UOJ'S "VIRTUAL" LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY CONVENTION-THE BAAL MACHSHAVA OF THE WEEK AWARD GOES TO THESE THREE COMMENTERS!

Each week I will select the best comment of the week and post it for the world to see. This week there were three excellent comments that stand out, and I'm in agreement with their thoughts. (mostly:-) Each winner may e-mail their real name, if they choose to, and I'll gladly post it. The commenters now have an incentive to create thoughtful, meaningful and powerful comments that will resonate loudly throughout cyberspace. From now until Pesach, each winner may e-mail me the name & address of a family that is in need of maos chitim (money for Passover). These names will remain anonymous forever.

As a rule the comments must be:

1-Sharp
2-Factual
3-Pithy
4-Meaningful.


Anonymous Mr. Emes..........

UOJ's point - and he has a point - is that current events cannot be understood in a vacuum. The history is relevant. We Jews are in a long decline. Our communal child sex abuse problem needs to be understood in a historical context - and then we can fix it.I too disagree with much, but not all, of what UOJ has written about kabbalah and Chassidus. They are a legitimate part of Judaism, just as Rav Eidensohn wrote. Someone else wrote the Chofetz Chaim mentions the Ari, and that works for me too. I'm nowhere near any of these madreigas, by the way.But, G-d help us, look what the Chassidic movements have morphed into. Also, the yeshivish movement. We are disgusting. As if the thievery, the phony kollel movement and actual physical infighting were bad enough, who could imagine pedophilia. Who could image the coverups?Just think - here we are, sixty years after the Holocaust, its as if we've learned nothing. Our leading organizations and Torah leadership do not merely stand by, but are also complicit! This is horrifying beyond words!This is neo-Moloch. It is child sacrifice, for the sake of money, honor, power. Some Chassidim believe it is permissible to steal from a non-Jew. From that krum attitude, look what we have now. Pedophilia. Shomer mitzvos adult Jewish men pleasuring themselves with Jewish children. Rachmana latzlan. And the yeshiva rabbis have covered this up, at worst, or done nothing, at best.In our history, we do have a warped view of what religion should be. It is a fact that some European rabbis believed that both America and Israel were treife, and they instructed their people to stay where they were. And they did, and they died. This is just as warped as a rabbi saying no penetration is not molestation, and foiling a beis din.You can both believe in Daas Torah, and not believe in rabbinic infallibility. Rabbis possess wisdom, and rabbis make mistake. The Chofetz Chaim, who we all believe in, told Rabbi Wasserman, his talmid muvhak, that he made a mistake in not fighting Communism harder than he did. He still would have lost, he said, but the Communists would not have emerged as strongly as they did. So the Chofetz Chaim made a mistake. And if one Yid in those days had said, the Chofetz Chaim is wrong, we need to fight Communism as hard as we can, that Yid would have been right, and the Chofetz Chaim wrong.The Daas Torah of the Chofetz Chaim would have been wrong.History is relevant.

STEVE..............

What's shocking is the number of "heimishe" grocery stores that carry the Rubashkin/Aaron's/Supreme line. The allegations against their Postville plant regarding kashrut violations, tzaar baalei chayim and employee rights violations, should have closed them down a long time ago. Remember, nobody believed Rabbi Shain eight years ago regarding Shevach. Many of those same people were crying last Yom Kippur night during Kol Nidre, "ki lchol haam bishgaga". According to Rav Yudel, "Rubashkin was the forerunner to Shevach, only they are more elaborate with their schemes." When you have a cholei bsakana and the only food you have available for him is Hebrew National or Rubashkin, he says to feed the sick person Hebrew National. A well respected mashgiach as Rabbi Shain would not put his reputation on the line if there were not serious issues with Rubashkin. Personally, I stopped buying their products when the Kosher Spot scandal broke, with the owner buying "kosher" meat from Rubashkin and labelling it "glatt kosher". The foul-mouthed truck drivers have full access to labels and plumbas that they can sell to any lowlife storeowner looking to cheat. When you have a company that's in the treife meat business as well, where they cannot compete in that market, it behooves them to label as much as possible "glatt kosher". Now they came up with the fraudulent label "glatt kosher chicken". As far back as I can remember, chicken was either kosher or not kosher. This is another means to defraud the consumer into thinking their product is superior. Then they place the phony OU symbol, while nobody from the OU even visited their plant. As long as the OU gets paid, it doesn't really matter, does it? They are certifying that they know tbe mashgiach, whatever that's worth. It's reached a point where I know certain rabbis that have become vegetarians, not even eating meat on Shabbos and Yom Tov.The state of kashrut today is probably as bad as it was 70 years ago during the days of RSFM. The phony mashgichim go under the title of "kulo ohev shochad verodef salmonim", and there's plenty that run abound. Phony mashgichim that cover up kashrut violations and phony rashei yeshivos that cover up sexual abuse. This is the sad state of affairs we are in today. One can choose to ignore Rabbi Shain's rantings to stop buying Rubashkin as well as one can choose to ignore UOJ's rantings to stop sending your kids to YTT. Just remember that Rav Yudel was right regarding Shevach and UOJ was right regarding Kolko, Nussbaum, Eiseman and Leizerowitz. Just remember, next Kol Nidre, you can no longer claim "ki lchol haam bishgaga". You have been duly warned!! --

ZA...............

The current culture of cover-up is based on three pillars. I've said it before and will repeat it again and again because if we do not understand and shake the pillars of the culture, that evil culture will continue to spread its evilness on all of us.The first pillar of the cover-up culture is the Issur Mesirah. We keep criminals who affect both the surrounding world and our own world, just so that we will not be Moser them to the gentiles. Firstly, I do not believe that the Issur Mesira is that encompassing that it would prevent us from giving away real criminals. We probably could consider them as people that the gentiles specified for specific (and probably justified) reasons. For such people there is no Issur. For those who believe that one is aloud to steal from a gentile or from the government, those probably have the Din of Rodef, because if their deeds become known then the gentiles and the government may come after all of us. And people who molest young boys, young girls or anybody else for that matter, they for sure have the Din of Rodef and since we may not punish them, the only viable solution is actually give them to the authorities.But there is even deeper problem that we neglect to notice and this is the corrupting effect of having criminals in our midst. If they are successful, others may see them as heroes and follow their footsteps. Those who are with higher morale may not go for that but they may be desensitized to criminal acts and may not see the problem.The second pillar of the cover-up culture is the Issur Loshon Ha-Ra. Think about it, the Chofetz Cahyim took a relatively minor and obscure Issur and elevated it to be the fourteenth Ikkar of Emunah, next to the old established thirteen Ikkarim of the Rambam. But this Issur is now abused. One may not come with real issues about somebody else since the Mekhubad Rabbi Listener would refuse to listen and obviously would refuse to act. Just take the story about R' Yudel Shain finding that Shevach was supplying Treifos some eight years ago and R' Braslauer refused to listen as an example. We took that Issur out of context and out of proportion and it is back firing.The third and, in my opinion, the most serious pillar of that culture is R' Shimon Schwab's Issur of writing Jewish History, magnified by his recommendation to write inspiring stories with only good things about people of previous generations. There are several problems here. Firstly, who is to say what is good and inspiring and what is not. For example, is the fact that R' Moshe Feinstein used to read the New York Times a good one because in that way he kept himself informed or is it bad because how could he read such Schmutz? Another issue is the well known maxim (not known in the frummie world for obvious reasons) that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. If we do not read R' Wasserman letter and we are not aware about his false ideas then how could we prevent repeating such deeds.But the most serious offence of this notion is the desensitizing effect on society. We are so used to society mandated cover-up, that we do not even see how wrong it is. Think about it, R' Schwab called for an organized campaign of cover-up and the only thing many of us do is to mock and laugh about the resulting C.I.S and Artscroll hagiography publication, better known as The Life of the Saints Series.These three pillars must be cut out, smashed and destroyed Im Hafetzey Hayim Anahnu --