blame on the boys in Beis Midrash, whom the younger bochrim look up to.  Because they smoke, he posits, the younger kids want to emulate them and smoke as well.  Their activity is undermining any anti-smoking message that the school or parents are hoping to communicate.

Maybe it's because I was never one of the "cool kids" in school, but I could never quite understand what drives someone to smoke.  It always seemed to me that it was a dirty, smelly habit -- aside from any health problems that it may cause.  My mother is a long-time smoker, and, fortunately, as much as I look up to her, I never once thought to follow in her footsteps in this matter.  Even at a very young age, I was able to understand that smoking is simply bad.

You wouldn't think that there could be anyone who would actually defend smoking.  Even the smokers that I know would never tell a person "It's okay, smoke, you'll be able to quit if  you want to."  And yet, someone actually wrote into Matzav.com in response to Rabbi Hoffman's editorial, defending smoking.

Y.W. actually defended the practice on the grounds that "it is one of the only permitted outlets for our young men, our yeshiva boys."  He observes (rightly) that we should pick our battles when it comes to our kids and not say "assur" (forbidden) all the time.  However, he (wrongly) chooses smoking as something to let slide.

He goes on to state:

Having been involved with youth for many years, I can tell you with certainty that the large majority of boys who smoke stop after they are married. Don’t believe the propaganda that the activists will try to sell you about young husbands dying from smoking. It’s a lie. Again, most boys who smoke stop after matrimony.

Personally, I find it a bit hard to believe that the "large majority" of boys who smoke manage to stop before marriage.  I've seen plenty of people smoke after marriage and I know how difficult a nicotine addiction is to overcome.  But, for the moment, let's grant him the point and say that the majority can quit cold-turkey.  There are still two relevant points:

1.  There's a way to help even the minority who can't quit -- simply don't start.  How about instead of saying "you can quit anytime" (which, according to Y.W. helps only the majority), we say "Don't start smoking" which helps almost everyone.

2.  Even if they can stop after marriage, the damage may have already been done.  Smoking during an early part of a person's life can affect them even long after they quit.  I, personally, know someone who died of lung cancer decades after he quit smoking.  Leonard Nimoy (the actor who portrayed Spock in the Star Trek franchise) recently announced that he suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder -- and he quit smoking thirty years ago!  Why should we allow our young men to damage their bodies now, even if they can stop adding damage later?

We, as parents, should certainly be picking and choosing our battles.  We should not be saying "assur" all the time.  But there are issues to give in on and issues where we *should* draw a red line -- and smoking, which can cause lifetime addiction, illness and death, should be one of the latter issues.

The Wolf

New Template

I hope you will all forgive me... but I've had the same template since I began this blog back in 2005.  I think that it's time for an upgrade.

Feel free to provide any feedback.

The Wolf