Rabbi Moshe Gavriel Binkowitz was a Rebbe in a Kollel and was a sofer who wrote 19 Sifrei Torah.
He claims that he went off the derech because a prominent Rabbi in Modiin Illit asked him to write Tefillin for very cheap prices to have them distributed to poor and needy families and he subsequently found out that the Tefillin were sold at exorbitant amount of money .
57 comments:
Now if he can become a role model for Satmar, and Skver he will surely enjoy a coveted spot in Olam Hana.
He should've known that you don't trust a rabbi.
shame on him for giving a false reason, nobody goues otd at 60 for that.He had other reasons but he's playing the blame game ,what a croc.
Rachmana Litzlan. May Hashem save him.
AishKodesh 1:46PM,
It's never too late to invest oneself with critical thinking..
Age is not necessarily an impediment to the recognization that much of what you've been taught all your life is a fraud.
And in this situation Hashem's beneficence wasn't needed. Rabbi Binkowitz saved himself.
Reall!!!! anyone with the IQ of even horse manure knows he's 100% correct in his decision. Rabbis are $£€¥ money hungry crooks
Quite brave of him really, at 60! Never trust your resolve until the day you die.
I understand him all those uber religious are nothing but laidiger misfits and genuvim who think that the world owes them all their lifes everything,they are the ultimate con artists in life.
Abe, you're full of shit about your constant ref to critical thinking, because to you, it only means to rid yourself of religion and orthodoxy. Have you ever critically thought about your own position? Here you showed your critical thinking BS because any critical thinker will laugh at this 60 year old fool who didn't critically think that this rabbi went against G-Ds command and he does't represent Judaism. Nobody is a critical thinker except this genius, Abe.
This is a great tragedy rachmono litzlan, now they have to deal with all his written safrus and try to determine if when he wrote them he was already a min & apikoros because there are severe halachic issues. Critical thinkers are not going to accept his silly excuse.
What are they going to do with his sifrei Torah and tfillins now/
if this isn't a fake news story, then there's a shaylah if people shouldn't rip kriyah on these seforim and mezuzos
to Abe%%%% , if you're a critical thinker did you invstigate if ths is a true story at all, if what happened if true, happened the way he says it happened, if there weren't some other things going on? Aren't you curious about this man and his background before praising him/ u just gave critical thinking a bad name.
Abe, it isn't the Frumness itself that was crooked. It was the crookedness of certain individuals that, unfortunately sent him off the Derech, R"L. Again, may our Father and King help him to return to Yiddishkeit -- and to not be like the people who were cheating for money.
OTD . . . so off with his beard and big hat! Suits him actually.
Anonymous 3:39PM,
You are right. I should have been skeptical and done some research to determine if the story is true. I'm usually pretty skeptical when I see stories like this, but I was relying on the Bal Ha'Blog to vett the veracity of the story.
I won't comment further until the story is proven true.
Does anyone know if it is?
We live in a make believe world since it is much more pleasant then living in the real world,the rebelech make sure we dont veer of from their make beleieve world thats the game of we have to contend with everything is a fabrication of our mind
Thank G-D I never bought tefilin from him. He was obviously a kofer all along. He finally found a stupid retard reason to go public.
Even my 7 year old would laugh at such a dumb excuse!
So how long till an OTD suicide headline with this guy?
The grass might look greener on the other side, and even if it were, youll never enjoy it because you-ll still be you to ruin it.
abe, you did an honorable thing with your response at 7:43
He can never have true happiness. ..He has a totaly false happiness going against Hasham ...I'm sure the whole clal yisroel is very hurt and shocked.
This is a very old story
http://m.motke.co.il/index.php?idr=400&p=2012007
Whatever. It's still enough to indicate that there is a rising trend of young and old alike leaving the derech, and maybe because they felt 'duped'in some way.
August 6, 2017 at 10:28 PM--This shows that if a person of his stature can go of the derech then anyone can go of the derech if the cercumstances are right
Retard Reason?
I'm sure all the Developmentally Disabled people in your communities appreciate your Loshon Harah!!! Maybe take a walk to your local HASC or OHEL, and call them Retards...would that make you feel better about yourself??
That terminology is inappropriate and insensitive! You'd think that with all the first cousin's marrying, you'd have some compassion about mentally /Physically challenged people!!!!! RETARTED is not a derogatory word!!
He claims that he went off the derech because a prominent Rabbi in Modiin Illit asked him to write Tefillin for very cheap prices to have them distributed to poor and needy families and he subsequently found out that the Tefillin were sold at exorbitant amount of money .
Even assuming his claim is true this is from the most ridiculous reasons for going OTD that I have ever heard.
I sympathize with Moshe Gavriel and respect the fact that he was turned off by so-called religious jews who are the ones that are really off the derech and will be judged as such in the final days.
Achar from gmura also went off for one story, and that was at age 80.
A lot of important details are missing. Is he single, married or divorced? Does he have kids? what is their religious standing, who was his rebbe? His yeshive? Kolel? Has friends? What was so important for him to go public. This is his way of telling that rabbi that he defrauded him. He could have gone to din torah or even the court to straighten things he might have gotten his money back. I believe he had a miserable life with no shulem bayis etc.so he lost it & thinks he can get back at hashem (nebach) or he found a marriage/freindship that required him to change for them & his animalistic desires were to strong to fight them.anyhow he can always come back because you cant leave judaism you can only be a jewish sinner till you will eventually do tshuva.
A real shame, But one thing is pretty clear this had very little to do with the tefillin story. A man at the advanced age of 60 does not go all out OTD - with the goaty and the leather bomber jacket - cause of a bad business deal. Do me a favor...
Achar didn't go off for just one reason. Gemorrah says that healready was singing Greek tunes, possibly sensual or idol songs and was reading heresy for years.
what a looser!!! fry at 60? could of enjoyed life if went fry at 30.
4:41 PM
"I believe he had a miserable life with no shulem bayis etc.so he lost it & thinks he can get back at hashem (nebach) or he found a marriage/freindship that required him to change for them & his animalistic desires were to strong to fight them.
Or perhaps he'd had enough of ultra-Orthodox phoniness and BS.
Lol, never to late to find the truth
"Chafraud-Depravitch"
Seriously?
You better be careful. Any more bad puns and you're going to get people so disgusted that they'll go back ON the derech!
Originally he came from a non religious home became a BAL TSHUVAH and for various reasons decided he doesn't believe anymore.
refuah shleimah for this idiot!!!
It's still such a shame. Individualy, we must take the message of this sad story and all focus on "staying on the Derech" -- not just as a Klal, but with all the peratim too.
The Chofetz Chaim זצ"ל gave a mashal about this. Here is the link to the inspiring clip. https://youtu.be/MjP9aQtfjrg.
Read the entire article (as someone posted the link above) in Hebrew, and you will learn a lot of things that were conveniently left out on here.
a) He was originally a baal tshuva
b) He was divorced 3 times
c) The tefilin story didn't happen in Kiryat Sefer
d) He has lived in many communities and keeps on moving
So we are obviously not talking about a run-of-the-mill frum person who decided at 60 to go off. He is obviously a complicated and confused person who cannot find inner happiness.
or a Rebbitzin
What's remarkable is how much happier he looks.
11:59 PM'
A bad pun is hardly a reason to go back to a toxic lifestyle among toxic people.
Criminal rabbis who pocket a sofer's hard earned pay. It's lying. It's stealing. It's without a concern for his fellow Jew. It's a complete fraud on so many levels, rendering their example of Torah observance a complete joke.
I'd bet the Torah this so-called "rabbi" raises high for hagbah was obtained by some form of theft as well. What a knee slapper! Like holding up two rolls of toilet paper! 'These are the laws that I completely disregard!'
Where do I sign up?
Worry not. There's little chance that someone who wakes up to the dishonesty will go back to living the lie that religion is related to righteousness.
Leo, you said: This is his way of telling that rabbi that he defrauded him. He could have gone to din torah or even the court to straighten things he might have gotten his money back.
I think getting his money back is not the issue. Most likely he was well off and could not care less about the money he lost. The real issue is that
1. he got lied to regarding holy objects
2. the tefillin was never given to the poor families it was meant to go to
3. the whole thing was perpetrated by a bigger rabbi he respected
I also thought about going off the derech every time I see FFB rabbis behaving worse than the average goy in the streets of the U.S. Now that I am reading it, it makes me mistrust all frum people being frum myself. I recently had a very negative experience with a BT rabbi that should have known better, but chose to take money instead of standing up for justice.
1:53
And why did you "conveniently leave out that he learned in Ponovitz when Rav Shach z"l was Rosh Yeshiva?
I left out his background because I don't think it changes any part of the story ....but you seem to think that the fact that he was a "BT" that somehow now it makes sense!
The ones going off the ferech are by in large FFBs!
alexander shekhtman,
1. he got lied to regarding holy objects
2. the tefillin was never given to the poor families it was meant to go to
3. the whole thing was perpetrated by a bigger rabbi he respected.
And those are three biggies... heavy stuff to a sincere, well-meaning soul.
It's a shame these cases often end up with a disregard for God too.
I've experienced similar, but still teach my children a love for God.
I won't mind if they throw away a lot of yeshiva nonsense (they get a balance at home to show them it's okay to do so). But we teach them God is real. One can be without Judaism, especially the freaky hybrid its become today. But one can never be without God. You can't be outside or separate from God, and can never really be 'off the derech' no matter what someone's dogma says about it.
"Thank G-D I never bought tefilin from him. He was obviously a kofer all along. He finally found a stupid retard reason to go public.
Even my 7 year old would laugh at such a dumb excuse!"
August 6, 2017 at 8:27 PM
I told my son about this story, and explained to him why this guy's tefillin were better than some pair cranked out for commercial profit.
His intentions while writing these were purer than some haredi huckster making them purely for profit (not to mention the liar who duped him).
Perhaps you'd prefer the finest set written by a very 'still on the derech' child molester, liar, or thief.
How many Binkovitches are the YSV Monsey Board & their puppet Frankel going to create when they leave kids with no yeshiva and no girls school to attend?
The gazlonim say they run a "private" yeshiva (that they STOLE from the Greenbaums) & therefore can do what they want.
The Gedolim have said they are now perpetrating a 2nd gzailah to steal the right of kids to be in a yeshiva.
They're corrupt & cruel. Look into the histories of some of the Board members.
I am also a Rabbi of many years who left Judaism. I have a hard time believing that someone of that age and stature threw off religion because he was taken advantage of in such a way (despite how distasteful it was). Myself personally it wasn't an easy process at all. For years I struggled to prove Judaism true. I was very happy being observant (and am still raising my family as frum Yidden). But I was in a position where people would present their questions to me and I could not lie to them, I beleived honestly and wholeheartedly that there would be satisfactory answers to resolve the plethora of issues that were presented to me. I spoke to Gedolim, experts, Kiruv professionals etc. But as time progressed the reality that the Torah was written by men set in. I still didn't give up, I desperately wanted it to be true but the ground kept on shrinking. The best my colleagues, and anyone else I spoke to, were able to muster up when I delved past the knee jerk Kiruv responses and showed how shallow they are and the overwhelming evidence that presented that the Torah was not divine was them throwing up their arms and saying one must just have faith. So I did for years, but when the creeping suspicion grows that you're living a lie it's not easy just to brush my it off and keep your eyes tightly closed. Eventually after struggling over this for years the reality became crystal clear to me. In any case not much has changed, I still live in the frum world, still dress and act the part but I know inside that it's not true.
Not unusual for some Baalei Teshuvah to go back to their old lifestyle.
The Sifrei Torah which he had written are Kosher as they were written according to Halacha by a Jewish male whom had a bris milah, in Prewar Europe many Sifrei Torah were written by people alout worse than him. and in Prewar Russia many Sifrei Torah were written by Woman. The Torahs owners should give them in to a Sofer to have them computer checked (Mahgiah) with the latest software and correct all the findings.
However all of the Tefillin and Mezuzahs which he had written are assumed Not Kosher and should be replaced as they must be written "kisidrun" in order. A good percentage of mezuzos and Tefilin parshios which are written go to Shaimos waste as it is not permitted to go back and correct any errors; but we assume that he did not waste anything and he had gone back and corrected Mezuzos and Tefillin Parshios which is not permitted.
most but not all are corrupt, hashem wasnt isnt and will not be,
he's a looser (now at age 60, if he does not belief, he lost his prime fun years)
a pitty
Baldy looks better with a hat and full beard.
Yehuda, ask me any question that you struggled with.
Yossi said...
"he's a looser (now at age 60, if he does not belief, he lost his prime fun years)
a pitty"
August 9, 2017 at 4:06 PM
At age 60 (hopefully) one generally isn't looking for 'fun' as much as happiness. They are different things in case you were not aware.
He's not thrill-seeking. He's pursuing a life of greater truth. The liars among him showed him that the haredi lifestyle (and it is merely a lifestyle) isn't necessarily a life of truth.
And I believe the word you're looking for is "loser" not "looser."
It's really unbecoming (though somewhat amusing) when the high horse riding, uber-religious types try to put someone down, and can't even spell the insult correctly.
Mordechai Minzer said...
"Not unusual for some Baalei Teshuvah to go back to their old lifestyle."
Well, duh! They come to Haredistan with a knowledge of the outside. They have what to compare to. And when the false piety of ultra-Orthodox Judaism is revealed, obviously the best option is to get out of it... to some degree or another. That often includes going back to aspects of a life they KNOW is better than "haredism."
Sometimes people try stupid stuff, like going from civilized to superstitious haredi primitive. They wise up after a while. Sometimes it takes a long while. And they move on to what works for them. Not all abandon their belief in God nor reject the positives they've found while observant, nor even abandon all observance. Not all cases are 180's. But some aspects of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism are toxic. And most will distance themselves from that which the find to be so.
Perhaps some BTs were looking for something that haredi contrived Judaism can't offer. Maybe a connection to God, happiness, contentment, or something like that.
Are you a BT? If not, you have no foundation of knowledge on which to stand and judge.
"The Sifrei Torah which he had written are Kosher as they were written according to Halacha by a Jewish male whom had a bris milah, in Prewar Europe many Sifrei Torah were written by people alout worse than him. and in Prewar Russia many Sifrei Torah were written by Woman. The Torahs owners should give them in to a Sofer to have them computer checked (Mahgiah) with the latest software and correct all the findings.
However all of the Tefillin and Mezuzahs which he had written are assumed Not Kosher and should be replaced as they must be written "kisidrun" in order. A good percentage of mezuzos and Tefilin parshios which are written go to Shaimos waste as it is not permitted to go back and correct any errors; but we assume that he did not waste anything and he had gone back and corrected Mezuzos and Tefillin Parshios which is not permitted."
August 9, 2017 at 3:11 PM
Ah, is that the halacha determined by ASSUMPTIONS and taken to the point of idiocy game I see played?
We can ASSUME all of these unknown women went to the mikveh and recited the appropriate bracha before embarking on their writing, right? All kosher; ink, stitching materials, the tools used? Let's just ASSUME so of these "Woman"... who you characterize as "worse than him."
("many Sifrei Torah were written by people alout worse than him. and in Prewar Russia many Sifrei Torah were written by Woman.")
But in the case of this guy, let's ASSUME the worst of his tefillin and mezuzahs, and judge him negatively (for God's sake, of course).
Ridiculous! Absurd!
He was sincere when he decided to write them. He was sincere when he decided NOT to write them. At least he doesn't live a lie and play the part of pious charlatan like some do.
But had he not decided to abandon the religious facade, and instead played the part insincerely, then you could continue to ASSUME that the tefillin sold by the so-called frum "rabbi" who obtained them through a form of THEFT are kosher, right?
My kiruv rabbi told me that "religion is not stupid." He was wrong. Often times, it is.
Menachem moshe klein. said...
He can never have true happiness. ..He has a totaly false happiness going against Hasham ...I'm sure the whole clal yisroel is very hurt and shocked.
August 6, 2017 at 10:28 PM
"Hasham"?
Do you realize how funny that is?
What happened to his wife and kids and grandchildren
did his went along or dumped him rl
Anyone who says that he's considering leaving or will leave religion because of some bad apples is a flat out liar. If that were the case, then Jews would have left religion after Korach, Spies, kings of Israel, corrupt kohanim during the 2nd bet hamakdash and etc, etc.
A rational honest Jew knows tht G-D is also angry with these people, and we are in galut because of things that we do that are against the Torah and G-D's will.
Wii any of you consider abandoning rules of civilization , steal, murder, behave like a criminals because there are some who do that, or will you honestly say that these people don
t represent the foundation of values and rules of law.
You're liars is what you are.
He actually looks great .Just as BTs are nuts so are OTD s ,anyone that changes in essence who they are & blame the behavior of others have other issues .I admit he looks great & maybe he wants to enjoy life ,who knows .It is true that their is a huge amount of fallacy among Frum people but still you go along with the program as that is in essence who you are .
He looks like Ben Kingsley...He actually looks happy
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