"Frumies" constantly re-writing, re-creating and falsifying history....

Rabbi Berel Wein Shlitah

One of the great dangers in life, both national and personal, is looking backwards and dwelling upon what could have been, had we but chosen to behave and choose otherwise. 

There is much to be said for knowing history and appreciating the past. Yet the past, glorious and correct as  we may wish to make it in our memory, is simply no longer here and many times it is no longer relevant to the issues and challenges that we currently face.

I have studied Jewish history as well as world and American history for most of my life. The one lesson that I think that I have learned from all of these decades of study and reading is that there is much to be learned from the past but that the past is never the present.

The Jewish people have hallowed the concept of tradition and past custom. Therefore in many sectors of the Jewish world the past is more important than the present. The Talmud even goes so far as to say that in certain instances custom can override halakha. 

Perhaps as with no other people, the Jewish past holds us in its grip and in many respects prevents us from dealing successfully with the current problems and challenges that face us.

Not only do we treasure our past, but also we willingly recreate it, falsify it to meet current political correctness and beliefs, and fantasize it in order to avoid dealing differently with the current troublesome present. 

The complete fictionalizing in much of the Jewish Orthodox world today of nineteenth and twentieth century Eastern European Jewish life has had dire consequences for us today. We deal in what could have been rather then in what actually was.

Part of the problem lies in our inability to admit that mistakes might have been made in the past. In our devotion to Torah and its scholars and leaders, we have built a wall of infallibility and a false portrayal of unanimity of our then leaders about the issues and events of the past two centuries.

The traditional Jewish community that comprised most of eastern and central Europe began to dissolve and fracture in the 1800s. The false prophets of Marxism and of the Left seduced much of the Jewish youth of the time. Zionism arose as an antidote to Marxism and ironically as a movement that assimilated much of the ideas of the left into its nation building ideology.

There were many great rabbinic leaders who endorsed and joined the Zionist idea or at least the idea of the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. 

On the other hand there were many rabbinic leaders who opposed Zionism in all of its forms and counseled strongly against leaving the “old home” of Eastern and Central Europe. The opposition to emigration was not only applied to moving to the Land of Israel but perhaps even more vehemently to leaving for America.

No one saw the Holocaust on the horizon and the resulting annihilation of European Jewry at that time but there is no question that our Jewish world would look quite different today had mass emigration of Jews from Europe occurred, leaving either to the Land of Israel or to North America.

I am of course writing from perfect hindsight. But I do so because of the fact that the past has been so falsified and deified so that it has become a detriment instead of an asset to us in our current struggles for survival and growth.

One thing the past should have taught us is that politics and religious beliefs do not and perhaps should never mix or become identical. I cannot believe in my heart of hearts that voting for one political party over another is a fundamental matter of Jewish faith.

The political battles of the religious and secular sections of the Jewish people and perhaps even more so the bitter political battles between various factions of the religious community itself that we witness today are little more than the continuity of those struggles that took place over the past two centuries in Europe.

And the irony is that none of the combatants in today’s struggles seem to realize the déjà vu involved in their current political and ideological disputes. 

One would think that the Jewish left would have been cured of Marxism by the experience of the Soviet Union. One could also think that the events of the Holocaust and of the enormous success of the state of Israel would cause many in the religious world to rethink their view of the state and its place in Jewish life.

However, since many of us are always more concerned with what could have been than in what really was, this is pretty much a forlorn hope. 

Nevertheless, we should be wise and truthful about our past, practical about our present, and optimistic about our future.

Rabbi Wein's solution to remedy Chareidie & Chilonie discords!

In an an interview that appeared today in The Times of Israel, author and prominent historian lecturer, Rabbi Berel Wein offers his thoughts on how to break down the barriers between Israel’s secular and Chareidi communities.

Noting that Israel’s population has expanded one thousand-fold since 1900, Rabbi Wein observed that the 66 year old state is still in its early stages of development and that today’s hot button issues are to be expected as Israeli society continues to absorb an incredibly diverse population from so many varied backgrounds.

Rabbi Wein places a large share of the blame for today’s polarization on the shoulders of the Chareidi community’s adamant refusal to accept the state of Israel.

Rabbi Wein observed that while the Sephardi factions of the Orthodox community have accepted the state’s core curriculum in its own schools, the Ashkenazic community has not, given that at its inception, Israel was created as a socialist, anti-religious country, creating a sense of paranoia in the Chareidi community that still exists today. Further exacerbating the situation is the under-representation of Ashkenazic Chareidi community in the Knesset, leading to a lack of understanding of that groups’ needs as well as a lack of acceptance in Israeli society.

Rabbi Wein offers a three pronged solution that he hopes can bring about a greater sense of harmony.

Firstly, the educational system in all schools, both Chareidi and secular, needs to be revamped.  In addition to improving the curriculum at Chareidi schools, secular students must be taught Jewish history, tradition and faith, which would provide a greater understanding of their ultra-Orthodox peers. 

Secondly, noting that the rigors of Talmud study have many benefits, providing students with language, analytical, psychological and spiritual skills, Rabbi Wein suggests providing yeshiva students with academic degrees that would be accepted by universities, giving them the ability to pursue a higher education in non-Talmudic fields should they choose to do so.

According to Rabbi Wein, once more Chareidim join the workforce and begin functioning in mainstream society, many of the schisms that exists today will disappear as people appreciate their similarities more than their differences.

Finally, taking on the thorny issue of the Israeli draft, Rabbi Wein suggested switching over to a volunteer army, saying that in most of the world, military service is not obligatory.

Countering the notion that it is impossible to maintain standards of religious observance in the army, Rabbi Wein pointed to various military personnel throughout Jewish history, including the Maccabees and King David, who served the nation without compromising on their religious beliefs.

Yet Rabbi Wein also acceded that despite the surprising success of the Nahal Hareidi, Chareidim should be exempted from the army as it is impossible for the IDF to accommodate their religious needs.

Rabbi Berel Wein is the founder and director of the Destiny Foundation. For over 20 years, he has been identified with the popularization of Jewish history through lectures, more than 1000 audiotapes, books, seminars, educational tours and, most recently documentary films.

"Holy Rabbis Can Be Wrong" says Rabbi Wein

I received a great deal of comment about my last week’s article on the mental and social regression of a large section if Israeli society. Most of the comments were neither complimentary nor critical but were rather requests for more specifics about the need for change in the mindset of much of Orthodox Jewry here in Israel and in the Diaspora as well.

 

Still under the influence of Purim and therefore perhaps a little too foolhardy, I will attempt to explain my position more specifically in this article. I think that we can all agree that the two main events in the Jewish world of the past century were the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. These two cataclysmic events changed the present Jewish society radically if not even permanently. Yet much of Orthodoxy inexplicably ignores these two events as though they never happened.

 

They occupy no space or time in many Orthodox schools and days of commemoration of these events are absent on school calendars. Instead there is a mindset that hunkers back to an idyllic Eastern European world of fantasy that is portrayed falsely in fictional stories, hagiographic biographies and omissions of uncomfortable facts and doctored photographs – to a world that never was

 

An entire talented and vital society is doomed to live in the imagined past and disregard present realities. And if the view of the present is unfortunately shaped by historical and social disconnect and denial then certainly the longer and equally vitally important view of the future will be distorted and skewed. Sooner or later, reality must sink in and when it does the pain, anger and frustration over past distortions and failures will become very difficult to bear.

 

The great struggle of most of Orthodoxy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries against Zionism influenced all Orthodox thought and behavior. As late as 1937, with German Jewry already prostrate before Hitler's madness and Germany already threatening Poland, the mainstream Orthodox rabbinate in Poland publicly objected to the formation of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel on the grounds that the heads of that state would undoubtedly be secular if not even anti-religious.

 

They were correct in that assessment but, since the Holocaust was then an unimaginable event in their worldview, they continued in their opposition to Jews leaving Poland to settle either in the United States or in Israel. Because of this past mindset, the Holocaust is more unsettling – theologically, at least – to Orthodoxy, then perhaps to any other group in the Jewish world.

 

Much of Orthodoxy chooses to ignore the issue or to contrive very lame excuses and causes for this catastrophe. In my opinion, there is no human answer to the event itself but the event cannot be ignored. One of the consequences of confronting it is naturally an admission that 

great and holy men can be wrong in their assessment of current events and future occurrences. Much of Orthodoxy is so hagiographic about its present and past leaders that it cannot bring itself to admit that. As such, the past cannot truly help to assess the present. A false past is almost as dangerous as having no past at all.

 

Dealing with the State of Israel is an even more vexing issue for much of Orthodoxy. The creation of the Jewish state, mainly by secular and nonobservant Jews, and by political and military means was not part of the traditional Jewish view of how the Land of Israel would again fall under Jewish rule.

 

Since it occurred in the “wrong” way and was being led by the “wrong” people it again shook the mindset of much of Orthodoxy. 

One of the great and holy leaders of Orthodox society in Israel stated in 1950 that the state could not last more than fifteen years. Well, it is obvious that in that assessment he was mistaken. But again it is too painful to admit that he was mistaken and therefore the whole attitude of much of the Orthodox world is one of denial of the present fact that the state exists, prospers and is the largest supporter of Torah and Jewish traditional religious lifestyle in the world.

 

It is again too painful to admit that our past mindset regarding the State of Israel is no longer relevant. 

As long as large sections of Orthodoxy continue to live in an imaginary past and denies the realities of the present, such issues as army or national service, core curriculums of essential general knowledge for all religious schools, entering the workforce and decreasing the debilitating poverty and dysfunction of so many families, will never be able to be addressed properly.

 

The solutions are difficult and they cannot be dictated or legislated no matter how popular such steps may appear to be. But the change of mindset to the present must certainly and eventually occur. The Jewish people have always been up to this task and I am confident that we will be able to do so now as well.

 

Shabat shalom