UOJ & Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz Of Yated Ne'eman Collaborate On A Shabbos Shuva Drasha Heard 'Round The World!

A UOJ Archived Parody! September 21, 2009

Agudath Israel

The fascination with this group's downfall and the manner in which they hoodwinked shrewd, intelligent people seems bottomless. Why is the public appetite for details about how they defrauded people so insatiable?

The thousands of people who were wiped out spiritually when the web of deceit ripped apart, have yet to be quantified. Is it because they abused the trust of so many? Is it because they took every last dime of emunah? Is it because they took the lies from rabbis/gedolim when they knew that, and passing it off to the next sucker in line? Is it because of the unprecedented number of people whose trust they abused and lost?

Is it the spectacular amounts of cover-ups that they supposedly gobbled up that is driving the public's obsession with this group?

They are not the first group of crooks and sociopathic liars, and they won't be the last. They are not the first persons to look into people's eyes and lie to them. The world is, regrettably, full of fast-talkers who sweet-talk people into a variety of schemes aimed at fleecing them.

Most of us have had the experience of talking to habitual, bold-faced liars - and realizing that we are being lied to. Most people are intelligent enough to at least be on the lookout for charlatans.

It is true that we live in a period when we are more susceptible to those who are blessed with the gift of oratory and the ability to offer glib optimistic promises. It is doubtful if the current president-elect would be in his position if he wouldn't have been blessed with the gift of oratory. There are many other individuals in leadership positions who are looked up to by a variety of people strictly because of the way they communicate and not necessarily because of their superior knowledge or intellect. Can it be that the fascination with Agudah is that people are enamored by their salesmanship abilities?

What is so different about this group of rabbis? Why is everyone so fascinated by their capers?

These fabulously pathetic Jews generally view themselves and their lives as more important than those of the little people who have to sweat over a blatt gemora. The culture of power and privilege that comes with their immense phony emunah makes these Jews feel superior to common folk. With a multitude of subordinates like Zwiebel, Shafran and Weinberger catering to their every need and want, and a way of life that defies description, they seem to inhabit a parallel universe.

But it's more than that. The delusion of superiority enjoyed by the rabbis is reinforced by the masses who pay homage to them. Even rabbis who speak out against the worship of money, defer to the rich and bend over backwards (very far) to please the wealthy in their community.

Why?..... Speak to any Swiss banker!

A rabbi commands respect and attention wherever he goes. People point him out when he walks into a room and seek his counsel on various matters, most of which he often knows nothing about.

Everyone wants to be associated with gedolim and, more often than not, the barometer of tzidkas is the size of the rabbi's beard and hat. Usually it matters not how corrupt the rabbi is.

With very few exceptions, this is the way of the world. Honesty is viewed as naivete. One who declines to participate in an Agudah Convention because of the dubious ethics of that group of child-rape enablers, or refuses government benefits he may not be entitled to, is scorned as a fool.

The hardworking electrician or craftsman who works from early in the morning to late at night, never overcharging and remaining fastidious about paying his taxes, may not earn any one's admiration. It's the one who cuts corners, gives dishonest answers on government forms, overcharges and plays fast and loose with the rules who often seems to be more respected for his accomplishments.

An honest middle class man who pays his tuition and is punctilious in the giving of maaser and charity to the less fortunate isn't respected enough for his integrity and reliability. The same goes for the kindhearted fellow who doesn't push his weight around trying to dictate what others should do and does not let child-rapists run loose in his Borough Park two inches of backyard.

We have in our midst people of sterling character, individuals who are intelligent, capable and resourceful, who can envision solutions and follow through on a project to completion. These people realize that all their talents and possessions are gifts from Hashem. They remain humble and G-d fearing. It is this kind of person whom we need in positions of leadership, not the idiots we have now.

Unfortunately, however, we don't appreciate these people. We look for people with glitz and glamour of shtreimels, spudiks, Borsalinos, and the ganovim surrounding them. Awed by their success in duping people to buy them huge amounts of yeshiva real estate with private toilets and basements for their rebbes, we put our trust in these people, imagining that they possess the brilliance and competence to lead us to success.

Then, suddenly, our eyes are opened when we see the rabbis taken down by the cheapest UOJ tricks in the book. We are astounded. How were successful Jews taken in by these thieves? How did they allow themselves to ignore the most basic laws of trust that relatively unsophisticated people are familiar with?

The very people who inspired so much envy and hero-worship, and who we turned to for advice and guidance, have been exposed as fatally blinded by their hunger for more money and power. It fascinates people to realize that the rabbis are no smarter than they, and may even be less intelligent. Middle class people are amazed to see that the wealth they so covet is fleeting and meaningless, while the money they have given to fraudulent rabbis was used for the thieves own gain at the expense of the community.

The media will get over its obsession with child sexual molestation in the Jewish community; the public will soon lose its fascination with this story. Yet, long after the allure of these criminal incidents fades, we must remember its lessons.

Don't rush to respect these rabbis again. Don't become enamored by people who seem to to tell you the truth no matter what the situation. Don't judge a person by the black clothing he wears. Be a true Jew -- eliminate the middleman - go direct to the manufacturer! What kind of Jew buys retail?

Remember that sechel - common sense is a Divine gift intended for the recipient to better mankind and those around him. He who uses his gifts wisely has fulfilled his obligations and accomplished what is expected of him. The one who disburses his largess to worthwile mosdos of Torah and chesed has earned eternity for himself and his loved ones. He who squanders it in selfish pursuits or phony tzedakas and thieving yeshiva owners, leads an empty and purposeless life. He fritters away the benefits he could have accrued in this life and wastes numerous opportunities for eternity.

People who lead honest lives don't chase after phony promises and empty words of fraudulent rabbis behind the rainbow. They have their emunah the old-fashioned way - the Torah hakedosha. They avoid subterfuge and dishonesty. When asking sheilos, they take great care to diversify, never putting all their eggs in one rabbinic basket.

They know that nothing works in a straight upward curve; life has its ups and downs that affect every sphere of faith. Now its the down --- kick your kids out of kollel and force them to go to work.

Enough with these bums hamming it up in the Lakewood coffee room. Stop the checks to them and to the Kotlers --- tell Malkiel and Aron to get real jobs. Shenky can get them traffic cop jobs in a jif! You - parents - are expected to work yourselves dead so your kids can putz around in Atlantic City?

Even though your kids are devious, lazy bandits, don't become broken and give up hope when things are pointing down. Maintain your emunah and bitachon. In the good times, don't flaunt your success and don't force others to conform to your meshugasin of attending lavish yeshivah dinners and conventions. Remain committed to the greater good at all times. Tell the rabbis who knock on your door with their hands out, to kiss off!

We are currently experiencing a spiritual depression as well. Many good people are losing not only their emunah but their savings and the possessions they worked so hard to earn. Everyone we know seems to have been forced, at least somewhat, to lower their standard of living. In the dark as to what tomorrow will bring, many are now cutting back on all forms of spending and holding on to what they have.

People upon whom charitable organizations depended to continue their work are no longer in a position to be of much financial assistance. People with hearts overflowing with the desire to help, and who formerly supported yeshivos and enabled them to maintain genaiveshe real estate holdings, the golden chain stretching back as far as the thief was able to deceive you, are themselves broken-hearted and in need of support and mercy. Nothing like a good molesting by a rabbi to get them to appreciate how lucky they really are.

In difficult straits, rabbis, yeshivas and Jewish organizations will find themselves various unethical schemes to attain wealth and success by taking moral shortcuts. When tempted by dishonesty and duplicity, one has but to remember Margo's downfall. In the end, the truth always emerges, but the rabbis' have short memories, are short on brains, and have been shortened by untrained mohelim.

Frauds and lies will only get you so far. Eventually, the treachery will catch up with you. Together with your wealth, all those adoring friends who couldn't do enough for you will disappear.

Everything temporary comes to a crashing end. Only truth is enduring. Shidduchim for your kids will disappear unless you create some new fraudulent Ponzi scheme -- and Agudath Israel will get the government's money to teach you exactly how to pull it off! Project Dope!

At times like these, we search for things that will uplift and inspire us positively. Neginah, song, has the power to do that in unparalleled ways. Good Jewish music is intended to reach the recesses of our neshamos and make us into better people. Simple poetic words of timeless truth when combined with proper music have a way of doing just that.

Sing and declare "Toras Hashem Temimah" loud and often! Beseech God with "Achas Shoalti", and remember our only source of sustenance when singing "V'yiten L'cho Elokim M'tal Hashomayim...."

[The Lord's Torah is perfect, it restores the soul. The Lord's testimony is reliable, it makes the simple person wise.












Track Title: Toras Hashem
Composer: Feivel Mendlowitz
Ensemble: The Choir of Pirchei Agudath Israel of America
Conductor: Stanley Sperber
Language: Hebrew
Album/Collection Title: Pirchei Sings - Ani Maamin
Label: Pirchei Records
Country of Publication: USA
Archived by the Trustees of Dartmouth College

There is one thing I ask the Lord, one thing that I desire --- That I might dwell in the Lord's house all the days of my life, witnessing the Lord's goodness and contemplating in His sanctuary.

And the Lord giveth from the dew of the Heavens....

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE:


As these hit songs proclaim, let us stay strong and cling to our beliefs. Let us cast aside the alma deshikra that tempts us every day from the bowels of 42 Broadway, and strengthen our connection to the One Above and His Torah. In that merit, we will be zoche to greet Moshiach Tzidkeini, may he come speedily, in our day.

{Contact the Yated for the original undoctored article - Pinny you owe me one --- a check to Survivors For Justice would be a good start!}

Joseph Karo, the renowned author of the Shulchan aruch (a code of Jewish law) called kapparot “a foolish custom that Jews should avoid.”

The Non-Jewish Origin of Kapparot 

 

 

 On Sunday, I posted remarks about the horrible practice of mistreating chickens. The following is a shortened version of what I wrote about kapparot generally in my book “Maimonides: The Exceptional Mind.”

Many Jews recognized that the kapparot ceremony was based on superstition, that waiving a chicken over one’s head a magical number of times would erase all past misdeeds. This is probably why Maimonides did not mention kapparot in his Mishneh Torah, his code of Jewish law. 

The term kapparot means “atonement” and “make void.” It denotes an offering tendered in the hope of gaining forgiveness for past misdeeds. Many Jews currently practice the kapparot ceremony on the eve of Yom Kippur. A fowl is waved counterclockwise around the head of men and women and words are recited requesting that the person’s sins be transferred to the fowl. “This is my exchange, my substitute, my atonement. This rooster shall go to its death, but I shall go to good, long life, and to peace.” The rite concludes with the slaughtering of the fowl, although too many Jews toss the chicken into the trash.

The ritual is not mentioned in the Bible or the Talmud. 

 Virtually all ancient sources recognize that the practice was originally designed, just as the Jewish masses understood the biblical Yom Kippur Azazel ceremony in Leviticus 16:8, as a bribe to Satan to keep him from accusing Jews for their misdeeds during the past year before God. The Machzor Vitri, composed by Simcha of Vitri, France, a student of Rashi (who died in the same year as his teacher, 1105), admits that the purpose of the kapparot is exactly the same as the scapegoat sent to Azazel; both are bribes for the devil. This was also the opinion of Yaakov Hayim Zemach in Nagid u’mitzvah, Isaiah Horowitz in Sh’lah, and J. Z. Lauterbach in HUCA 11, “Tashlich.”

The Origin of Kapparot
The earliest mention of the kapparot service is in a Responsa (a written answer to a question submitted in writing to a rabbi) written by Amram bar Sheshna, also known as Amram Gaon, the head of the academy of Sura, Babylonia, around 850 C.E. Amram mentions that the custom of kapparot is quite old. We can therefore safely assume that kapparot began at least a couple of centuries earlier.

An Ancient Version of Kapparot
The Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 81b, reports a third-century practice that is remarkably similar to kapparot and shares the same superstitious basis and goal. A basket of beans or peas was taken, turned around one’s head seven times and then tossed into the water. The practice was called parpisa, similar to the English word “propitiate,” to make someone favorably inclined to one’s desires. The uneducated masses considered seven a magical number, moving in a circle a magical rite that produced a desired result, and water the dwelling place of the demons. Thus food was tossed in the water as a bribe for the demon.

Amram Gaon’s Explanation of the Kapparot Tradition as He Knew It
Amram Gaon explains that male Jews took a rooster and female Jews a hen on the day before the holiday of Yom Kippur. He writes: “He places his hand upon the head of the rooster, as a sort of s’mikhah [the biblically required placing of one’s hands upon as animal that is being brought as a sacrifice in the Temple]. He lays his hands upon it and slaughters it immediately, following the rule prescribed for sacrifices, which is that the slaughtering of the sacrificial animal must follow immediately the ceremony of the laying of the hands.”
Significantly, Amram states that a rooster is the preferred animal because it has horns.

Why is Kapparot Seen as a Sacrifice? Why Must the Animal Have Horns?
Amram sidesteps the question of the purpose of the ceremony, probably due to his embarrassment about its pagan origin. He states that the animal should have horns to remind the Jew of “the ram that was offered instead of Isaac [when his father Abraham brought him to be sacrificed in Genesis 22].” However, this comment by the Gaon is a late rationalization of the true reason for the ceremony.
Originally, as previously stated, the ceremony was seen as a bribe that was offered to Satan, similar to the Azazel bribe described in Leviticus 16. A rooster was chosen for the bribe because (1) it was an animal that was not allowed to be sacrificed to God, and therefore an appropriate sacrifice for a devil, and (2) the masses thought that this bird resembled Satan: it had horns like Satan and its feet resembled the demon’s feet. The rooster was slaughtered with the sacrificial formality of laying of hands so that it would be accepted as a suitable sacrifice/bribe by Satan to induce the demon not to disparage Jews before God during Yom Kippur when Jews believed that their future fate was being determined by God in a heavenly judicial proceeding in which Satan served as prosecutor.

The Ancients: The Yom Kippur Azazel Ceremony as a Bribe
Many rabbis shared the belief in demons held by the less sophisticated population. The mystic Bible commentator Nachmanides, Rashi and many others believed in the existence of angels and demons, both of which they viewed as corporeal and having powerful positive and negative impacts upon humans and the ability to alter their lives. God, they said, instructed Jews not to seek the assistance of these intermediaries in various biblical passages including Leviticus 17:7.

Yet, remarkably, in his commentary to Leviticus 16:8, Nachmanides, like many others, states that God told the Israelites to bribe Satan by sending him a goat that resembles him every year on the holiday of Yom Kippur. This was the Azazel goat. The purpose of the bribe, as stated earlier, was to stop the demon from traveling to heaven on this day, when decisions were being made concerning the future life and death of Jews, and persuading God to punish the Jews for their sins during the past year.

The purpose of kapparot according to Nachmanides and many others was identical. Although the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. stopped the public ceremony of Azazel, the bribery continued by individual Jews performing the kapparot rite.

Other rabbis spoke out strongly against the wrong-headed notion that angels and demons act as intermediaries between humans and God. Maimonides calls the idea stupid. Saadiah Gaon, before him, states that Azazel was not a demon, but the name of a mountain. The goat was sent away as an open public symbol to teach people to remedy their misdeeds. Elijah Gaon of Wilna highlights his objection to the superstition that angels and demons can act as intermediaries by objecting to the recitation of “Bless me with peace” to angels in the Friday night song Shalom Aleichem because angels, even if they exist, are incapable of bringing blessings or of acting as intermediaries between humans and God.

Why Was the Kapparot Ceremony Performed on the Day Before Yom Kippur?
One would expect that kapparot, like its predecessor Azazel, should have been performed on Yom Kippur itself, the day when the Jews petition God for forgiveness. However, the original procedure was to slaughter the animal before giving it to the demon; slaughtering was forbidden outside of the Temple on this holy day. Therefore, the ceremony of the slaughtered kapparot was shifted to the day that preceded the holiday.

What Was Done to Kapparot After They Were Slaughtered?
Commenting upon the Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 95b, Asher ben Jehiel (known as Asheri, c. 1259–1328) states that the ancient custom of kapparot was to toss the entrails of the sacrificed rooster on the roof of one’s house. Like the water, the masses were convinced that the roof was a dwelling place of demons.
The practice of leaving food for Satan as a bribe was altered in ancient times to disguise its original superstitious intention. Natronai Gaon, the ninth-century head of the academy in Sura, Babylonia, reports that in his time food was no longer thrown into water or placed on roofs but was given instead to the poor. This was a somewhat subtle subterfuge since the masses were convinced that Satan frequently disguised himself as a poor man in order to test people. Thus the food was expected to end up in Satan’s hands.

Opposition to the Practice in the Middle Ages
Several Jewish sages, including some mystics, opposed the kapparot ceremony. In the thirteenth century, the halakhic authority Rabbi Solomon ben Adret, known as Rashba, recognized that it was pagan superstition. In the sixteenth century, when his colleagues in Safed were contending that the killing of the rooster would weakening Satan, Joseph Karo, the renowned author of the Shulchan aruch (a code of Jewish law) called kapparot “a foolish custom that Jews should avoid.”

Summary
The ceremony is still practiced by many Jews today. Those who recognize the quasi-magical aspect attempt to defend it by calling it “magic for a good purpose.” Others have stopped using an animal for the ceremony and substitute money, which is then given to the poor. Those who do so probably do not know that the ancient masses thought that Satan would disguise himself as a poor man to test the Jews. Thus, the bribe is still being given to Satan, albeit surreptitiously.

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-non-jewish-origin-of-kapparot/


Kapparot is not mentioned in the Torah or in the Talmud. The custom is first discussed by Jewish scholars in the ninth century. They explain that since the Hebrew word gever means both “man” and “rooster,” punishment of the bird can be substituted for that of a person.

The Mishneh Brurah, an eminent contemporary commentary on Rabbi Joseph Caro's classical codification of Jewish law, explains the significance of the ritual. Judaism stresses that a person can't obtain purity from sin, and thus obtain higher levels of perfection, without repenting. Through God's mercy, we are given the Divine gift of repentance, so that we might abandon our corrupt ways, thereby being spared from the death that we deserve for our violation of the Divine law. By substituting the death of a fowl, one will (hopefully) appreciate G-d's mercy and be stirred to repentance. By no means, however, does the ritual and the slaughter of the bird eradicate one's misdeeds, even though the bird is donated to the poor.


Rabbi Israel Salanter, one of the most distinguished Orthodox Rabbis of the nineteenth century, failed to appear one Yom Kippur eve to chant the sacred Kol Nidre Prayer. His congregation became concerned, for it was inconceivable that their saintly rabbi would be late or absent on this very holy day. They sent out a search party to look for him. After much time, their rabbi was found in the barn of a Christian neighbor. On his way to the synagogue, Rabbi Salanter had come upon one of his neighbor's calves, lost and tangled in the brush. Seeing that the animal was in distress, he freed it and led it home through many fields and over many hills. His act of mercy represented the rabbi's prayers on that Yom Kippur evening.

(b) Consistent with Rosh Hashanah as a time when Jews are to "awaken from slumber" and mend our ways, using money for the kapparot ritual shows that we are putting Torah teachings about compassion into practice.

(c) Acts of kindness and charity are consistent with God`s "delighting in life" on Rosh Hashanah, since, unlike The Kapparot Ceremony, it doesn`t involve the possible cruel treatment and death of animals.

4. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we should remind others that kapparot is not biblically or talmudically ordained (as is tsa'ar ba'alei chayim), that the custom arose at a later period in Jewish history, that it has been condemned by many Jewish sages, and that the important goal of increasing our sensitivity to the importance of repentance and charity can be accomplished as well, and perhaps better, by substituting money for a bird.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-custom-of-kapparot-in-the-jewish-tradition

Just Because Thousands of PEASANT JEWS perform a MORONIC PAGAN RITUAL - THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT JEWISH! SLIPPERY SLOPE MY "YOU KNOW WHAT"!

READ: https://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/search?q=kapparot

Daas Torah - Catholic Version! This Could Have Been Written by Avi Shafran for the Agudath Israel & Sold to the Pope......Not One Word About the THOUSANDS of Child Victims by the Filthy Hands of PERVERT CLERGY!

Catholic News Service

 Satan is attacking bishops; they must fight with prayer, pope says 

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service

 

9.11.2018 9:29 AM ET

 

The pope said "the devil seeks to reveal sins in order to scandalize the people of God."

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Bishops must remember, particularly when under attack, that their role is to pray, be humble in knowing God chose them and remain close to the people, Pope Francis said in his morning homily.

In fact, a bishop "does not seek refuge from the powerful, the elite, no. It will be the elite who criticize the bishop," while the people show love toward their bishop and confirm him in his vocation, the pope said Sept. 11.

In these times, Pope Francis said, it seems like the devil, "the great accuser, has been let loose and he's got it in for the bishops. True, there are, we are all sinners, we bishops."

The great accuser "seeks to reveal sins, which people can see, in order to scandalize the people" of God, he said in his homily during morning Mass at Domus Sanctae Marthae.

The pope reflected on the day's Gospel reading according to St. Luke (6:12-19), which recounts how Jesus went to the mountain to pray before choosing his 12 apostles -- the church's first bishops. But the homily also recognized that bishops named over the past year were in Rome for a series of courses on their ministry.

It was a good moment, he said, to reflect on what Jesus did in that Gospel account -- pray, elect others and minister to the multitude -- and what it teaches today's bishops.

Jesus' praying for his apostles means Jesus is always praying for his bishops, which is a "great consolation for a bishop during terrible moments," he said.

Bishops are also to be men of prayer -- praying for themselves and the people of God, he added.
Since the apostles were chosen by Jesus -- not the disciples themselves -- "the faithful bishop knows that he did not choose," the pope said. "The bishop who loves Jesus is not a climber who moves up with his vocation as if it were a job."

Instead, a bishop opens a humble dialogue with the Lord saying, "You chose me, and I am not much, I am a sinner." Knowing that God did the choosing and watches over his elect, gives a person strength, he said.

And finally, he said, the fact that Jesus goes down from the mountain to teach and heal the people shows that a bishop is "a man who is not afraid to come down to level ground and be close to the people."

The great accuser, the pope said, "roams the world seeking how to blame. The strength of the bishop against the great accuser is prayer -- his own and Jesus', the humility to feel chosen and staying close to the people of God without heading toward an aristocratic life."


http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2018/satan-is-attacking-bishops-they-must-fight-with-prayer-pope-says.cfm

I Will Resume Writing after Rosh Hashanah...Wishing All People of Good Will...Shana Tova u'Metuka.....

Writer's block

Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work, or experiences a creative slowdown. The condition ranges in difficulty from coming up with original ideas to being unable to produce a work for years. Throughout history, writer's block has been a documented problem.^[1]
 

Professionals who have struggled with the affliction include authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald^[2] and Joseph Mitchell,^[3] comic strip cartoonist Charles M. Schulz,^[4] composer Sergei Rachmaninoff,^[5] and songwriter Adele.^[6] Research concerning this topic was done in the late 1970s and 1980s. During this time, researchers were influenced by the Process and Post-Process movements, and therefore focused specifically on the writer's processes. The condition was first described in 1947 by psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler.^[7] However, some great writers may have already suffered from writer’s block years before Bergler described it, such as Herman Melville, who quit writing novels a few years after writing Moby-Dick.<sup>[8]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer%27s_block</sup>

Achas Shoalti - One Request....

Music Written By Paul (Feivel) Mendlowitz

"Now more than ever, how desperately we crave Reb Shraga Feivel’s purity, righteousness, and encouragement, to lift the stone that covers our hearts, weighing us down and blocking out the light."

In Love with Everything Holy --- In meeting Reb Shraga Feivel, a stone had been lifted

 

by Rabbi Judah Mischel

Maybe it was ordained On High that I should have to take a circuitous route to meet my rebbi — that I should first be required to survey the vast landscape of Yiddishkeit.

I grew up on Grove Street in old Monsey, our family the only Modern Orthodox baalei teshuvah — perennial outsiders in a predominantly yeshivish neighborhood. We were raised to be open, accepting, and respectful of all. My parents chose their Jewish destiny; we were always made very aware of our responsibility to think for ourselves and “do our own thing” in avodas Hashem. Our background allowed us the opportunity to explore the Torah’s many different pathways.

After a year in Eretz Yisrael, when I was trying to learn Torah seriously for the first time as a student at Yeshiva University, the challenge of “finding my place” in avodas Hashem was real. I was drawn to chassidus, engaged intellectually with Modern Orthodoxy, enamored of “the yeshivah world,” and ideologically at home in religious Zionism. There was so much beauty and opportunity in the diversity of Jewish communities. Yet so much seemed scripted, and the search for self, more like deciding which box to fit into, which set of cultural norms to adapt. As aspiring bnei Torah, did we really have to choose one way to the exclusion of all others?

While perusing old copies of the Jewish Observer between classes on the fifth floor of the YU library, I got my answer. I finally met the tzaddik who would become a formative influence and inspirational force in my life: Reb Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz ztz”l. A tribute marking Reb Shraga Feivel’s 35th yahrtzeit penned by Rav Yitzchak Chinn, a close talmid, took my breath away.

The piece described an episode that took place in 1943, just a couple of blocks from where I’d eventually grow up in Monsey. Reb Shraga Feivel was sitting outdoors with a group of yungeleit, and asked one to turn over a large stone embedded in the ground. As he did, swarms of insects scurried about in every direction.

Said Reb Shraga Feivel: “Do you see those creatures? For their entire existence under that rock, they believed the world to be a dark, dreary place. By overturning that stone, you have revealed a whole new world, filled with light and beauty. In exposing them to the sun and sky, you’ve introduced a new dimension of reality into their lives.

“That is our mission in this world — to roll the heavy stones off souls and reveal the Yiddishe neshamah, to allow the ohr haShechinah to shine. When we have moved the boulders, we can lift our eyes to the Heavens, behold our Creator, and know our Yiddishkeit.”

In meeting Reb Shraga Feivel, I felt as though a stone had been lifted — and a new ray of light was shining in.

Reb Shraga Feivel defied definition and categorization; not tethered to any specific one of the shivim panim laTorah, he embodied the infinite expansiveness of Yiddishkeit. Reb Shraga Feivel’s way of learning Torah revealed its awesome unity: plumbing the commentary of Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch to explain challenging passages in Tanya — and vice versa. Chassidus, mussar, nigleh and nistar — for Reb Shraga Feivel, it was all One.

Even while quoting freely from the writings of Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohein Kook, Rav Shraga Feivel maintained a close friendship with and deepest respect for Reb Yoelish, the Satmar Rebbe. At Torah Vodaath and Beis Medrash Elyon, classic yeshivah learning was complemented with shiurim on Tanach and tefillah, the teachings of Reb Tzaddok HaKohein of Lublin with insights on the intricacies of biblical grammar. Rambam’s Shemonah Perakim and Rebbe Nachman’s Sippurei Maasios, Chovos Halevavos, Ramchal and the Tzemach Tzedek.

Fusion implies bringing together of separate, individual parts to form a complete whole. Reb Shraga Feivel didn’t “fuse” discrete parts; he was drawing from a higher source.

“The Tree of Life was in the center of the Garden” (Bereishis 2:9). Reb Shraga Feivel taught: No matter how disparate the various ideas and approaches in Torah that we learn may seem to be, they are all different approaches to the Eitz Chayim. As long as the Tree of Life is “b’soch haGan” — and Torah is at the center — it can be approached from all directions.

Reb Shraga Feivel carried the dialectic within himself: charisma and humility, passionate activism and hisbonenus, intellect and emotion. A gadol who saw himself as a regular person, “Mr. Mendlowitz” shunned all honorifics and trappings of kavod. A public figure, constantly surrounded by talmidim, who relished privacy and quiet. An idealist with two feet firmly on the ground, Reb Shraga Feivel upheld unwavering fidelity to his Hungarian upbringing, while attuning his incredible sensitivity to the needs and realities of the postwar American Jewish community.

Uncompromising in his dedication to truth — at a time when ideology mattered — Reb Shraga Feivel was unabashed in voicing staunch opposition to innovations he felt threatened tradition, but still managed to maintain respectful working relationships with those he vehemently disagreed with.

“Hashem sefasai tiftach” — in asking the Ribbono shel Olam to open our mouths and sing His praise, we aim to emulate His infinite nature, to be big, expand our boundaries, open our borders. As Reb Shraga Feivel would say: “Der seichel iz elastish” — the mind is elastic. If we are intellectually honest, it can be stretched from one extreme to another. Hotziah mimasger nafshi.

Reb Shraga Feivel’s natural expansiveness validated drawing from approaches in Yiddishkeit that seemed to conflict: “Some souls drink from Tanya. Others from the Ramchal. Still others from Rav Hirsch. I drink from all of them, though at any given time, I might drink from one in particular.”

From Reb Shraga Feivel came “insider” confirmation that the search for truth and the fulfillment of ratzon Hashem is more about “a Torah perspective,” as opposed to “the Torah perspective.” “Taamu u’reu ki tov Hashem,” for a searching Jew, Reb Shraga Feivel catered a fresh, bountiful, and spiritually healthy smorgasbord of theological opportunity.

Reb Shraga Feivel’s open heart felt the joys and pain of Klal Yisrael, burned for Torah, and was deeply connected to Eretz Yisrael — in love with everything holy. Sensing the Divine vitality that pulsates through all of creation, he was a baal avodah who heard all of nature singing Hashem’s praise. Reb Shraga Feivel enjoyed spending time in nature, and often looked toward the sky, davening from what he called “the siddur of David Hamelech.” When a talmid inquired of his rebbi’s preference of davening next to a window: “He thinks I’m looking out, but actually, I’m looking in.”

Reb Shraga Feivel’s singular focus on “looking in” — on living a life of penimiyus, nurturing the inner worlds of others, and encouraging in-depth limud HaTorah — inoculated against superficiality.

Every Jew can be an “insider.” With Torah at the center, we are all equally close.

Reb Shraga Feivel suffered a heart attack when he heard that the Old City had fallen into Jordanian hands during Israel’s War for Independence. Doctors warned him against learning Baal Shem Tov al HaTorah — Reb Shraga Feivel’s excitement when learning the heiliger Baal Shem made his sensitive Jewish heart race dangerously.

“V’hasirosi lev ha’even v’nasati lachem lev basar.” In the end of days the Navi Yechezkel promises that Hashem will remove our hearts of stone and restore our natural hearts of flesh — a fleishige heart that senses that every moment in this world is revelation of Hashgachah pratis and an opportunity to draw close to Hashem. Or as Reb Shraga Feivel would say, “Der grester glick fun leben iz leben alein — the greatest fortune in life is life itself.”

Again and again I have returned to Yonoson Rosenblum’s masterful biography of Reb Shraga Feivel; it is a book that changes my life at each new stage I reread it, each time feeling a deeper yearning for Reb Shraga Feivel’s guidance, his expansive heart filled with ahavas Hashem and ahavas Yisrael, nuance and complexity.

Working in the Jewish community, I am privileged to see the absolute best of Klal Yisrael. But even when everyone has only the best of intentions, things can often get personal, and worthy mosdos of different stripes step on each other’s toes. Dedicated professionals and volunteers, even rebbeim and menahalim, passionate for their specific cause, can get territorial over donors, programs — even social services. It’s hard not to get caught up in all of it. Business is business, people are people.

Asking myself, “What would Reb Shraga Feivel do?” invariably leads to clarity and magnanimity, ayin tovah and expansiveness. Reb Shraga Feivel was never confined or defined by where he worked — even by the yeshivos he founded, nurtured, and led. When the fledgling Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin was struggling with recruitment, Reb Shraga Feivel transferred some of his most prized talmidim there, sending his best guys to join “the competition.”

It wasn’t that Reb Shraga Feivel was so confident in his yeshivah that he was unafraid of competition; he simply saw that in the world of truth and penimiyus, there is no competition. Ovdei Hashem are all working for the same Boss, at different points in the Garden, facing the same Center.

Reb Shraga Feivel would remind his talmidim — in and out of yeshivah — that regardless of our professional identity, we are all “sheluchei d’Rachmana,” messengers on a mission from G-d.

As Reb Shraga Feivel’s 70th yahrtzeit approaches on Gimmel Elul, I am thinking about the tzaddikim hatehorim described by Rav Kook — the purely righteous who do not complain about darkness, but instead increase light. Now more than ever, how desperately we crave Reb Shraga Feivel’s purity, righteousness, and encouragement, to lift the stone that covers our hearts, weighing us down and blocking out the light.

I’d grown up literally around the corner from that tree under which Reb Shraga Feivel sat with his talmidim decades earlier, feeling like a perennial outsider. Maybe my not being born to a particular derech with set minhagim and clear mesorah was Hashem’s way of setting the stage for the unlikely kesher I feel with Reb Shraga Feivel. If in our search for meaning we are motivated l’Sheim Shamayim, then we are all insiders.

When we aspire to live each moment with penimiyus, we will find our place in the Torah world, cleaving to the Eitz Hachayim, the Tree of Life at the center of our lives.

Enough complaining about our generation and all that is lacking! “L’oro neilech” — the time for us has come in our search for dveikus to do the heavy lifting, for the ohr haShechinah, for Soul-Glow.

Tzaddikim b’mitasam nikra’im chayim — Reb Shraga Feivel zy”a, chai v’kayam!

Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 722. Rabbi Judah Mischel, executive director of Camp HASC and former rebbi at Yeshivas Reishis, is a popular teacher of chassidus and founder of Tzama Nafshi, an organization dedicated to fostering Jewish education and inspiration. He lives with his family in Ramat Beit Shemesh, where he is a talmid muvhak of mashpia Rav Avraham Tzvi Kluger and translator of his works.

http://www.mishpacha.com/Browse/Article/10876/In-Love-with-Everything-Holy

"Only a few months earlier, Reb Shraga Feivel, the great architect of Torah education in America, had placed a full-page ad in the Morgen Journal, the most widely read Yiddish newspaper of its day. The anonymous ad excoriated American Jews for their inaction during the Holocaust and called upon them to rebuild the Torah institutions and the vibrant Torah world that had been lost."

Rabbi Binyomin (Bernard) Goldenberg

In the Land of No, He Said YES

Several years ago, Rabbi Binyomin (Bernard) Goldenberg passed away in Yerushalayim, having lived the last three decades of his life in Eretz Yisrael. But over his long career with Torah Umesorah, he played a vital role in radically reshaping the spiritual landscape of Judaism in America. In an exclusive interview with Mishpacha only months before his passing, Rabbi Goldenberg shared some of his recollections, opening a rare window into the history of American Jewry in the early twentieth century.

 Sitting down with Mishpacha to reminisce, Rabbi Goldenberg began with a dramatic episode that was a pivotal moment in his life.

The year was 1946. While Europe’s rich world of yeshivos, with its centuries-long legacy of limud haTorah, lay in ruins, America’s yeshivah system was in its infancy. From a spiritual standpoint, North America was a parched wasteland. Only a relative handful of American boys were studying in the few yeshivos that existed; the rest were attending public schools. New York boasted a total of 7,000 students learning in twenty-seven yeshivos, and only three Jewish schools existed outside of New York — in Baltimore, Chicago, and Jersey City.

While Jews lived in many cities and towns across the United States, the level of Torah observance and knowledge was abysmally low. Many Jews had come to view the Torah and its precepts as antiquated and irrelevant, an obstacle to their pursuit of the security and prosperity that America had to offer.

This was the gloomy backdrop for a momentous encounter between the young Binyomin (Bernard) Goldenberg, then a student in Torah Vodaath, and his mentor, the legendary Reb Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, one wintry afternoon in 1946. It is likely that Binyomin had no idea of the fateful nature of the conversation that was about to take place, of the startling new direction his life was about to take, and of the impact it would have on the entire future of American chinuch.

Only a few months earlier, Reb Shraga Feivel, the great architect of Torah education in America, had placed a full-page ad in the Morgen Journal, the most widely read Yiddish newspaper of its day. The anonymous ad excoriated American Jews for their inaction during the Holocaust and called upon them to rebuild the Torah institutions and the vibrant Torah world that had been lost. The ad was Reb Shraga Feivel’s plea to the slumbering Jewish public, his effort to awaken them to the aching need for a revival of Torah study and observance. He signed the advertisement, “Speaking to you is a Jew whose heart is pained by the destruction of our people, and who hopes that Torah in America will yet be rebuilt in the spirit of Torah and mesorah.” That last phrase was an allusion to Torah Umesorah (the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools), which Reb Shraga Feivel had founded in 1944.

Reb Shraga Feivel’s advertisement had elicited at least one response. A Mr. Leventhal, who lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, had written to the newspaper seeking to contact the anonymous advertiser, and the newspaper had forwarded his letter to Reb Shraga Feivel. Leventhal was a junk peddler who spent every Sunday collecting money in order to pay a melamed to teach the community’s children, and he was most interested in founding a school where the children could receive a formal Jewish education.

On that windswept Brooklyn street, as he headed toward the bus that would take him home to Williamsburg, Reb Shraga Feivel withdrew Leventhal’s letter from his pocket and handed it to Binyomin Goldenberg. Along with the letter, Reb Shraga Feivel handed the young man a directive he would never forget: “Binyomin, you must pack your bags and go to St. Paul, Minnesota. You must help this man build a day school there.”

Binyomin was stunned. A flurry of objections arose from his confused thoughts. “But it’s cold in Minnesota! And I don’t know how to get there!”

“You’ll find out,” was Reb Shraga Feivel’s even response.

“And I don’t know what to do when I get there!” Goldenberg continued to object. “How do I open a day school? At least give me the phone number of someone I can talk to, someone who can explain how to do this. Besides,” he added, “you just gave me a different job here. How can I leave that position?” Only two months earlier, Reb Shraga Feivel had informed Binyomin, in a similarly unceremonious fashion, that he was to be the founding editor of Olomeinu, a magazine in the spirit of the Torah for young Jewish readers.

Reb Shraga Feivel was unmoved by Binyomin’s protests. To his mind, someone else could take over the helm of Olomeinu. He had already selected Binyomin Goldenberg as the emissary of Torah Vodaath to plant the seeds for an oasis of Torah in the spiritual desert of Minnesota.

Mentor and student continued their intense exchange as one bus after another pulled into the bus stop and left without Reb Shraga Feivel. Finally, when the seventh bus arrived, Reb Shraga Feivel decided to board.

“I’m not going!” Binyomin told him emphatically.

“There will yet come a day,” Reb Shraga Feivel called out to him through the bus’s still-open doors, “when they will invoke the words of Yirmiyahu HaNavi about you.”

Binyomin stared. “What words?”

“Don’t you know what he says?” the gadol replied. “Yirmiyahu says: Zacharti lach chesed ne’urayich, ahavas kelulosayich, lechtaich acharai ba’midbar, b’eretz lo zeruah. We read the words b’eretz lo zeruah as ‘a land that has not been sown’ — but that phrase can also be taken to mean a land that has been sown with lo, with ‘no,’ a land where negativity is embedded everywhere.

Minnesota is such a land, a place of negativity, where no one believes that a Jewish day school can thrive and that Jewish children can learn Torah and remain faithful to it. You will go to that land, and you will overcome the lo that is sown in every corner of it!”

http://www.mishpacha.com/browse/article/853/in-the-land-of-no-he-said-yes

Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz ztvk"l *** A Student Reminisces *** Approaching The Yahrzeit the 3rd Day Of Elul ---- "He came to class prepared to teach with a wealth of Torah at his finger tips. The vast resources of Chazal were integrated into his personality, yet with his genius, he concealed it."

RAV SHRAGA FEIVEL MENDLOWITZ ZTVK"L

 READ :http://agudathisrael.org/wp-content/uploads/1984/11/JO1983-V17-N02.pdf

7 Orthodox Sex Abuse Survivors Break their Silence!

In our sample of 372 Jewish adult men and women from the United States and Canada, we found a three-fold incidence of rape (involuntary penetration) among individuals who were raised Orthodox but no longer affiliate as such....

Sexual abuse and religion: A call for compassion 

 

A recent scientific study that I authored suggests that aside from sexual abuse being a horrific crime that can have disastrous psychological consequences, it may also thwart religious development.

My patient – a 17-year old female from a local religious community – was crying profusely. “My teacher was aghast when I asked a religious question in class, and everyone was whispering about me the rest of the day. I just don’t fit in.” She was right to be distraught. Aside from feeling ostracized and ashamed, she felt bitterly and utterly alone since no one around her understood that her spiritual questioning stemmed from an incident of sexual abuse that had occurred many years earlier.

A recent scientific study that I authored suggests that aside from sexual abuse being a horrific crime that can have disastrous psychological consequences, it may also thwart religious development.

In our sample of 372 Jewish adult men and women from the United States and Canada, we found a three-fold incidence of rape (involuntary penetration) among individuals who were raised Orthodox but no longer affiliate as such. We also found that across our entire sample, a history of childhood sexual abuse was correlated with less belief in God, lower religious observance, and diminished religious identity.

These findings are consistent with countless anecdotal accounts of individuals leaving religious communities in the wake of abuse. Such a phenomenon makes intuitive sense: Suffering abuse at the hands of ostensibly religious individuals can engender sentiments of disillusionment, betrayal, and mistrust in religion. More broadly, abuse can raise profound spiritual questions (e.g., why would a good God let bad things happen?) and spawn anxious or even avoidant attachment to God. When these changes are not handled delicately with compassion, validation, and an eye towards inclusion, victims feel socially marginalized and are likely to leave the fold.

To make matters worse, psychological science has found religious beliefs and practices to be of help to many people in healing from abuse. A substantial body of literature suggests that spirituality can provide solace, calm and hope, and that using spirituality to cope with adverse life events is associated with better outcomes. Indeed, in my study, stronger religious identity and greater adherence to religious life were associated with lower levels of mental distress and even decreased odds of having a psychiatric diagnosis. This suggests that sexual abuse victims who remain engaged in spirituality fare better than those who do not. As such, religious decline in the context of abuse is particularly tragic, since victims become distanced from the very resource that can help them move towards recovery.

The vast majority of writing on sexual abuse and religion has called upon religious communities to publicly condemn the immorality of abuse and mandate reporting of perpetrators to child welfare agencies. This backlash against the prevailing norm of cover-ups, nepotism, and scandals has created significant legal pressure on religious communities to take matters of abuse seriously. As a result, in my clinical experience, it is now fairly common for religious schools to conduct wrap-around inquiries and take measures to protect students when allegations are raised, and file reports when evidence of abuse is apparent.

It goes without saying that all cases of child sexual abuse and even suspected abuse should be reported to local authorities. This is not only a legal requirement for teachers, rabbis and other community leaders, but a moral one in order to physically protect children.

However, legal intervention is insufficient to help child abuse victims heal. For that to happen, religious communities must recognize that the consequences of abuse are not only psychological or social in nature. My research suggests that spiritual struggles and religious decline may be natural processes for some victims of abuse. These are not an intentional affront to religion, rather they are a normative psychological process that must be expected. Shunning and socially isolating individuals who present with religious questions only engenders greater disconnection, and in the case of abuse victims this can leave them bereft of the interpersonal and spiritual resources needed to heal. For all of these reasons, I call upon religious communities to respond to religious questioning and decline – irrespective of its origins – with validation and compassion.

The author is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and director of the McLean Hospital Spirituality and Mental Health Program.

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Sexual-abuse-and-religion-A-call-for-compassion-564064

Rabbi Moshe Felg/Peleg is a respected personality in the Haredi street in Jerusalem. He’s the head of “Shirat Yerushalayim”, a Midrasha for Baalot Teshuva; many of his shiurim are available on YouTube, and the Midrasha’s website says he founds and runs projects around the country and the world: workshops, study days and seminars for strengthening Jewish identity for youths. He also runs non-profits like the “Roots centre” in Jerusalem...

Moshe Felg/Peleg

Natanel (not his real name), 24, from Jerusalem, decided one day that he wouldn’t put up with it anymore. In one impulsive moment, he picked up the telephone and confronted his greatest fear – the Rabbi who he claims sexually assaulted him in his youth. “My dear, you essentially touched me, it all started from you, my dear, not me” claimed Rabbi Felg, in the first sentence of the charged conversation between them. He went on to apologize and even offered Netanel financial compensation to pay for psychological counselling.

Rabbi Moshe Felg is a respected personality in the Haredi street in Jerusalem. He’s the head of “Shirat Yerushalayim”, a Midrasha for Baalot Teshuva; many of his shiurim are available on YouTube, and the Midrasha’s website says he founds and runs projects around the country and the world: workshops, study days and seminars for strengthening Jewish identity for youths. He also runs non-profits like the “Roots centre” in Jerusalem.

Netanel was 13 years old when he started to immerse in a mikveh before shabbat, as is common in the Haredi community. This is Netanel’s story as he told Yediot Aharonot.

“I always went to my local mikveh before shabbat, and Rabbi Moshe Felg who lived near my parents would sit in the warm water,” he explained. “At first he’d stretch out his feet and stroke my legs with them. That happened a lot. Once we were alone, he put his feet on me and I froze. When another bather came in, Felg left and told me to follow him. I followed him without knowing where we were going. He took me into the bathroom of a local synagogue and sexually abused me. I remember at least three times in the bathroom. I would follow him without understanding. He’d smile and wink at me, and I felt like he cared about me and that he chose me when he could have chosen any other kid. On the other hand, I felt paralyzed.”

“Every time he took me to the bathroom I told myself I wouldn’t go in, but I still went in, and after it happened I felt broken. I wasn’t in control, it was a mess in my head. Felg would ask me to touch him, convince me that I’d enjoy it, but I felt frozen. One time it happened he suggested using shampoo, because ‘it will help’. He would rub our parts together and I’d stare into a corner of the bathroom, frozen. I don’t know how long it lasted. As a child, I blamed only myself for what happened, and for ‘failing’ the Rabbi”

Netanel, a good boy with strong grades, left the Yeshiva to hang out on the streets.

“I just got up and left”, he says. “Nobody managed to help me. They didn’t know what was happening and I was so caught up in guilt, especially because he was a neighbour I saw all the time. It affected me for all of my adolescence. I remember when I received my IDF beret I felt like such a man. I came home proud of myself for what I achieved, but then he passed me and waved hello, and I was paralyzed again… only after I got married did I understand that a child couldn’t consent, and that I wasn’t guilty.”

Netanel decided to call Rabbi Felg after reading an article about a pedophile. The whole conversation was recorded in which Rabbi Felg seems to accept Netanel’s story and apologizes to him, while also insisting that he thought he was older than 13.

Rabbi Felg/Peleg denies the story and attempted to get a court order banning its publication. 

Netanel was forced to appear in court, and the Jerusalem court accepted that his story should be heard.

http://www.jewishcommunitywatch.org/i-was-thirteen-you-used-me-i-have-to-live-with-it-every-day/

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen faces two felony counts of engaging in electronic communication relating to or describing conduct with a child, the Pioneer Press reported.

 

 Aryeh Cohen, 44, of St. Louis Park, was among those arrested along with several others in the undercover operation, which was carried out in the lead-up to the Super Bowl at various locations around the metro, including North St. Paul, criminal charges say.

 

He was charged in Ramsey County District Court Tuesday with one count of soliciting a child or someone believed to be a child through electronic communication to engage in sexual conduct, as well as an additional count of engaging in electronic communication relating or describing sexual conduct with a child.

A spokeswoman for the Minneapolis Community Kollel, where Cohen served as a rabbi and director of youth outreach, said the community just learned of the “disturbing” allegations facing Cohen Tuesday and was stunned.

“We have never received a complaint about Rabbi Cohen from anybody on any thing, and so the Kollel is shocked,” Amy Rotenberg said.

 READ MORE: https://www.twincities.com/2018/08/02/minneapolis-rabbi-aryeh-cohen-among-those-charged-in-twin-cities-underage-sex-stings/

Minnesota rabbi charged in child sex sting operation

 

Aryeh Cohen, who worked in student outreach, allegedly communicated with federal agent posing as 15-year-old boy

 A Minnesota rabbi who works in student outreach was charged in a child sex sting conducted earlier this year.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen faces two felony counts of engaging in electronic communication relating to or describing conduct with a child, the Pioneer Press reported. 

Some 17 people have been charged in recent days in the undercover operation.

In most of the cases, the men responded to ads posted on Craigslist by undercover agents posing as young women or men seeking a hook-up.

Cohen, 44, who has no prior record, was arrested in February outside an apartment in North St. Paul, where the federal agent posing as a 15-year-old boy suggested they meet after a week of communicating through a hook-up site, the Forward reported.

Cohen was the director of outreach for the Minneapolis Community Kollel, an Orthodox community center that offers seminars and classes on Jewish texts and religious life. He ran the Kollel’s JWAY program for college students and recent graduates. He and his wife, Adina, also led private text studies with male and female students at the Hillel on the University of Minnesota campus, according to the Forward, though he was not employed by Hillel.

Cohen’s name was removed from the Kollel’s website.

The rabbi will appear in court in September. If convicted, he faces up to six years in prison.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/minnesota-rabbi-charged-in-child-sex-sting-operation/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=984e4c4be5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_08_03_11_53&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-984e4c4be5-55186525

“Ten percent were criminals!” McHugh said. “Imagine if 10 percent of the graduates of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton at a given point were criminals!”

How the Church Hoodwinked Its Anti-Abuse Experts

 

“They haven’t done enough penance." In Hebrew this means Teshuva... Just like the Rabbis' cure!

 

In 2003, an American Catholic prelate shared his diagnosis of the roots of the Church’s abuse crisis with a group of lay experts. The problem, he said, traced back to the “psychological immaturity” of many young seminarians, which meant that they couldn’t cope with the rigors of priestly life and acted out sexually as a result. The solution, per this powerful churchman, was to institute better “psychological testing” to sift the wheat from the chaff among would-be priests.

The expert group was known as the National Review Board, established by the U.S. bishops conference in 2002 when the crisis first came to light to the dismay of American Catholics. Its members included then-Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, media executive William Burleigh, New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Petra Maes, California congressman (and future CIA director) Leon Panetta, and the Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Paul McHugh, among others.

The prelate in question—the one who blamed the mental immaturity of seminarians—was Washington Archbishop Theodore McCarrick aka “Uncle Ted,” the frocked predator who last week resigned from the College of Cardinals as the abuse accusations against him multiplied. Now, in the wake of McCarrick debacle, at least one charter member of the National Review Board is furious with what he sees as the Church’s failure to come clean in the last decade.

“Why didn’t they tell us—trusted laity asked to lend our expertise—why didn’t they tell us about the supervisory nature of the abuse and especially the McCarrick situation?” McHugh, often described as the preeminent psychiatrist of his generation, told me in an interview on Monday. “It’s got to be more than McCarrick” who is held accountable but “all of them, since it’s been revealed that all was not revealed.” He added: “We, the charter members, were kept in the dark.”

The bishops tasked the National Review Board to uncover, first, the scope of the abuse problem and, second, its causes and context. At the time, McHugh felt that the board did a fine job with uncovering the scope of predatory behavior in the Church.

The findings were not pretty. “There were many priests involved and many children impacted,” he recalled, “and this was mainly homosexual abuse of boys and young men.” As many as 10 percent of seminarians in the first half of the 1970s may have been implicated, according to one influential study.

“Ten percent were criminals!” McHugh said. “Imagine if 10 percent of the graduates of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton at a given point were criminals!”

As alarming as the statistics were, there was a silver lining. It was clear to McHugh that “children hadn’t been abused forever,” across 2,000 years of Church history. Rather, Catholics were dealing with a specific “epidemiological surge” that had risen in the 1960s, crested in the ‘70s, and receded by 1980. That meant that it was possible to root out the scourge and protect future generations of children and young people, provided the Church understood its real origins.

Enter McCarrick and his “psychological immaturity” diagnosis. Set aside the eye-watering hypocrisy of a serial abuser besmirching the character of thousands of priests and seminarians, even as he himself wounded their souls and bodies. The bigger issue, to McHugh’s mind, is that such psychologizing conveniently obscures the responsibility of prelates who rose through the ranks in those years and helped create the culture of abuse, either directly (by fondling the faithful and younger priests) or indirectly (by averting their gazes and keeping mum).

Abusers can sexualize the culture and physical space of an institution, McHugh explained. “So to have a cardinal or bishop [with such proclivities] running the seminaries, no wonder we’re seeing this! And this is not just one we’re talking about [McCarrick]. This is something that was systematic.” When the board finished its work, there were those who warned McHugh that he and his colleagues hadn’t gone far enough. Today he thinks that the pessimists were right.

Even now, the veteran psychiatrist warns, there is a risk that the Church will lose sight of the moral dimension by viewing the crisis through a primarily medical or legal or financial lens. “The Catholic Church in relation to this problem, whatever the causes, was not dealing with this in a Catholic way.” The Church, in other words, has lost sight of sin and how to expiate it. Priests who sit in the confessional know the process: admission of fault, an earnest commitment not to fall again, then penance.

“They haven’t done enough penance—moral penance,” McHugh said. “We should have a day a year when everyone from the Pope down shows penance for this. If we have a yearly march for pro-life and whatnot, we also have to have a day of ‘God have mercy’” over the abuse crisis. And the Church, which knows something about sin and its expiation, must remain vigilant. If it happened at one point, and there was insufficient disclosure and penance, the abuse might return.

For McHugh, a devout Catholic, all this is deeply personal. “This is the Church that nourished me as a child and guided me as an adult,” he said, which means it “pains me” to chastise its leaders. “But I am not so religiously orthodox as to not be offended when I’m misled.”

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/culture-civilization/religion/how-catholic-church-hoodwinked-its-anti-abuse-experts/

All the children who were exposed to the measles received a vaccine and none of them currently have the disease, Levy said, because there is a vaccine that works over 99% of the time. “We call on all children to get vaccinated,” he said.

80 child cancer patients exposed to measles at Petah Tikva hospital 

 

Tel Hashomer Infectious Diseases Prevention Unit immunology researcher Aylana Reiss-Mandel said that it is precisely because of vaccines’ success that some people don’t recognize their importance.

1 minute read.

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A three-year-old boy with measles exposed an estimated 80 children from all over Israel to the disease at Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva.

Infectious Diseases Unit director Yitzhak Levy said they ask parents if their children had received regular vaccines and the father of this child had said that he did.

“You have to ask his dad, I don’t know why [he didn’t get vaccinated] but the fact is, he didn’t,” Levy said. “Dad says it’s for technical reasons – ask him.”

Had the hospital staff known the child had not been vaccinated, they would have quarantined him and not have let him walk around, he said.

The child was treated in the hemato-oncology ward, due to a blood disease, where cancer patients – whose immune systems are already compromised – are also treated.

“He got the regular treatment, and went through various stations in the hospital,” the hospital’s assistant to the spokesperson Linor Nevo-Albo said. “Some days afterward, we got a report that the same child was indeed sick with measles, and therefore we checked all the children who were perhaps with him, in the same environment.”

All the children who were exposed to the measles received a vaccine and none of them currently have the disease, Levy said, because there is a vaccine that works over 99% of the time.

“We call on all children to get vaccinated,” he said.

Tel Hashomer Infectious Diseases Prevention Unit immunology researcher Aylana Reiss-Mandel said that it is precisely because of vaccines’ success that some people don’t recognize their importance.

“Today we really don’t see the diseases that we’re talking about vaccinating, and thank God that we don’t, so it’s hard to understand the importance and how far we’ve come because of vaccines,” she said.

“Even with herd immunity, there’s always a very, very small risk of contracting something... with somebody who hasn’t been immunized.”

https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/80-child-cancer-patients-exposed-to-measles-at-Petah-Tikva-hospital-563803?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=1-8-2018&utm_content=80-child-cancer-patients-exposed-to-measles-at-petah-tikva-hospital-563803