Slifkin talks about "fake" apology letter of Jonathan Rosenblum of the Yated, to R" Dov Lipman

Rabbi Slifkin

 by Rabbi Slifkin,
During the controversial controversy over my books, a certain former friend, whom we shall call Mr. X, in conjunction with a certain rabbi, was urging me to issue a public retraction/ apology for my books. It's not that Mr. X thought that my books were actually heretical; indeed, Mr. X himself believed that the world is billions of years old, and he did not believe in Chazal's descriptions of spontaneous generation. But Mr. X urged me to issue a partial apology, for errors in "tone" or "expression," as a tactical move, in order to defuse the controversy, and prevent damage to myself and others.
A rav that I was consulting didn't agree. He told me that there's no point issuing a partial apology - my opponents would be satisfied with nothing less than a complete capitulation, that my books are utter heresy. And a complete capitulation, while serving the interests of many rabbis/ charedi apologists associated with me or my books, would not be beneficial to me or to the people who so strongly identify with the rationalist approach. He told me that the people pushing me to apologize were looking out for their own best interests, not mine. I'd be compromising my integrity for no benefit to the people that count. And if I have to suffer the results, so be it.
I didn't apologize. In retrospect, I believe that the rav was completely correct, and I'm glad that I listened to him. But Mr. X was furious with me for not following his advice. In a public lecture that he later gave about the ban on my books, he criticized me as "a person who is not willing to listen to anyone."
(Of course, there are times when one should apologize even if one does not feel sorry - such as for shalom bayis. I am not referring to such cases.)
I was reminded of this when thinking about certain recent "apologies" that are not genuine apologies at all; instead they are just tactical moves to deflect opposition. This alone is disturbing enough; what makes it sadder is that some naive people seize upon these as examples of the moral greatness of the person issuing the apology. Whereas in fact, it doesn't demonstrate any moral greatness - just political wiliness.
How can one tell if an apology is sincere or merely a ploy? It's not always possible, of course. But sometimes there are clues that give it away.
First was Rabbi Avi Shafran's apology for his infamous article in which he said that Bernie Madoff is more worthy of respect than Captain Sully (because Sully was just doing his job, whereas Madoff went beyond expectations in apologizing). When there was uproar at this dangerously insane article, and many people calling for Rabbi Shafran to be fired from Agudas Yisrael, he issued an apology, but it seemed rather tepid. He spoke about having used an "unsuitable example" instead of admitting that the core idea was wrong. My suspicions about the insincere nature of the apology were confirmed when, in a personal email to me, he told me with pride about all the positive comments he had gotten on the article and about how he would love to discuss it one day.
Second was Leib Tropper's apology for having used his position at the top of a geirus organization to take advantage of female converts for the benefit of himself and others. His apology was carefully worded to not even be an explicit admission of guilt, despite the fact that audio and video recordings of his activities were freely available on YouTube. And I recently discovered that his devoted disciples still believe, presumably with his encouragement, that he never did anything, and that the recordings were elaborate fakes engineered by powerful adversaries.
But now we have perhaps the ultimate example of an insincere apology that is just a tactical maneuver. I'm referring, of course, to Jonathan Rosenblum's apology for slandering Rabbi Dov Lipman, as discussed in a previous post. Rosenblum, I'm told, received a tremendous amount of heat, with several people publicly responding and pointing out that his accusations were based on gross factual inaccuracies.
Rosenblum's apology starts out great. He goes into full details about his factual errors. He admits that "he had no business to make any assumptions, and certainly not to publish them, without clarifying the situation." He apologies to Rabbi Lipman and Mrs. Wolfson "for wrongly characterizing their actions as provocative, and for not having done adequate research."
Of course, one can ask, as did Rabbi Shaya Karlinsky, "I think it is important to examine how Jonathan Rosenblum, who 'had no business to make any assumptions, and certainly not to publish them, without clarifying the situation' did exactly that." A neighbor of mine, Menachem Lipkin, pointed out that, to make matters worse, he had already given Rosenblum the correct information a long time ago:
Rosenblum talks about the “assumptions” he made and how they were wrong. However, he and I had an ongoing email/phone exchange during the the Fall of 2011 when all this was going on. I gave him great detail of what was going on. I sent him a highlighted a map of the area showing him all the relevant buildings, “zones”, etc. I urged him to come down and I’d give him a tour of the area. I also urged him speak directly with Rabbi Lipman (who was not yet the “evil” man the Chareidi media has made him out to be). He did neither. Even articles he wrote at the time had factual errors which I pointed out to him.
Rosenblum makes an interesting statement: "For a Torah Jew, 'We regret the error' is insufficient." I'd expect that to mean that for a Torah Jew, it's not enough simply to issue an apology. There must be genuine contrition, a sincere effort to make amends with the victim, introspection as to how one did such a thing, and a change in one's ways.
Unfortunately, it seems that I misunderstood him. After a brief diversion to criticizing Yesh Atid, Rosenblum returns to yet another all-out attack on Dov Lipman. And to quote Menachem Lipkin:
Even if one accepts his "apology", he can barely get through the article before repeating the very transgression he so narrowly apologized for in the first place!
From JR’s “rebuttal” section:
“SADLY, RABBI LIPMAN has done little himself to provide secular Israelis in his party or beyond with a greater appreciation of the joy, the intellectual stimulation, or the cosmic power of Torah learning.”
From an assistant in Dov Lipman’s office:
1) E-mail Dov received from someone chiloni “True Story: I met on Friday afternoon with two successful young Israeli entrepreneurs — both secular IDC graduates and IDF special forces veterans. The issue of them having a meeting on Saturday (as they were leaving NYC Sunday morning) came up — and one said that he would not meet on Shabbat. He explained that he usually would have done so, as religion to him was personified by the haredi who did not share his values and with whom he did not identify at all. Then, he explained, Yesh Atid came along, with the Rabbi Dov Lipman — and showed him that he could embrace Judaism…that it was now owned and controlled by those with whom he disagreed so profoundly.”
2) Yesh Atid started the weekly Bet Midrash for MK’s – the first in the history of the Knesset. Every Tuesday at 3:00p.m. religious and secular MK’s study a section of Torah together and Dov is a regular contributor.
3) After a speech in a Jerusalem bar a girl raised her hand and said to Dov – “I just want you to know that you make me want to be more Jewish.”
4) Dov speaks a few times a week to secular students visiting the Knesset and each time he emphasizes the value of Torah study and he emphasizes the message of secular people respecting religious and vice versa.
5) After speaking in a bar in Tel Aviv, the young college students said that they never met someone chareidi who respected them and Dov explained that most chareidim would not force their ways on them. The outgrowth of that event was a Knesset taskforce for dialogue between chareidim and chilonim which Dov chairs.
Furthermore, if Rosenblum genuinely regrets having been motzi shem ra on Dov Lipman, then why on earth does his apology only appear on Cross-Currents, and not in Yated, where the original motzi shem ra appeared? In a heated email exchange that I had with Rosenblum last week, I asked him that question twice, and he did not respond. I also posted this question on Cross-Currents, but my comment was rejected. Since at least last Sunday, Rosenblum was aware that his accusations against Dov Lipman were false - plenty of time to put a retraction in the Yated, if he was genuinely sorry.
All of the above confirms a rule that I posted about a long time ago, which is neatly revealed in a statement that Rosenblum makes immediately following his expression of moral regret:
THAT HALACHIC AND JOURNALISTIC failure was a double patch in panim [smack in the face], resulting not only in a loss of credibility but serving to distract attention from the very real issues that divide me and Rabbi Lipman, who is now an MK in Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party.
Whenever someone gives two reasons for something, it's always the second reason that is the real reason. The first reason is given because it sounds better.
Rosenblum's expression of regret for a moral failure, a sin of bein adam l'chavero, was only urgently issued to Cross-Currents readers, not Yated readers. It was followed by exactly the same sin of motzi shem ra all over again. Because it wasn't a sincere apology at all - just a tactical maneuver, in order to enable Rosenblum to repair and reinforce his attack on Yesh Atid, and Dov Lipman.
Oh, and to return the story that I opened this post with. The real name of Mr. X who was urging me to apologize for my books, as a tactical move? I'm sure you can guess.

Self-righteous Yated reporter Jonathan Rosenblum apologizes to MK Dov Lipman and then proceeds to bash him in the same apology

Yated "stooge" Jonathan Rosenblum

Rosenblum does not apologize so much for his evil statements about a fellow Jew as much as he apologizes for using the wrong video clip. Whoever showed him the video clip obviously did not fully explain the situation to him.
Rosemblum's real error was accepting Lashon Horah and then spreading Lashon Horah.
.
Here guys, read this sick apology from the "groiser chucham" Rosenblum!

 I erred. Big time.

Two years ago, the confrontation between parents and students in the national religious Orot girls school in Ramat Beit Shemesh and a small subgroup of the “Yerushalmi” community living nearby received saturation coverage in the Israeli media. Grabbing the most attention was a wrenching 13-minute video shown by Channel 2 anchor Yair Lapid, which focused on the trauma suffered by a young student in the school, as a result of being spit and screamed at by those protesting the school.

The confrontation at Orot brought Rabbi Dov Lipman, a relatively recent American immigrant, to public attention for the first time, and helped launch Yair Lapid’s political career. Lapid announced his entry into politics shortly after the video aired. Though Lapid referred to those menacing the girls as “chareidi extremists,” he intoned ominously at the end of his introduction, “Is this what we can expect in the rest of the country?”

As if to bring the point home, the video concluded with an interview with a self-diagnosed “healthy man” (who by his appearance and dress appeared not to be from the “Yerushalmi” community, but a relatively recent ba’al teshuva), who was asked what would be the end of the turmoil. His answer, sure to send shivers down the spine of all secular viewers: “The state will finally be chareidi – a chareidi state, whether you want it or not.”

Throughout the dispute, I was highly critical of those I labeled the “crazies.” In one column I offered them as an example of ideological dementia: “How could a grown man shout the most vile names at seven-year-old girls or chase them down the street if a demented ideology had not rendered him oblivious to what he was doing?”

But there was another clip from that period that appeared to me to involve an effort to provoke the “Yerushalmi” subgroup – admittedly not hard to do. That clip shows Dov Lipman together with a woman walking a small dog. As they approach a group of “Yerushalmis,” Lipman thrusts his hands in the air several times, to the accompaniment of the men shouting “Lipman, Lipman.” Many of the men turned their backs or put their round hats over their faces to avoid looking at a woman whose long skirt and t-shirt were not according to the standards of Meah Shearim.

I surmised that the men, who were milling around doing nothing, were in front of a shul at which they had just davened, in a neighborhood close to their homes. I was wrong. Apparently, Rabbi Lipman and Mrs. Wolfson were on their way to accompany the Orot school girls.

I had no business to make any assumptions, and certainly not to publish them, without clarifying the situation. For a Torah Jew, “We regret the error” is insufficient.

I apologize to Rabbi Lipman and Mrs. Wolfson for wrongly characterizing their actions as provocative, and for not having done adequate research.

THAT HALACHIC AND JOURNALISTIC failure was a double patch in panim [smack in the face], resulting not only in a loss of credibility but serving to distract attention from the very real issues that divide me and Rabbi Lipman, who is now an MK in Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party. The first rule of debate is to stick to your strongest points, and never allow your opponent to distract attention by focusing on weaker arguments or ones carried beyond the available evidence.

My oped in last week’s American Yated Ne’eman had absolutely nothing to do with the events in Ramat Beit Shemesh, and they should have been omitted. In that piece, I questioned the decision of the Rabbinical Council of America to invite MK Lipman to be its keynote speaker at its annual convention.

I argued that it was odd for the largest organization of Orthodox rabbis in America – one currently involved in an effort to draw the lines of Orthodoxy – to invite someone who ran for the Knesset on a platform favoring homosexual marriage (though not favoring it himself), and who has advocated positions on geirus [conversion] widely divergent from the RCA’s own standards for geirus, and whose position on the Women of the Wall is outside the Orthodox mainstream.

But most importantly, I argued that the approach of Yesh Atid has dramatically set back internally generated changes in the Israeli chareidi community. That result was fully predictable; indeed I and every other thoughtful observer did predict it. Rabbi Lipman responded to my piece at the Times of Israel, not only rightly taking me to task for my incorrect extrapolation from the film clip, but also attempting to answer my four points. (After I wrote the piece in Yated Ne’eman, but before it was published, the RCA generously extended me an invitation to speak the day after Rabbi Lipman at its convention.)

NOW LET US RETURN to above issues. Rabbi Lipman does not deny he was elected to the Knesset on list of a party committed to legalizing homosexual marriage. According to the Midrash, the Dor Hamabul [Generation of the Flood] was destroyed for instituting formal marriage contracts for such marriages.

Party affiliation means a great deal more in Israel’s proportional representation system than in America. In Israel, one is elected to the Knesset as a member of a party list, not as an individual, and subject to party discipline on Knesset votes. I wonder whether Dov Lipman consulted any Torah authority on whether affiliation with the Yesh Atid list is permitted.

HE ALSO ADMITS that he advocates accepting geirim without kabolos mitzvos on the basis of a few symbolic mitzvos, like lighting Shabbos candles or fasting on Yom Kippur, but only in the case of zera Yisrael – e.g., those with a Jewish father or grandfather. That position, he writes, is based on halachic precedent, including Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef. I am not aware of any written psak like that of Rav Ovadiah’s (though the Sephardi approach to kabalat ol mitzvoth may be more lenient in certain instances). Certainly Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, one of Rav Ovadiah’s chief disciples, has never advocated such a position during his ten years as Chief Rabbi. Zera Yisrael is relevant in halacha with respect to whether the normal strictures against drawing a gentile close to Torah, apply to someone with a Jewish parent or grandparent; Rav Elyashiv held that they do not.

Most relevant for our discussion, however, is that the RCA itself insists on kabolos ol mitzvos, and does not recognize a dual standard system of geiros. That was the position of Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik, the long-time head of the RCA’s Halacha Commission, who considered it axiomatic that there can be no geirus without kabolos ol mitzvos (See his “Kol Dodi Dofeik.”)

WITH RESPECT TO WOMEN OF THE WALL, Rabbi Lipman opines that the issue is not worth the fuss. For one thing, in the past, men and women stood near one another in private supplication (such private tefillos are still the most common form of prayer at the Kosel today), so the Kosel doesn’t have the din of a Beis Knesses. Therefore women wearing tallis and tefillin is no problem. As I pointed out in my original article, the lack of a mechitzah in old photographs was by order of the British Mandatory authorities, not because of the custom of the place.

Anyhow, Lipman writes, “small groups have been going once a month for Rosh Chodesh davening for more than twenty years, and it only became an issue when the chareidi leadership decided to make it illegal and have them arrested.” That doesn’t happen to be the story that Women of the Wall themselves tell. From the first international feminist conference, which gave rise to Women of the Wall, there has been confrontation and clash, according to the 2002 anthology Women of the Wall, edited by two of the groups founders.

Already in 1997, Hillel Halkin (who is not Orthodox), writing in the Forward, pointed out that nothing in Reform or Conservative “halacha” requires women to pray in tallis and tefillin. (He might have added that the Reform movement specifically denies any special kedushah attached to the Kosel or any desire for a return of the Temple or the sacrifices.) Therefore, asked Halkin, “Were they to come to the Wall without prayer shawls as a simple gesture of respect for the traditions of the place, against what sacred principles of their faith would they be sinning? Are there no other places to practice Jewish feminism in the world, in Israel, or even in Jerusalem that they must do it at the one site where it infuriates large numbers of other Jews?”

Contrary to Rabbi Lipman, I believe there is something important at stake: the Kosel’s power as the most enduring symbol of Jewish continuity. If it becomes a veritable Hyde Park Speaker’s Corner of whatever is new in rites performed by Jews – a goal specifically proclaimed by some of the founders – that power is lost.

True, some women may really want to daven at the Kosel in tallis and tefillin, but, as Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik long ago warned, the emphasis on the subjective religious experience is essentially pagan.

WoW is heavily funded by the New Israel Fund, which has its tentacles all over the Yesh Atid agenda. The NIF’s 2011 IRS filing lists the following objectives – foster diverse expressions of Jewish identity and practice, promote legislation that mitigates control of the Rabbinate, advocate for equal allocation of resources to non-orthodox Jewish services and education, and strengthen liberal elements within orthodoxy to achieve those objects.” Somehow I doubt that the RCA identifies with too many of those goals.

IN MY MIND, the primary issue raised in my first piece was the way Yesh Atid has reinforced the most retrograde elements in the chareidi community and slowed the process of chareidi economic and military integration. Married chareidi men have already become more reluctant to enter the IDF programs training programs tailored to their special needs.

Yesh Atid has aided and abetted these elements by allowing them to portray the battle as one over preservation of the chareidi life and Torah learning. When Yair Lapid promises, “Israel will end up breaking the chareidi ghetto walls” or gloats, “This is a historic opportunity not to fight with the chareidim, but to bring them into our worldview … to change the culture of the country and redirect the ship,” chareidim hear a call to Kulturkampf from an earlier era. When Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron says, “Parasites won’t receive any sort of hechsher,” chareidim hear a hatred for them qua chareidim, and brace themselves to resist the onslaught.

When funding to chareidi schools, but not national religious schools, is cut 25%, even before consideration of the core curriculum, or stipends for foreign students in chareidi yeshiva gedolos are slashed, but not stipends for foreign students in national religious yeshivos, chareidim feel themselves under siege. Similarly, when crucial social benefits – such as subsidized pre-school and kindergarten education – are contingent on both parents working (and no one learning in kollel), chareidim sense a frontal attack on the viability of kollel learning.

Perhaps nothing did more to convince the chareidi world that Yesh Atid has declared war, than the insistence — over the fierce objections of Defense Minister and former Chief of Staff “Boogie” Ya’alon — on criminalization of non-service. Lipman lamely argues that this step was necessitated by expert legal advice that the legislation prepared by the Yesh Atid-controlled Peri Committee would be infirm on equal protection grounds without it. But the law is subject to a much more glaring equal protection challenge anyway because it does not impose equal burdens on Arab citizens.

One does not threaten to bring down the government, as Lapid did, over a legal advisor’s opinion – certainly not at a time of high national danger. Criminalization was a bone thrown to Yesh Atid’s anti-chareidi constituents – a way for Lapid to show that he is sticking it to the chareidim. True, as Lipman suggests, it’s a bluff, not scheduled to go into effect until 2017, long after the current government is history. But it allows Lapid to run as the slayer of the chareidim. That instinct for chareidi-baiting provides little basis for fostering trust.

SADLY, RABBI LIPMAN has done little himself to provide secular Israelis in his party or beyond with a greater appreciation of the joy, the intellectual stimulation, or the cosmic power of Torah learning.

In his Times of Israel response, he quotes his post on Facebook during the Pesach bein hazemanim: “I want to share a thought I had this morning as I jogged through the streets of Beit Shemesh. I saw three street cleaners working – all over age 70. Why aren’t yeshiva students, who are on their month long vacation during Nissan, volunteering to provide these older men with some vacation or to at least make their jobs a bit easier? Just a thought.”

To whom was this brilliant insight directed? To all the chareidi yeshiva bochurim who have “friended” him on Facebook? Or was it directed to the secular community to feed their stereotypes of selfish bochurim concerned only with their own learning and contributing nothing to society? Had Lipman really been concerned about the street sweepers he would have started knocking on his neighbors’ doors, not posting on Facebook.

Do Israeli chareidim really need such instruction in chesed [kindness]? Almost every major volunteer organization in the country – Yad Sarah, Ezer M’Tzion, Ezra L’Marpeh, and countless organizations providing for cancer victims and their families – were founded by products of chareidi yeshivos and serve the entire population. Yad Sarah alone saves the Israeli government 1.4 billion shekels in hospitalization costs a year.

Is the following description of the learning in chareidi yeshivos meant l’hagdil Torah u’l’ha’adiro: “They’ll open up a Talmud and they’ll read a line in the Talmud. And then they’ll read Rashi and then they will read the Tosfot, and then they will read the Rishonim and then the Aharonim on it, and they’ll spend a day analyzing that line of the Talmud and all the commentaries, and that’s it.”

Nor apparently, does Lipman see Talmud learning as offering much refinement of middos: “Maybe, all of a sudden in the middle of the page, you’ll have a statement that relates to what you are learning about being a nice, good person. But that’s not the focus of it.”

I’m not sure how much time Lipman has spent in the great Israeli yeshivos, but he’d like the secular public to know that there is little to show for the miraculous growth in lomdei Torah: “[I]f we saw tens of thousands of the most brilliant scholars who mastered every possible classic text and were writing great works of new thought and ideas, I’d still make my case, but it’d be harder for me. But we don’t see that. You don’t see the results.”

Lipman told the Times of Israel: “I want to be the one to write the test of the 18-year-old . . . to decide which 18-year-olds can study Torah day and night. I want to write that test. It’ll be less than 400 . . . so skilled and so steeped in learning and [who] so love learning.”

What is the point of all this pandering to the secular public other than to assure them that there is no dedication, no mesirus nefesh, no intense intellectual effort, no shviros hamiddos in the tents of Torah?

In an important letter, the Chazon Ish famously observed that the division of the Torah into two separate parts – one having to do with issur ve’heter and the other to do with guidance in other areas of life – with the determination of the chachmei hador binding only in the first section, is the ancient system of German Reform that led to the near total assimilation of German Jewry.

Here is Rabbi Lipman in response to a question as to whether he sought rabbinical guidance before agreeing to run on the Yesh Atid list: “Halacha is: Is this pot kosher or not kosher. If you don’t know the halacha yourself, you ask the rabbi for that.” Anything else, it seems, is beyond the realm of Torah scholars; their decades long immersion in Torah offers them no more insight than the next guy.

But, in the end, Rabbi Lipman is not the issue, apart from his efforts to kasher Yesh Atid for American Orthodoxy, and hopefully we can now proceed to the real discussion.