Because I can’t personally know the effectivity rate of different resources for people who suffer from same-gender attraction, I can't personally vouch for any specific method or practitioner.
And though I have no personal experience with the following resources, they certainly seem worth a try:

1) I guess the most well-known group is JONAH. They deal with healing and support for same-gender attraction and are definitely worth a look. I found their testimonials quite compelling.

2) Reading his articles shows that Dr. Zev Ballen has dealt with the most harrowing traumas and is also the founder of Emuna Therapy. Additionally, he has also trained many people to be Emuna therapists. A method using genuine emuna is definitely worth a try.

3) I do know that the late Dr. William Glasser had success using his Reality Therapy techniques for this issue (although I suppose you would have to find a Reality therapist nowadays who believes that this issue even needs healing).

4) As referenced in the section on Reparative/Conversion therapy in Part I, a comprehensive list and description of various practioners, methods, and studies is detailed here.

If you're going to go through a therapist or rabbi or some other kind of advisor for this issue, it is very important that the person be sympathetic. There needs to be deep appreciation for the difficulty of this particular nisayon along with the firm belief that success is definitely possible. There is absolutely no need for the advisor to display any disgust or harshness or ridicule. There should be healthy boundaries during the counseling and absolutely no indication of exploitation of any kind.

Whether you are looking for guidance for yourself or a loved one, it's important to check out the advisor's attitude and track record before putting yourself (or your loved one) in such a vulnerable situation.

Particularly for men, this is one of the hardest nisayons to deal with. Even if you rebound or stumble in some way during the process of healing, please remember that every step you take forward is changing the world in ways you can't perceive but for which you will receive unimaginable reward.

Especially in today's world where the entire Western society is saying that this IS good, that this IS natural, that it is your RIGHT, and so on....when you stop yourself from watching, doing, or even thinking anything to do with toeva, you have done something incomprehensibly powerful.

Why?

Because in today's world, the only reason to take steps toward healing this issue is purely because Hashem said so - solely because you have chosen to what Hashem wants, putting Hashem's desire ahead of your own.

That kind of thing can sweeten even the most firmly set and harshest decree.

This means that no matter who you are and what level you are on, you can prevent a terror attack or avert a any kind of disaster just in the privacy of your own room.
(Needless to say, these are not my own opinions, but are culled from Torah sources.)

Finally, it’s important to remember that this nisayon is from Hashem and dealing with it is somehow for your benefit, painful and frustrating though it may be. Regardless of what options you choose for yourself or a loved one, it is important to maintain a constant connection with Hashem and a firm belief in His Love for you, no matter how much you stumble.

Hatzlacha Rabbah to everyone.

P.S. If you want, you can send me your name for davening here and I will be happy to daven for you.

A friend of mine who worked for Hollywood once asked me, “If you want to justify your values and behaviors and make yourself feel good and legitimate, where do you point the camera?”

“Uh....” I said.

She pointed to herself.

“Here,” she said. “You keep your camera pointed at yourself all the time.”

Since its inception, Hollywood has been the gathering place for twisted and lecherous minds. Even in the earliest black-and-white movies, you can see the promotion of values that went against the accepted American norms of that time. The twisted values were often presented with humor, which made the behavior seem harmless. In other cases, the hero with whom the audience identified and championed exhibited the offensive behavior, making it seem acceptable or even admirable.

Yet because of society’s intolerance past a certain point, Hollywood was forced to conform to a certain standard and prohibited from crossing certain lines – though it pushed that line with vigor and frequency, leading to what we have today.

Off the set, the behavior of many of the producers and writers from then until now displays a lot of disturbance and narcissism. So when we watch these people’s movies, we are watching products of their warped minds, even becoming temporarily absorbed into their sick psyches.

While the reprehensible casting couch for women has long been an open secret in Hollywood – and Broadway, for that matter – the toeva casting couch has gradually taken over and hardly anyone speaks about it. This is a large part of why toeva men (and not women) are overrepresented in the entertainment industry, both as actors and as characters.

"Monsters."
I remember the boys who became known as “the two Coreys” – Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, both Jewish child actors and close friends. After a long battle with drugs and several suicide attempts, Corey Haim eventually succumbed to overdose (though I think it’s officially reported as pneumonia), finally dying at the age of 39.

Yet even before his death, Haim publicly announced that he’d been repeatedly assaulted between the ages of 14-16 by a middle-aged Hollywood mogul.

Incensed by his friend’s needless death and the traumatic abuse that led to the initial drug use, Corey Feldman went public with the truth – and it was ugly.

The media published his story and publicized his interviews for a few days.

Then everything went silent again.

What was Corey Feldman’s message?

First of all, he stated that the biggest problem for child actors in the entertainment industry was the most traumatic kind of abuse.

He emphasized that physical relationships between men and boys were “normal” in “the industry.” Recalling one of Haim’s confidences, Feldman said, “an adult male convinced him that it was perfectly normal for older men and younger boys in the business to have....that it was what all the guys do.”

He also stated, “There's one person to blame in the death of Corey Haim. And that person happens to be a Hollywood mogul. And that person needs to be exposed, but, unfortunately, I can't be the one to do it.”

He described pools parties given by older Hollywood men who invited pre-teen boys as a way to initiate the “grooming” process. Part of the grooming process is the introduction of drugs. Obviously, a drugged victim is more compliant and later, drug addicts are less likely to have their accusations taken seriously.

Corey Haim claimed to have turned to the police before the statute of limitations on his abusers would run out, but the police did absolutely nothing.

Feldman himself was abused many, many times. In desperation, he reached out to seemingly caring men in Hollywood, only to discover that they, too, were only interested in abusing him.

"Slowly, over a period of many years, I would begin to realize that many of the people I had surrounded myself with were monsters," he says. [Emphasis mine.]
“There was a circle of older men….And they all had either their own power or connections to great power in the entertainment industry.”

He, too, turned to drugs to escape the terrible physical and psychological pain inflicted by all the abuse.

While Corey Feldman is the only one I’m quoting here, former actors and actresses, along with others who have worked in the entertainment industry, have made the same allegations, often anonymously.

We’ve all seen that the big push to proclaim toeva as “normal” originated in the entertainment industry. Needless to say, news outlets must also be part of this. Who hosts their networks? Who are their producers? From whom do they receive their studios and everything else they need to produce a news show?

Nearly all mainstream news networks blatantly push this agenda.

The push to portray same-gender couples (almost always male) as appealing and normal on TV and in the movies comes from Hollywood. Popular literature (with the major publishing houses today being owned by media corporations) and movies and TV shows often portray toeva relationships as even more stable and harmonious than straight relationships, even though anecdotal evidence and actual statistics completely contradict this.

Yet who’s behind all this?

“Monsters.”

(FYI: The German media conglomerate, Bertelsmann, became the largest publisher of Nazi propoganda by 1939 and benefited from the Jewish concentration camp labor enforced by the Nazis. It owns the following publishing companies: Random House, Doubleday, Knopf, and Crown. Recognize any of those?)

Society needs to wake up to who is running things.

It won’t wake up, but it desperately needs to.

Finally, and this is on a separate but parallel topic, I remember a friend from high school who was in therapy for the ritual abuse she’d undergone around age eight as part of a terrifying occult ceremony that involved death symbols.

The cult consisted of people who served in elite positions in society: judges, top lawyers, politicians – people who were her aunts and uncles. Her father was active in this secret cult and her mother, having also been a victim from a young age, repressed all memories and was unable to even acknowledge her own abuse or that of her daughter.

The parents divorced; I can’t remember why exactly, maybe because the wife and children weren’t needed anymore and the elitists were confident in the ability of their methods to guarantee their victims’ silence and lack of credibility. Anyway, the mother allowed her daughter to go into therapy in much the same way a parent would let her mentally ill deluded child go into therapy - meaning that her mother saw it as her daughter's delusion, and not as PTSD.

I’ll never forget my friend telling me: “judges and politicians.”

Who are the people defining “compassionate” for us?

Who are the people deciding for us what is fair and moral?

When we face situations like Hillary Clinton laughing while describing the actions of a man she willingly chose to defend, a man that Hillary clearly knew was guilty of an assault on a 12-year-old girl so brutal that the girl fell into a 10-day coma and was rendered infertile, when we look at the cover-up by the British social welfare system in Rotterham of over a thousand native British girls assaulted and exploited by Pakistani gangs, we know there is something very sinister beneath the surface. These are just the indications that come oozing out of a rapidly metastasizing wound.

The people pushing for immoral changes in society know what they are doing.
They know they hurt people, they know they hurt the most innocent and helpless members of society – and they don’t care.

They have their own agenda and that is all they care about.

And it’s very important to remember that evil people have always won support for their side by playing the victim card. Their strategy is to manipulate others into thinking that a compassionate “good” person is one who sides with their agenda.

Twisted "Compassion"
The wicked have always influenced others by manipulating the Divinely bestowed sense of compassion. Because the most compassionate heart is a Jewish one, even frum Jews can get suckered into cheering for the wrong side.

But the way to tell the difference is to look for whether the people screaming “Compassion!” are ignoring or even supporting real atrocities while demonizing minor injustices or even criminalizing genuinely moral behavior.

For example, Hillary Clinton laughed about successfully defending a man she knew was a dangerous monster and blamed his young victim for the crime and she also acts all blasé about the tragedy of Benghazi (which she allowed to happen). Yet she showed serious resentment at what she clearly perceived as the gross unfairness of being asked questions first (“I keep getting the first question on aaaaall of these issues....”) whenever she debated Obama, emphasizing this inequality several times.

So...in Hillary World, brutality against a young girl is a joke (and the girl’s fault anyway), the torturous deaths of American serviceman is ho-hum – but being forced to consistently go first in a presidential debate is a notable injustice?

Historical Examples of Twisted "Compassion"
Ancient Egyptians
The ancient Egyptians insisted on enslaving an innocent and highly moral population (us), which led to horrific atrocities against that helpless population. Egyptian society become convinced that a rapidly multiplying Jewish population was worse than cementing live babies into a wall, and that “good” Egyptians were supposed to believe that murdering babies in such a horrific manner was just and good while killing a sheep was an unthinkable taboo.

Many Pre-WWII European Christians
Christian clergy repeatedly convinced their followers that terrible atrocities against the Jews were very good and the responsibility of “good” Christians who truly cared about their society and Afterlife. These clergymen justified these atrocities by demonizing a court sentence handed out against their founder by a small group of Jews over 2000 years ago. The rampant stealing, cheating, domestic violence, and alcoholism among the European Christian populations along with the repulsive corruption of the Church were not considered nearly as bad.

(And by the way, knowing what we know now about many Catholic priests, has anyone else wondered why, in so many blood libels against the Jews, the victims were often young boys “discovered” by a priest in the Church basement? Could those priests have been covering up their own crimes before their victims could have the chance to expose them?)

Communists
The fact that some people had money and abused their power meant that atrocities and genocide could be used against millions of people, rich or poor. “Good” people were supposed to betray even their own parents and torture and kill people for “crimes” like owning the picture of a Capitalist leader or not supporting Communism. Yet Communism was considered the compassionate ideology.

Nazis
Trees and dogs were highly valued. Environmentally unsound practices and the abuse of animals was considered very wrong while any “good” German understood that exterminating Jews and other undesirables was of great benefit to society. Compassionate Germans were supposed to support the Aryan “race” while annihilating everyone else.

Muslims
Murdering 12-year-old girls who’ve been brutally violated or have rejected a shidduch is fine, even admired, depending on the community. Domestic violence, the oppression and exploitation of fellow Muslims (especially if they’re poor), along with the Koran-mandated persecution and/or extortion of non-Muslims are also acceptable, even esteemed. In many Muslim countries, female genital mutilation is a must. Child brides in Muslim countries sometimes die of damage to their internal organs inflicted on their wedding night.

However, profiling Muslims at the airport or expecting a Muslim taxi driver to service a pork-carrying patron are considered serious human rights violations.

Right now, Western society imposes a straight-jacket definition of what comprises a compassionate person. Here are just two examples:

Abortion
Abortion is considered an act of compassion; anyone who disagrees is a misogynist (or a self-hating brainwashed woman). However, the thousands of women who deeply regret their abortions, the huge numbers of women who become depressed or suffer fertility problems or even commit suicide after an abortion, the unborn babies who die or are tortured to death, the fact that abortion clinics cover up the abortion-caused maternal deaths and sell baby parts, the women who say: “I was able to heal from the assault that led to the conception, but not from the abortion that ended that conception,” the appalling lies pro-abortionists have used in order to pass unconscionable laws and change society’s attitudes – these are almost completely ignored or denied within society at large. The act of abortion is deemed acceptable – even compassionate; presenting alternatives to abortion is considered a severe oppression (a "war on women") that must be fought tooth and nail.

(Randy Alcorn's book Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments is an excellent resource for addressing this issue.)

Even vegans, who won't eat an unfertilized chicken egg or wear leather shoes, are often pro-abortion when it comes to human babies. It bothers many people that chickens live in overcrowded crates, but it doesn't interest them nearly as much that Planned Parenthood harvests organs from live babies and all the other tragic issues involved in abortion.

[I also want to point out that the abortion industry’s craving for money and the lengths they are willing to go to amass it are highly reminiscent of the materialistic culture featured in Rebbe Nachman’s story, The Master of Prayer/Baal Tefillah, in which wealthy people were considered gods and poor people were literally sacrificed to these "gods" because poor people were considered “not human.”]

Toeva
Toeva is considered a right and an inherently natural state, and the support of toeva rights deemed the compassionate response. The abhorrent abuse of young boys is swept under the carpet. Hollywood elites can do what they want because, after all, nothing should come between an American and his or her right to wallow in mindless entertainment. However, helping people heal from their inappropriate attraction (and healing from the events that often led to the development of this attraction), or being willing to explore the overwhelming correlation of the paternal relationship or severe child abuse to same-gender attraction, is proclaimed “phobic” and hateful – particularly by those very elites who themselves indulge in these terrible abuses.

I guess I don’t need to say more.

Perhaps it’s best to end with the well-know Midrash:
“Whoever is compassionate to the cruel will end up being cruel to the compassionate.”

This post is NOT about anyone being inherently bad (except for maybe some of the people mentioned in Part II).
I do NOT see any basis for believing that people attracted to their own gender are innately bad, anymore than any of us suffering from any other forbidden inclination we might have.
This is only about how indulging in a clear and major Torah prohibition that is totally forbidden for every human being across the board can warp a person and why it is so bad that legalizing davka this is one of the transgressions that creates a decree of destruction for that society.
__________________________________________

"God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!"
 – a sign at a 1977 pro-family rally in Houston, Texas.

Well, let’s start off by clarifying the contrasting opinions:

• Torah-observant people say that even if you are born with an attraction to the same gender, you cannot act on it because the Torah completely forbids this, especially for men. And this prohibition applies to both Jews and non-Jews.

• Liberals say that people can’t help how they feel ("Just like 10% of all people are innately left-handed, 10% are innately attracted to their own gender!") and that same-gender relationships don’t really hurt anyone anyway, and that everyone has a right to "love" and also to marry ("marriage" implies "to one person for the rest of your life") your one, true "love."
  

(By the way, the 10% claim was never true; surveys taken in Canada, USA, and Australia show it to be under 3.5%.)

I’d just like to show how every Liberal justification of same-gender intimacy is wrong.
And in Part II, I’m going to describe the very sick, evil agenda behind all the “toeva rights” hype.
Part III will briefly discuss healing.

“I was Born This Way!”
Actually, you probably weren’t. Maximum, you may have been born with a latent tendency toward toeva. But something triggered you to pursue physical relationships within your own gender.

Okay, first of all, I’m going to slant this article. Male toeva will receive more attention than female toeva. This is partly because the Torah considers male toeva much more severe, partly because most of the attention is focused on male toeva, both in the news circuit and the entertainment industry (more on why in Part II), and partly because there is more information available about men.

The Gentlemen’s Side
If you talk to toeva men, read literature written by them, and peruse their statistics, you will see that a great many of them have been seriously abused as children or teenagers. Studies report between 55.1% to 75% have been abused. 

Of course, people like to point out how “that can’t be true because not all boys who were abused in that way grow up to be attracted to their own gender.” In particular, men who are firmly attracted to women find the idea of being “tipped” into toeva especially mind-boggling.

The thing is, we all have innate tendencies toward different attributes – including good ones. Different experiences in life can “tip” us in the direction of that latent tendency. Without that “tipping” experience, that tendency will never find expression. (A positive example of this is a person who opens up a chessed organization after facing a severe deprivation. Without coming face to face with that deprivation, he or she would not have established an organization to deal with that very need.)

Furthermore, different people react to abuse in different ways. In girls, for example, such abuse can ignite the inclination for indiscriminate relationships in one girl while inducing frigidity in another. Physical abuse can either habituate the victim to become violent himself or it can inspire visceral repugnance against all violence.
And so on.

Personal Stories
When I was in college, a young man whose parents had divorced when he was a child confided that he felt confused about his orientation. He felt attracted to both genders. In the course of our discussion, he recalled an incident perpetuated against him by a pre-teen neighbor in the hallway in front of his apartment before he could unlock the door to let himself in. (He was one of the “latch-key kids” of the Eighties.) Without realizing it, he himself made the correlation between that traumatic incident and his present orientation-confusion. We discussed how maybe his attraction toward men wasn’t his natural inclination as the surrounding society kept insisting, and that maybe he should just focus on girls, and not have anything to do with boys. Fortunately, Hashem had already led me to becoming frum, so I realized what the moral choice was in this situation. I also expressed my strong feeling that part of his confusion was because society kept telling him that his attractions were normal, even though he clearly wasn’t comfortable being attracted to men. Without the “Anything Goes!” attitude around him, he might have just come to the right conclusion and feelings on his own. I gently expressed my conviction that his innate attraction was probably toward girls and that he should just focus on them. His relief and happiness toward the end of the conversation were obvious.

Another college friend, a leading activist for toeva rights, admitted that he felt he might have been abused as a child, but that he couldn’t really remember. He also said that most of the guys he knew who were into toeva had been intimately abused as children – but he immediately denied any bearing that should have on a person’s “right” to a same-gender orientation.

Later, I came to realize that a boy’s relationship with his father has a huge impact on a boy’s orientation, as described here. And in this incredible article, "David" describes his need as a young child for physical contact with men, which stemmed from what he lacked in the relationship with his father. Note how he was "different" even at a very young age, expressed by the way he threw himself at the muscular young man to the point that his behavior made everyone else very uncomfortable. Also, notice his relationships with older men in that phase and his hindsight into that.

A father who shows his son a lot of genuine affection, including physical affection, can have a powerful positive impact on his son’s orientation. Again, it seems no coincidence that so many men attracted to other men have poor (or not as close as they crave) relationships with their fathers, as mentioned here.

In fact, I once knew a very sweet man who was the son of a Christian pastor. His father was a stern, distant man who believed in “spare the wooden paddle and spoil the child.” Before settling into a quiet, liberal, toeva life, this young man had joined the priesthood. After all, he wasn’t attracted to women and toeva was forbidden and he was a sincere, idealistic type, so... (“You wouldn’t believe what goes on there!” he said. “Let’s just say that a lot of those guys have the same issues I did.”)

Then he joined a radical right-wing militia in the South. (“You wouldn’t believe what these people are planning!”) Obviously, he was looking for a male connection that was not necessarily physical, although that is how he ended up expressing it.

In another case I learned of, the father instinctively didn’t bond with one of his sons, while the mother instinctively felt a great deal of affection for that same child. As the child grew, the father admitted that he even felt a bit repelled by this son.

Other family members noticed and appealed to the father to invest more in the relationship, even quoting Rav Dessler about how giving creates love, but the father just didn’t feel like it. Then the boy started seeking out male physical affection.

For example, he would slip his hand into his uncle’s hand, pretending it had happened by accident. At cheder, he would stand next to his rebbi until the rebbi finally realized the boy was waiting for a hug. And so on. After finally convincing the father that the son was innocently heading down a dangerous road, the father started hugging him and holding him in his lap.

At first, the father was uncomfortable and stiff about it, but Rav Dessler was right, and eventually it became more natural and feelings of genuine warmth and affection developed within the father. Not long after, the boy completely stopped seeking out physical affection from other men.

(It’s important to emphasize that the boy sought out hugs and touch from other men – and not boys and not females – despite the fact that he had always received plenty of physical and emotional affection from his mother; yet he still craved affection from a man.)

And while I can’t prove it, I can’t help thinking that the rising number of toeva among males has been increasing along with the rise of single mothers (meaning mothers who were never married and in most cases, do not have their children’s father(s) consistently involved in the children’s lives).
Again, not all toeva men lack a relationship with their father and not all boys who yearn for paternal connection will end up attracted to men.
But the correlation is impossible to ignore.

Far behind, there is the old psychology theory that a domineering mother and a passive father can produce this orientation in a boy. Basically, women seem too “scary” to get close to. In my experience, this is rarely the reason, but I’ve still observed this dynamic.

And a final point is this: Men have an innate tendency toward (how shall I put this?) idealizing physical aspects of a person or idealizing objects they associate with these physical aspects. This same tendency rarely occurs in women. Straight men express this through attraction toward certain physical aspects of a woman (or objects associated with) and in emotionally healthy men, this idealization is relatively normal and harmless, and varies from man to man. A man married to a woman who doesn't fulfill his particular idealization is still perfectly capable of intimacy with her. In less emotionally healthy men, this idealization warps into objectification and even obsession.

Men attracted to their own gender usually seem perfectly capable of a relationship with a woman, and may have even had many female partners and long-term relationships with women. But they hold a strong preference for their own gender, which further indicates that their same-gender-attraction is not some innate black-and-white issue, but normal male idealization that has become warped.

The Ladies’ Side
With females, things get a lot simpler because many women are so open about this.

In high school, a girl was telling me about how tenth grade had been a huge experience in self-discovery. She explained that the group she hung out with comprised a lot of people attracted to their own gender. “So I thought I was that way, too,” she whispered. “So I started going out with girls. But then I met this guy....” And she realized she wasn’t like her friends after all. And she was really happy about it, too.

Another woman, who had been badly betrayed by significant men in her life, decided that it was “Ladies Only” from now on. Eventually, she couldn’t deny her attraction to men, so she ultimately ended up going in the right direction.

And I remember the girl who stood up in the middle of class in college to speak passionately about her right to be romantically involved with her own gender and the pain of discrimination against people “like her.”

At one point, she blurted out a particularly horrific violation she suffered while on a date with a guy. It happened before she “came out,” but she insisted “that has NOTHING to do with the way I feel now!” I didn’t believe it and as I looked around, I saw the same disbelief on everyone else’s faces, but none of us were callous enough to challenge her.

With people in the know, the following situation is so common that it has even become a bit of a joke:

The sister/cousin/aunt who always had a girlfriend hits her thirties, realizes that biological clock is ticking away, and suddenly ups and marries a man and has a kid.
Born this way, eh?

Women have said things like, “It was so popular and acceptable at my college that if I hadn’t come to this BT sem, I would’ve tried it out!” Or, “Now that I’m frum and married, I really wish I hadn’t had all those experiences with women.”

Finally, some people theorize that we all have the ability to be attracted to either gender and our job is just to make sure it’s the halachically appropriate one.

I could go on and on with anecdotes and stuff toeva people chronicle about themselves, but this is enough for now.

“But I’VE Felt ‘Different’ Ever Since I was Very Young. That Means It IS Inborn – and Therefore, Natural – and Therefore, Permissible!”
No, that’s not what it means.

First of all, it is entirely possible that when Hashem decided that a person must go through the admittedly arduous nisayon of being attracted to one’s own gender, He caused the person to, indeed, be born "this way" for that is that person’s Divinely decreed lifetime challenge. (We all have at least one.)

Secondly, if a boy, for example, is not getting what he needed from his father (as described above), then he certainly can feel ‘different’ from the time he was very young.

Reparative/Conversion Therapy
There are different kinds of therapists and organizations offering reparative/conversion therapy for people attracted to their own gender. There are different methods of reparative/conversion therapy and each person needs to find the method that works best for him or her.

No, it doesn't always work, but it has worked for many people, further crushing the notion that the attraction to one's own gender is "inborn" or "genetic" or that there is no way to change.

Organizations that support toeva and the mainstream media hate the idea of reparative/conversion therapy because it defeats their aims (see Part II). Individuals caught up in same-gender attraction often also feel a visceral opposition to reparative/conversion therapy because they are caught up in their obsession, so to speak. (It's sort of like taking the needle out of the hand of a drug addict who is about to shoot up. You will make him or her very angry.)

So these groups and individuals either suppress the information or they launch a full-force attack against anyone promoting therapy. One of their claims is that the general success rate isn't high, and that some people seem to undergo further damage as a result of reparative therapy.

However, like everything else, the success rate depends on the type of method used and on the ratzon of the client.

For example, Alcoholics Anonymous actually has a low success rate (it only helps between 10%-40% of alcoholics who try it, depending on which study you read), but that doesn't stop people from trying it out or recommending it to others. The alcoholics not helped by AA do not cancel out the ones who are helped by AA. Not surprisingly, the alcoholics most helped by AA were those with the strongest desire to stop drinking - again, ratzon.

Interestingly, the same people who will automatically recommend AA to alcoholics despite its low rate of success oppose reparative/conversion therapy on the claim that its low rate of success means that it doesn't really work or can even be harmful.
It's hard to judge the success of reparative/conversion therapy because its success depends on the factors mentioned above.

For example, much of reparative/conversion therapy is backed by Christians. And while many people are helped, a big part of their therapy is belief in and prayer directed at a long-dead man. Needless to say, such a belief is not conducive to good mental and spiritual health. On the flip side, treating people from a purely psychological angle (i.e. an atheistic viewpoint) also cannot facilitate full healing, especially since so many of the originators of psychological theories were very messed-up themselves.

Furthermore, some methods are just ineffective or even abusive, such as those that involve hormone injections, surgery, tawdry images of the opposite gender, or electric shock.

In addition, opposers to conversion therapy point out that most studies which reveal improvement include a large percentage of men who weren't exclusively involved with men, but with women, too. However, this argument is a bit disingenuous because nearly all men who prefer men can be and have been with women.

So the questions seems to be how much does the client want to change and how is his (or her) orientation defined? And what kind of methods are used in therapy? What is the attitude of the therapist? If you don't have the right combination of factors, the chance of failure will be pretty high.

Therefore, while the general success rate isn't high, some individual therapists or organizations claim a very high success rate, like Dr. Josef Nicolosi, who claims a 60% success rate and emphasizes that "Uncompromising honesty with oneself is a necessary requirement to treatment success."

A 1970 study by L. Hatterer involving 143 clients showed that 49 clients were considered as having made a complete adjustment, with 18 clients labeled as "partially recovered." But as noted, personal motivation made a huge difference. Of the clients who demonstrated no motivation to change, only 4.6% clients did change (which is actually pretty good considering that they wanted to stay as they were). But among those who were highly motivated to change, 24% reported a "straight" orientation after counseling. 

A 1979 study by C. Socarides reported that 20 of 45 (44%) men in therapy for same-gender attraction from 1966-1977 achieved what they considered to be a change to a "straight" orientation.

In a 1994 survey by H. Macintosh, 285 psychoanalysts who analyzed 1,215 psychoanalytic clients attracted to their own gender (824 male; 391 female) show that 23% of their clients changed to a "straight" orientation. In addition, the analysts claimed that 84% of their clients reported significant benefits from analysis.

Finally, a 1980 study by L. Birk, using a combination of behavioral group and individual counseling with 14 men, claimed a 100% success rate for men exclusively attracted to other men with the intent to change. Of those 14 clients, 10 of the 14 were satisfactorily married to women at follow-up. Even more interesting, Birk was particular to include in this group only men who had been intimate exclusively with other men, and never women.

In comparison, Birk treated another group of 15 men who expressed no interest in changing prior to treatment. Yet 4 out 15 still reported a shift to a "straight" orientation.
For further details about the above studies, references, and much more information about the results of different therapies and methods, see here.

It seems that the opposition to reparation therapy isn't because it can't work, but because it can. And that defeats the agenda of its opposers.

"What Happens behind My Closed Door is MY Business!"
Would it be that it were always only behind your closed door....ahem.

Lots of things happen behind closed doors and in bedrooms that are very much the business of society and the law: drug use, child abuse, domestic violence, assault, kidnapping, bomb-making, computer hacking, murder, suicide, and so on.

Privacy is no justification.

"We’re Not Hurting Anyone!"
Well, except for spreading an incurable fatal disease, of course....

In L.A., for example, 1 out of every 10 males involved with other males is HIV-positive (Los Angeles Times, Feb. 17, 2001).

Both men and women involved in physical relationships with their own gender show a much higher incidence of drug use, alcoholism, violence, diseases (both fatal and not), mental health issues, and crimes against children as described with documented sources here and here and here - and that's just for start.

And except for confusing – and even pressuring – people with normal attractions and encouraging them into same-gender relationships that they later regret (as described above and throughout the rest of this post).

But there’s more.

Suicide
A frum boy attracted to other boys ended up going off the derech and sinking into a life of drugs, night clubs, and guys. His father had died when he was very young. At one point, he confided in a family member and the family member’s friend, both of whom were also off the derech.

They did the “right” thing according to secular Liberal society and accompanied the boy to movies and gatherings that discussed toeva rights, where everyone did everything they could to convince the boy that his feelings and actions were normal. The boy was pressured to tell his mother, a frum lady who had no background or resources for dealing with such a situation.

No one encouraging the boy to “come out” seemed to consider the importance of providing the mother with proper support or preparation - if not for her sake, then at least for the boy's well-being.

No one told the boy he had other options.

No one tried to find organizations that help these young men from a frum perspective.

No one cared that they were sentencing the boy to a life of random and rampant indulgence with no marriage and no children.

Believing the promises that telling his mother would bring him feelings of validation and liberation, he finally told her. He asked her if she still loved him and she replied that of course she did.

But she was shocked and understandably had no idea how to deal with such a situation.

So she turned to the person she always leaned on in difficult times: her older brother.

Her older brother was traditional (so he thought toeva was disgusting), but not actually religious (so he didn’t think to ask a rav, search out a frum organization or a frum therapist who deals with this issue). He took the boy aside and berated him for his orientation and for revealing it to his mother. Mortified, the boy ran off and then overdosed. After overdosing, he tried to reverse the process, but it was too late.

At fourteen, he was dead.

A year later, his family member also committed suicide.

(While I wasn’t told the reason for the second suicide, it’s not hard to draw a correlation; he may have easily felt responsible for the younger boy’s death.)

Okay, so this might be more of a case of Death by Self-Serving Liberals, but the fact is that the toeva supporters at these gatherings thought it was most important for people to be open about their orientation.

The family member and the friend didn’t get this idea alone. The concept of “coming out of the closet” was pushed without any regard for the boy’s vulnerability or personal situation. I can’t see that any of the people involved in pressuring the boy (except for maybe the family member) cared about the boy personally; it seems they only cared about their agenda.

If these people are so supportive and the lifestyle so natural and so great, then why did this boy feel that suicide was his only option?

They obviously did not care about the effect pushing their agenda would have on a young, vulnerable, and sensitive boy.

This is unconscionable.

Unrestrained Activity
Furthermore, the permissive activity of toeva men is unbelievable.

In a 1997 study, Paul Van de Ven survey of revealed that they averaged 100-500 partners over a lifetime, with 10%-15% averaging 1000 partners.

Non-monogamous straight men and women rarely reach the sheer numbers that your average toeva man does.

And that toeva activist I mentioned earlier? He said that he’d had 70+ partners by the time he was nineteen. “At least fifty of them were in this amazing weekend we had with our organization in southern Florida,” he grinned. “I sure hope my face doesn’t show in the pictures! Yeah, someone was filming the whole time. But I don’t care....”

(That was in 1991, long before selfies, pocket-sized digital cameras, and camera-inclusive cell phones became the norm, by the way.)

The male flight attendant allegedly traced to having initially spread AIDS throughout the Western world was said to have had over 2000 partners by the time he died.

In a survey taken in the college I attended, the students who claimed to have had 50+ partners were all toeva males – not straight males and not females of either orientation.

If you listen to almost any toeva male speak about his relationships, you’ll see that this is true.

Despite the claims that this is attraction is totally normal and should just be considered an alternative lifestyle, there is obviously something very wrong with a person who is so unbridled.

They need healing, not approbation.

Furthermore, just like how guys without Torah principles can be very interested in seducing girls, toeva guys are the same with other guys.

In fact, I was told how a group of teenage boys involved in toeva from frum families would befriend a boy, then show him certain movies. Once that door was opened, they then insisted he try out what was in the movie. The boy got sucked in. And that’s how they built their group.

Historically, toeva males focused on seducing pre-teen and teenage boys, and this still holds true in many cases today.

Influencing the Orientation of Their Own Children
Furthermore, there is evidence that same-gender couples are much more likely to produce children who identify with toeva.

Obviously, genetics cannot play a very big part in this, although there are medical ways for a woman to have a child that is genetically hers without an actual partner. But with toeva couples insisting that they can be excellent adoptive or foster parents, it pays to look at the statistics regarding the effect their toeva has on the children they raise.

Walter Schumm, a professor of family studies at Kansas State University has been conducting the most exhaustive study to date on the impact of toeva couples on their children. Interestingly, he was only trying to find out the truth and was not biased either way. During a 2008 Florida trial trying to ban toeva parents from adopting, he even stated that such people “can be good parents.”

Please note that he restricted his study to people in their twenties and older – people you assume have figured out their orientation and aren’t confused by experimentation and searching for identity so common today among teenagers.

58% of children raised by two female parents identified themselves as being attracted to their own gender.

33% of children raised by two male parents identified themselves as attracted to their own gender.

5-10% children raised by two straight parents identified themselves as attracted to their own gender.

Noting the large discrepancy between children raised by two women as opposed to children raised by two men, Schumm explained that because most such men have at some point been in a relationship with a woman, they were more understanding as to why their sons would date women.

In contrast, two women raising a girl would encourage her to “try out women” if they saw their daughter distressed over a relationship with a man. Schumm explains that the material he studied shows that some such women “have a hatred of men that’s intense.”
(More statistics are available here.)

This does not even begin to touch on the very real spiritual damage caused by toeva actions, including on the individual and on the society. Jewish sources expound on the profound damage and severe judgment these actions (and especially the legalization of these actions) have on society and on the world.

"We Have a Right to Get Married!"
Well, actually, that’s not true. But what is marriage?

Marriage is defined as a lifelong monogamous commitment between a man and a woman.

Not between a man and a man.

Not between a woman and a woman.

Furthermore, statistics show that a lifelong commitment between two men is a joke. When Conservatives discuss this issue, they focus on the fact that by definition, marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Liberals don’t buy this and believe the definition should be redefined. But among toeva men, long-term commitment and monogamy almost don’t exist.

In a 2003/2004 online census involving 7862 toeva men, only 15% described their current relationship as lasting 12 years or longer, with only 5% making it to twenty years. The largest chunk (31%) stay together for 1-3 years – but usually not monogamously.

95% can’t even stay together for twenty years.

And if you yourself have been married twenty years or longer, you know that it’s not so hard to make it to your twentieth anniversary.

But how many report that they maintain fidelity in their current relationship?
4.5%

In contrast, men married to women report a fidelity rate of 75.5%.

And married women report a fidelity rate of 85.5%.

Okay, so we are supposed to campaign for same-gender marriage as if it’s the Second Civil Rights Movement on behalf of a people of whom 95% cannot remain together for twenty years (let alone “till death do we part”) and 95.5% cannot remain faithful to one partner for even a year?

Now let’s compare domestic violence statistics:
0.05% married men report physical violence in their marriage
0.26% married women report physical violence
11.4% women with women report physical violence
15.4% men with men report physical violence
No comment.

Sweet-Talking the Gullible Ladies
So why is there such a huge push to legitimatize toeva marriage specifically?

And why do you sometimes hear toeva men talking about looking for “love” when most people would say that the rampant infidelity and the short timespan inherent in toeva relationships cannot possibly indicate real love?

Well, many of the main proponents for toeva marriage are females.

Many actresses and other female celebrities speak out in strong support of these unions.

Female authors are more likely to include toeva characters – especially male characters, for some reason – and to portray them in a way that women stereotypically find appealing (as loving, supportive, committed partners). In fact, I recently noticed a newly published male toeva romance – written by a woman.

The book Sefer HaZohar – Chok L’Yisrael im Peirush Hasulam, notes that the Nachash (the Snake of Gan Eden notoriety) seduced Chava by portraying itself as feminine. I still don’t understand from the text how the Nachash did that, but I can’t deny the truth of the idea.

Since time immemorial, the facade of female traits has been used to entrap women. Even today in places like India, for example, those seeking to exploit innocent young girls send a middle-aged woman to remote villages, promising the parents that the daughters will be employed as house cleaners and maids in wealthy homes, and maintain their virtue and honor. Then the woman hands them over to the behind-the-scenes exploiter who forces the girls to work until they show symptoms of AIDS and are sent home to die.

And since time immemorial, when men have wanted to seduce women, they present themselves as having a stereotypically feminine attitude toward the relationship, talking about love, love, love, and being together forever, and other things that appeal to the female personality.

And so with the current toeva movement, they use proclamations of love and marriage as a way to seduce women into supporting the movement.

"They Only Behave Deviantly because Society Treats Them like Deviants!"
While many people know that adult male Greek elites went through a 3-century phase in which they took for themselves very young male “proteges,” many aren’t aware that there is a present-day culture in which toeva has been not only the norm, but the ideal. And that is the Sambia tribe in Papua New Guinea.

I can’t even give a vague description of the tribal customs and norms because they are so repulsive. But they are definitely deviant even according to the most Liberal, open-minded members of Western society. By any standards, the traditional Sambian customs and rituals are extremely abusive and sick.

Furthermore, males who show a strong preference for females are made fun of by fellow tribesmen. The Sambians are also extremely violent, which they express through being at constant war with neighboring hamlets, utilizing their toeva rituals to maintain this aggression, believing that these abhorrent rituals make them fierce warriors.

Needless to say, it is extremely disturbing to realize that Greek elites and the Sambians had no compunctions about compelling young boys into acts that the boys would find degrading, repulsive, and painful (at least initially).

Women are considered dirty and dangerous by the Sambians, despite the necessity of eventually needing a woman for procreation and child-rearing.

In Greek society, too, women were considered by these toeva-loving elites as being inferior to men and were treated accordingly. So it seems that toeva people do not need to be discriminated against in order to behave in a manner that degrades and discriminates against other human beings.

As shown above, the expression of same-gender attraction usually results from profound psychological damage, but let’s never lose sight of the fact that healing is always possible, no matter how low one has sunk.

Despite everything shown in this post, Hashem is still infinitely bigger than all that.

A Couple of "Objective" Sources
Finally, for the sake of objectivity, I want to direct you to a couple general studies from respected sources, like this study from Harvard and this study from The National Center of Biotechnology Information.

Notice how they reveal telling statistics (like how men attracted to males, who represent less than 3% of the population, commit between 9-40% of the most reprehensible crimes against children), then go on to say that this doesn't mean that such men are more likely to commit these crimes.

(It is true that many males attracted to other males would never dream of hurting a child, but that doesn't refute the higher incidence of the ones who do.)

It seems that these "objective" academics must toe the line of the Liberal agenda even as they present the cold, hard numbers that clearly contradict their politically correct declarations.

Part II: What's Behind the Big Push for Adam and Steve?

In this week's parsha:

•  The Jewish way to fight and win a war
  
•  The REAL sin of Ammon and Moav 

______________________________________________________________

"If you go out to war against your enemies, and Hashem your God will deliver him into your hands, and you capture his captives" (21:10)

The Kli Yakar infers from the plural form of the word "enemies" in the plural form (as opposed to just one enemy, as implied in the continuation of the verse when it switches to the singular "him") that the verse refers to both your internal and external enemies:

• your yetzer hara
• your actual physical enemies.

 He goes on to explain that once you have battled your yetzer hara, then before you have even readied your heart to go out to battle against a physical enemy, they have already battled your physical enemy in Shamayim.
He goes on to explain why the Torah specifies going out to war:

___________________________________________________________
The REAL Sin of Ammon and Moav
"Because they did not greet you with bread and water on the way...." (23:5)

The Kli Yakar points out that it doesn’t make sense to keep one's distance from two nations (Ammon and Moav) just because they didn’t go forward to greet you with bread. What's implied here is that Ammon and Moav's primary goal was to cause the Jews to sin.
The spiritual annihilation of the Jews was more important to them than physical annihilation.
They wanted Bnei Yisrael to be hungry so that Bnei Yisrael would be compelled to eat from the occult sacrifices and drink from the impure jugs of wine and habituate the Jews to lewd behavior as summarized in Sanhedrin, that any exhausted and weary person will not discern between the forbidden and the permitted, eating and drinking anything he is given. And that Hashem knew the secret intentions of Ammon and Moav, which are hinted at when it says that "they didn’t go foward to greet you" - meaning that the men didn't go forward to greet Bnei Yisrael; they sent their women instead. The word kadmu is usually translated as "greet," but really means to initiate, to start, to precede, to go forward.

Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz (1550-1619) lived in Bohemia (which is today Poland and Czechoslovakia). He served as rabbi and dayan and wrote several books, the most well-known being his commentary on the Chumash known as the Kli Yakar.
This is my own translation and any errors are also mine.

As you may have noticed from previous posts, I’ve soured a bit over the years on mainstream chinuch methods and advice.

(Even though the sincerity and good intentions of most of their proponents is undeniable.)


This is partly due to personally disappointing experiences and partly due to having read Garden of Education by Rav Shalom Arush.

(Also, based on past posts, you probably think I’m a Breslover, but I’m actually not. Yet for some reason, Breslov stuff has always resonated very deeply with me.)

One of the most challenging aspects about being mechanech children with emuna is the self-introspection it demands. So I wanted to go into that a bit more, including encouragement on how to overcome one of the biggest obstacles that parents run into when using self-introspection as a tool of chinuch.

So let’s start with an example culled from the experiences of several different people:

The Big Problem
Your 17-year-old son suddenly starts physically and verbally bullying your 3-year-old daughter. He won’t even let her eat her morning cornflakes without pinching her to the point of tears the minute your back is turned. Appealing to his compassionate side, yelling at him, ignoring him, and anything else you can think of doesn’t work. Sometimes, your handling of it makes him act even worse – though you can’t figure out why.

You are shocked and disgusted by his bullying, especially since you know that even the son of mafia criminals tend to be nice to their much younger sisters. And you’ve always hated bullies. In fact, you are even the type who always sticks up for the underdog. You start to hate your son. Maybe you start to blame yourself or your spouse or your son's school for you son’s behavior.

Step #1
Okay, so first of all, you thank Hashem for the nisayon because it is to your benefit in some presently unknown and painful way.

Step#2
Now comes the truly cringe-inducing part:
You need to figure out what YOU are doing that is being reflected in your son’s terrible behavior.

If you are really repulsed by your child’s behavior, this is a very tall order. So the best way to face this is by realizing that you are probably NOT doing something as horrible as whatever your child is doing.

In addition, Hashem already knows everything about you anyway, so if you ignore your bad stuff, you are only hiding from yourself. (And your blissful denial might not even be such a good cover because haven’t you known people with obvious flaws who aggravate everyone they know, yet they seem unaware of the all aggravation they’re inflicting?)

Because of His great Love for us, Hashem wants us to scour the stains off our beautiful souls, to be the wonderful people He created us to be, and to earn the most beautiful eternity possible.

To achieve these fabulous goals, Hashem sends messages that are impossible to ignore.
(Although some people manage to ignore them, anyway.)

So He takes a little, tiny wrong turn that you are taking and magnifies it a thousand times over in your child – just to make sure you won’t miss it.

(Before I go further, I want to acknowledge that, yes, there is a paradox here. Especially if your child is over bar/bat mitzvah, they need to work on their own middot and do their own teshuvah. So how can it be that their behavior is purely a message for you AND their own responsibility at the same time? Well, it just is. Just like how we have free will, receiving reward and punishment for our actions, AND simultaneously, Hashem is controlling all of our actions, right down to the way we clear our throat. By their very nature, paradoxes are impossible to resolve, so we’ll just focus on the parent’s part of the equation.)

So now you start thinking about how you might be acting like a mini-bully.

Scenario #1
You’re a teacher of third-grade girls. You’ve noticed that Shani has started being a nasty little gremlin to Chedva. Being a compassionate and experienced teacher, you know how to nip this kind of thing in the bud. Your methods save Chedva from trauma and teach Shani that this kind of behavior is intolerable. You don’t fear Shani’s influential parents, gossip, or your status-conscious boss. Furthermore, you get a lot of gratification out of teaching Chedva how to deal with the Shanies of life.

But...if you’re being honest with yourself, a streak of vindictiveness tints your treatment of Shani. While you’re confident that you aren’t treating her with excessive harshness, in your heart, you kind of enjoy putting the nasty little gremlin in her place.

With honest self-introspection, you realize that even a hint of smugness is really not appropriate, especially since Shani is, all in all, only 8-years-old. Despite your instinctive revulsion toward bullies, you ideally should be mechanech Shani out of sincere concern for her. Even punishments and sterness should be done out of love for Shani and out of the sincere desire for her to become a better person.

She is, after all, only in third grade, and you know that many people who were problematic as children later grew into great adults.

Then you ask Hashem to forgive you (and you’ll ask Shani, too, if you really were too harsh with her – in a way that does not harm your authority). You resolve to change your attitude toward Shani and ask Hashem to help you do this.

Step #3
Then you tell Hashem how much you hate your son’s behavior, how much pain it causes you, how you can't stand seeing your little girl suffer so much, and you ask Him to improve the situation.

At this point, you might see an immediate change. It may even be a big change. Or you’ll see a change in a few days. Or it may get worse before it gets better. No matter. Just keep on connecting with Hashem and examining your own deeds and motivations.

Now, let’s say that either things don’t improve or they improve, but not completely. Or they improve a lot for a while, but then get worse again.

So you go through the whole self-introspection again, but digging deeper. And again, you ask Hashem to help you find the answer, knowing that He certainly will because that is why he brought you the distressing situation in the first place.
____________
Scenario #2
You have this horrible sister who lives nearby. No matter how much you give her the benefit of the doubt, no matter how much you try to empathize with her in your mind (you both grew up in a dysfunctional family, but she had it much worse), your only real question is whether she suffers from Narcissist Personality Disorder or is Erev Rav.
She knows your worst vulnerabilities and all your weak spots and always makes sure to chisel away at them in the most excruciating manner. Despite your best efforts, sometimes you explode at her.

Your rare explosions are probably not your bullying message.

When, despite your most sincere and heroic efforts, you still crash on your face, that isn’t really counted so much as your fault.

However, what might be the bullying message is how you sometimes speak to her angrily or sarcastically or harshly without any provocation from her. And maybe you vent to your husband (or someone else) about her a little more often than you really need to. Understandably, just seeing her makes you seethe inside and your resentment leaks out through your words and tone of voice and other minor behaviors.

The thing is, if you truly believe that everything is from Hashem, then you also believe that her horrible behavior is also from Hashem. So why are you getting so angry?
(Of course I understand why you’re getting so angry. I get angry about this stuff, too! I am speaking theoretically.)

The Kli Yakar compares this situation to leaves blowing in the wind that get angry at other leaves for bumping into them when it’s the wind that is causing all the friction.
 In some ways, this is harder and calls for grittier fine-tuning than dealing with Shani the Future Psychopath.

This is a very, very tall order, but it is a way of getting you to truly increase your emuna and awareness that This World, convincing as it is, is really just an illusion.

It's this kind of grueling ordeal that bumps you up to your next level.

So you really get down to the nitty-gritty and really think about how your sister is just a tikkun or a message or whatever from Hashem. (And if you can manage it, you can even thank Hashem for this nisayon, knowing at least intellectually that something about your sister’s horribleness benefits you in some unfathomable way. This acknowledgment can really lighten the whole nisayon.)

You resolve to handle her better (at least until she slams you into the wall again, so to speak) and you ask Hashem to help you with it all.

Again, you pour out your pain regarding your son’s behavior and beg Hashem to improve things.

And He does!

Suddenly, your older son leaves your little daughter alone completely. Time goes by, and you even forget that he was ever such a jerk. He even starts helping little sis out with things and protects her when other siblings or kids want to pick on her.

Conclusion
Yes, you can go consult with all sorts of experts when you have problems with your kids. And sometimes, their solutions will help. But a lot of times, they won’t. Or they’ll only help temporarily.

It depends on what Hashem wants from you.

The reason they don’t help a lot of times is because Hashem is trying to get you to fix something in your otherwise wonderful self.

I know parents who will try any method and consult with any expert and pay any amount of money and even go against their very nature by behaving in any way they are told will help (also known as “middot work”).

But they won’t do a cheshbon hanefesh.
(And you can’t do real middot work without a real cheshbon hanefesh.)

They refuse to look inside themselves to see if they might possibly be behaving in some way that is similar to that of their child.

(And I was like them myself until I read Garden of Education, thinking that such heroics were all there was for a good parent to do.)

Why Many Chinuch Methods Either Don't Work or Only Work Temporarily
With a few exceptions, my experience has been that most chinuch methods and courses don’t emphasize the importance of prayer and cheshbon hanefesh.

They either borrow a lot from pop psychology (plucking supportive sources from Chazal to back them up, basically drawing a bull’s eye around the arrow after it has been shot) or they take another method, like the early 20th Century method, which theorized that children just want attention (or that they're manipulative in some way) and so you should emotionally detach and ignore a lot of stuff (and declare that this is the old-fashioned way to raise children that our grandparents used – and it is, which kind of worked as long as it was within a basically moral society, but its resulting repression eventually led to the Sixties Revolution).

Or they focus on middot work, but don’t acknowledge the messages that Hashem is sending.

All methods promoted by frum experts certainly mention the importance of davening for children, but with a few exceptions, it is usually not the main focus of the method.
Some mention Hashem more, some mention Him less.

Furthermore, they rarely mention the fact that children mirror parents, unless it is something blatantly obvious like a parent who complains that her children say “Shut up” to each other and their friends when the parent also tells the children to shut up.

Some might blame the parents for subconsciously provoking a child’s behavior, but that is not at all the same as seeing the experience as a message from Hashem and looking more deeply for extremely subtle similarities.

In my experience and everything I’ve read and heard from others’ experiences, the subtle mirroring that can only be discovered through true self-introspection is never mentioned.

But it’s the key part of the chinuch puzzle.

It is not easy, but time is running out and that’s why we’re all getting pushed to the wall by our children’s behavior.
And if it’s not by them, then it’s by someone else.

There is a lot more to say about the subject. But that’s it for now.

Note: In some cases, the child may not be mirroring the parents at all. There may be a deeper reason that has to do with tikkunim and gilgulim or klippot that is beyond the parent’s control or comprehension (such as was the case with Avraham Avinu and Yitzchak Avinu, for example). Of course, the only way to discover this is by doing a thorough cheshbon hanefesh over a long period of time. In such cases, the only thing to do is turn to Hashem completely with gratitude and an outpouring of your heart, and other forms of davening.

May everyone have much blessing and success and nachat d'kedushah from all your children.

I came to the subject of this post unexpectedly as I was trying to deal with very likeable people who had become very difficult and nothing seemed to improve the situation. I spoke with Hashem about this a lot, especially about my frustration with myself for getting so frustrated about these people when I know that whatever they say and however they behave is from Hashem and merely a message or a tikkun for me.
So I should be thrilled, not frustrated.
But at the end of the day, we are only human and quite firmly enmeshed in this all-too-real illusion called Olam Hazeh – This World.
But Hashem hinted to me that not all is as it seems (as usual, eh?).
Only Mashiach will be able to sort everything out. Until then, we need to soldier on as best we can, knowing that we don't and can't really know anything - except to know that we must cling to Hashem.

Jews, Jews Everywhere....
We've all heard the stories of people who wanted to convert then found out that they were (or likely were) Jewish: the Portuguese girl descended from Anousim on her mother's side, the adopted son of a Christian pastor who discovered that his biological mother was Jewish, and so on.
On the flip side, we all know Jews who we are shocked to discover are converts. I mean, they just seem so, well, Jewish. And it has nothing to do with their external appearance, either. How many times have I done a double-take upon finding out that someone I've known for years wasn't born Jewish nor even knew alef-bet before the age of 24, only to have her cheerfully say, "Well, I don't exactly look Jewish, do I?" or "But didn't you notice that my children totally don't look Jewish?" and point to her flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, round-faced offspring.
No, I didn't notice, actually. Everyone looked perfectly Jewish to me.
Or she's black, but you're positive that she must have a Jewish great-grandmother on her mother's side (yet she insists she doesn't) because she exudes such incredible Jewish atzilut.
You know what I mean.
But then there's the other side.
We all know about Erev Rav. They're always bad.
But actual non-Jews aren't. Non-Jews can be very nice. Non-Jews can be very fond of Torah, Israel, and the Jewish people.
I’m going to continue with a few stories before I get to the main point of this post. Enjoy....

True Story #1
A Chassidish woman was telling me about when she was young and asked her Bubby about a Jewish family in the neighborhood that was behaving oddly.
“Maybe they aren’t really Jewish,” said my friend.
“Maybe you aren’t really Jewish,” said the Bubby.
My friend stared at her Bubby in shock because their family ancestry is brimming with prominent rebbes and illustrious talmidei chachamim.
“That’s right,” Bubby continued. “How do you know you’re Jewish? Maybe a few hundred years ago, our great-something grandfather married some non-Jewish lady and raised them as Jews, spoke to them in Yiddish, and no one was ever the wiser?”
She went on to say that we can’t ever really know or understand these things and that for incomprehensible reasons of tikkunim and gilgulim, it seems that Hashem puts some non-Jews in situations where they have an intimate connection with the Jewish people.

And, in fact, this is common today with overwhelming intermarriage and the widespread adoption of non-Jewish children by Jewish families – adoptees who never undergo a kosher conversion. Obviously, for some of these children, being born to an intermarried Jewish father or being adopted by a Jewish family is their soul’s way of joining Bnei Yisrael, with such souls eventually making a sincere conversion and living as upstanding Jews, propelled by their soul’s Jewish fire.
But most don’t.

True Story #2
A kiruv-activist ended up stuck on the freeway Erev Shabbat until this nice guy pulled over, revealed he was a mechanic, and went to work on the kiruv-activist’s car. The kiruv-activist profusely thanked him and the mechanic explained, “Oh, I couldn’t leave you here, stuck on the freeway for Shabbos.”
Surprised at the response, the kiruv-activist inquired further, to which the mechanic replied, “Sure! My brother became frum and learns in kollel in Bnei Brak. My name’s Mark Goldberg, but my Hebrew name is Moshe.”
Certain that this Erev-Shabbos breakdown was Shamayim’s way of bringing another Jewish soul to the path of Torah, the kiruv-activist took down Mark Goldberg’s number, gave him some kiruvy pamphlets and invited him for Shabbos.
Mark thought the kiruv-activist was so nice. So many of these frum people are so nice, he knew from having been to his frum brother’s simchas.
But when the frum Goldberg brother in Bnei Brak heard about it, he laughed ruefully and said, “The poor kiruv-activist is wasting his time. My brother Mark is adopted, never converted, and has no interest in doing so, yet believes that he’s Jewish anyway. He’s a great guy, but he’s just not Jewish.”

True Story #3
An elderly distant relative recently told me about her maternal great-grandmother. “My great-grandfather met her in America, but she always refused to tell anyone her real name or even where she was from. The family tried so hard to find out. Even on her deathbed, she refused to give any hint of her origins. We hired someone to trace her ancestry, but it just stopped at a dead end. We have no idea who she was or even where she was from.” She leaned forward and giggled conspiratorially. “We think she may have supported herself doing you-know-what when she came to America – or maybe in Europe to get the ticket – and that’s why she didn’t want anyone to know who she was!”
However, that reason didn’t make any sense to me. If her great-grandmother had engaged in such a profession, it would’ve been for a short time as one of many anonymous young women, not something that could still be discovered fifty years later on her deathbed merely by revealing her country of origin.
However, my elderly relative is totally secular and doesn’t know any halacha. But we do. What makes a lot more sense are the following scenarios:

• The lady wasn’t Jewish, but for some reason, wanted to get on board with the Jewish community in America – maybe because of the special societies Jews created to help Jewish immigrants, maybe for the support Jewish immigrants gave each other, or maybe because she believed the old adage that a Jewish husband is better than a non-Jewish husband. Back then, she would have realized from other Jews that only a Jewish mother can produce Jewish children and in order not to hurt her children’s future, she refused to even hint at her origins.
  

• She actually was Jewish and back in Europe, she was an agunah. Either she had a husband who disappeared, leaving her unable to remarry or have children, or she was married to an abusive man who wouldn’t divorce her. So she escaped to America to start anew, knowing that if she ever breathed a word of her origins, her children could never marry Jews being that they are mamzerim.
  

But this is all conjecture; we have no way of knowing the reasons for her silence. The point being that we have no idea who or what this supposedly Jewish lady was.

True Story #4
A secular Sefardi Israeli man went the mail-order-bride route, traveling to one of the Russian-speaking Muslim provinces to marry a non-Jewish woman. Because of her ethnicity, she looks more like the Sefardim in Israel and not the non-Jews of Moscow or Kiev. She also learned Hebrew really well and developed a fondness for Jewish traditions. She expressed a desire to convert (although I don’t know if she really understands what that means), but claims her “husband” told her, “I didn’t marry you to be frum! You stay as you are.” However, she sends her children to the local ganim on their moshav and celebrates all the Jewish holidays and doesn’t bring any other religion into the home. In fact, she is raising her children very similarly to how many traditional Israelis raise their children. Her children speak perfect Hebrew, have Jewish first names and a Jewish last name, and seem Jewish in every way and are knowledgeable in the way that traditional Jews are, and are accepted among their Israeli family and local society as Jews.
As many of you know, Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi spoke about this very issue here around 1:24:00.

True Story #5
Hamodia once published the story of a woman who had been adopted by a frum family under the impression that they were receiving a baby born to a Jewish mother. When this adopted daughter reached her late teens, she and her adopted parents discovered that she was not Jewish after all, throwing this Beis Yaakov girl into an emotional maelstrom. Traumatized by the information, she insisted on converting immediately. But the Gadol with whom they consulted gently insisted that she wait until she’d thought things over more. At first, the suggestion shocked the girl. Why should she think things over?! She felt Jewish and knew what she wanted.
But of course, she followed the Gadol’s directive.
After she’d calmed down, she realized that while she was fond of many aspects of Judaism, her deeper motivation for following halacha was always because she felt she had to. And that was the only reason. I can’t remember her exact words, but basically, she’d never actually felt a real connection to Torah life.
And so she left.
(There was a whole beautiful point to this story, in that she ended up preventing an intermarriage later, but for the purposes of this post, I’m leaving it here.)

Finally, we've all known situations in which a seemingly frum spouse is appallingly abusive to the other spouse, so much so that it seems the abusive spouse might not be Jewish (as he or she lacks the traits of kindness, compassion, and healthy shame for bad behavior). These intolerable marriages are part of why divorce is on the rise in the frum community. In these situations, the abusive spouse shows no improvement despite copious prayer, therapy, and any other methods tried. For example, in Racheli Reckles's article, I find it interesting that the powerful effect of heroic gratitude and hitbodedut led to the abusive spouse divorcing the victimized spouse and not that the abusive spouse improved in any way or made any steps toward teshuvah, which is what usually happens when you daven fervently for someone.
Could it be that the abusive spouse wasn't really Jewish? And I don't mean that maybe he's Erev Rav (although it could be that, too), but that he really wasn't Jewish and therefore, they had to get divorced as an intermarriage is really no marriage at all and is just an obstacle to finding one's true zivug (which she eventually did).

The Jewish Connection
I realize that some people are getting fed-up with hearing about Erev Rav everywhere – even though it’s true that the Erev Rav are everywhere, if not in actual numbers, then in leadership positions – and their hashkafah is certainly permeating all factions of Bnei Yisrael as I discuss here.
But a non-Jewish soul is different than an Erev Rav soul. The Erev Rav crave Mitzrayim and all the spiritual darkness and debauchery and greed that implies. But non-Jews don’t – necessarily. There are non-Jews who crave a spiritual life, who become bnei Noach, and certainly there have been non-Jews who have saved Jewish lives with incredible mesirut nefesh. There are even many non-Jews who take on many Torah commandments as a way of expressing their particular version of Christianity.
Non-Jews can and should connect to Hashem.
But it is simply not in them to connect as a Jew in the uniquely Jewish way.
They can appreciate the ideas and beauty behind mitzvot. But they can’t personally connect through the mitzvot meant for Jews. It just doesn’t speak to their soul.

Please understand: I am NOT for nosing into people’s ancestry or wrecking shidduchim or casting suspicion on perfectly upright Jews.

The Jewish soul is like fire. It's constantly vibrant, lit up, moving and active and passionate.
Whether gregarious and extroverted or shy and introverted, the Jewish personality maintains a certain intensity.
When the Jewish neshama lacks air or doesn't have enough room to blaze forth, this inner fire can come off as a kind of edginess or anger or depression.
If you're feeling like you're constantly being straight-jacketed and your soul-fire is being doused or oxygen-deprived by someone who seems genuinely nice and well-intended, consider stepping back a bit while davening for that person to grow in emuna, and discuss the issue with Hashem. It could be that such a person isn't trying to hurt you (like Erev Rav is) but simply can't relate. Perhaps your soul-need for an authentic Jewish connection to Hashem feels all wrong to that person because it is wrong - for that person.
(Or maybe he or she really is a true-blue Jew who has simply been misguided.)

True Story #6
I met Sara at someone's Shabbos table. During the conversation, she expressed her discomfort with how Rebbe Akiva died i.e. being steel-combed to death. She wanted to know: Is that the extent to which a Jew really needs to go? She was clearly taking it to heart, his suffering very real to her. The hostess and I understood her because we also found that story very disturbing when we first heard it. Sara was FFB and so were the other guests at the table. The other guests wrinkled their noses at Sara and said, "He was a tzaddik. I mean, like, really. We're talking about Rebbe Akiva." Their faces clearly said, Don't you get it?
Sara's whole face drooped and her shoulders sagged.
The hostess and I tried to answer Sara as best we could and she perked up a bit, even though the other guests were still staring at her like she was chomping away on chocolate-covered ants. As Sara struggled with the issue, the hostess and I realized that we ourselves hadn't really probed the issue as much as we could have and didn't understand it as much as we really could, and admitted this to Sara.
As Sara spoke, she was edgy and frustrated and direct. But there was still something very likeable about her. Why?
Sara wasn't arguing in order to reject Judaism; she was arguing in order to connect to Judaism. When Sara ran into unpalatable ideas in Torah, she instinctively felt it was due to her lack of understanding and not because the Torah itself is unpalatable or wrong. She struggled to understand and connect, not to reject.
This edginess and "pushback" don't derive from heresy, but from a Jewish soul starved for spiritual oxygen.
Suffocation is often accompanied by a flailing of limbs, so to speak, gagging and jerking, and desperate cries for help.
And so it is on the spiritual level, too.
Later, I saw Sara at a BT seminary (which is usually not a good idea for FFB girls, but in Sara's case, it was a perfect fit). She'd received good, deep answers to her issues and was now able to channel her fire into big projects. The edginess and frustration had blossomed into proactivism and a spiritual passion. Even the pain and inconvenience of a broken wrist at one point didn't get her down.

Dousers of the Fire
Over the past few years, I have occasionally run into frum Jews who are very concerned with feeling frum and acting frum, but not with being frum – and I’m not talking about consciously hypocritical people, but people naturally concerned with doing and not being – and honestly unable to tell the difference.

• Such people get rigid in their thinking about certain issues – which looks very frum – but actually goes against any and all sifrei mussar you’ll ever read regarding those same issues. For this same reason, such people can even be machmir as it makes them feel frum because they are performing chumras.

But is it impacting their souls? Is it a soul connection?

• Nearly all their mitzvah observance over time seems by rote and because they have to, and not because they ever want to or because this helps them connect to Hashem.

• They even tend to boast about their acting abilities, such as proudly declaring, “I want to make a kiddush Hashem for my modern Orthodox aunt, so I only call her when I can work up a lot enthusiasm for my life and make it sound like everything is going great for me. And my mom says it’s working because my aunt said, ‘Rochel always sounds wonderful, she sounds so happy every time I talk to her.’

• Or consistently for years, boast about how they daven with or play with or read to their kids – even though they hate it. But they beam with pride as they describe the great act they put on and how their kids supposedly have no idea.

• For years, these people brag about how they pretend to be happy on chagim for the sake of their guests and children.

Of course, they always describe all this acting and pretending as kiddush Hashem. Needless to say, this is a very poor understanding of what kiddush Hashem actually is.

• When some people hear shiurim by popular frum speakers, they consistently tend to describe how much they love the speaker’s personality (“So nice!”) without commenting on the speaker’s content. They like to hear stories about special people and baalei emuna without having any desire to learn how to actually be like them, to internalize at least some of their attributes. In other words, they prefer to remain in a state of admiration of great Jews rather than struggling to fulfill their own potential themselves.

• They can unintentionally show deep sympathy and identification with non-Jewish ideas and values - but this is very hard to describe exactly as it can be very subtle and easily confused, for example, with a soft-hearted Jew who is showing appropriate compassion and understanding for tinokot sheh nishbu or for frum Jews who've undergone trauma.

• Another bizarre response is reacting with some kind of anger or disbelief whenever the idea of serving Hashem b'simcha and doing the mitzvot in a state of joy comes up. It's like they feel they honestly can't do it, so they become irritated - or they just shut down - when they hear about it.
• They rarely mention personal davening, or self-introspection beyond what is recommended in pop psychology, i.e. working on the outer reaction, such as suppressing an angry response or talking in a fake sing-song voice. (In other words, acting right.)

Again, I'm talking about committed frum people, whether BT or FFB, not people who are off the derech or people who are having doubts about Judaism. And I'm talking about consistent, long-term behavior as described above even in good times.
As far as Jews go, well, any Jew can have a crisis of faith or get overwhelmed by a nisayon or become confused and react quite similarly to the above descriptions.
The distinction is admittedly subtle - which is why we can't really know and why Mashiach will have to sort this out (among a whole lot of other stuff).
But not only do these people behave this way themselves, they often try to constrain other Jews in this suffocating, empty mindset, too.
It seems to me that authentic Jewish passion for mitzvot and for Torah connection just feels wrong to them.
They just can't imagine and just can't relate via a Jewish conduit.
Again, we cannot KNOW. One of the holy tafkidim of Mashiach will be to sort this all out.
In fact, the post on Leah came out of this personal soul-searching. I felt that Hashem was telling me to follow Leah’s example: You do your small part, whatever you can, and then leave the rest up to Hashem.

Of Course, Jews are People, Too
Again, please don’t misunderstand me.
A Jew could have grown up in an abusive "frum" home, could be going through a hard phase in which he or she is just not happy. A Jew can become confused. A Jew can become overwhelmed....maybe she just had twins a week before Pesach and really does need to pretend to be happy for the sake of her family because she is severely sleep-deprived, overwhelmed with feeding and diaper changes, and in physical pain from surgery or whatever. In that case, putting on a happy face at the Pesach Seder is a huge meilah and act of gevurah, and not a sign of a deeper lack.
Jews have very real downs in their lives. Jews get stuck. Jews get sick, get abused by parents or spouses or schools or communities or mentors, and encounter grueling struggles.
Jews get fed up. Jews go off the derech.
Jews get depressed and despairing.
All that does not mean they aren't Jewish.
But the Jewish spark is still there beneath it all.

Non-Jews can be Nice, Too
While it’s true that real Jews share a sense of compassion, kindness, and healthy shame and that any Jew who doesn’t should be suspect as Chazal stated, it doesn’t mean that no non-Jews ever possess compassion, kindness or healthy shame.
The Roma woman who saved Leichu in A Daughter of Two Mothers was clearly kind and compassionate. The peasant couple and their daughters who constantly risked torture and death to sustain the Paneth family in A Sun and a Shield were clearly kind and compassionate. In modern society, non-Jews run soup kitchens and homeless shelters and are the forerunners in the struggle to protect unborn babies. Non-Jews adopt unwanted children born with serious physical and mental defects. Non-Jews also show regret and shame at having done something wrong.
Bnei Noach certainly display these fine qualities.
Non-Jews can also show enthusiasm for Judaism. In the compellingly written autobiography of one Noachide's journey, Turning to Torah: The Emerging Noachide Movement, Kimberly Hanke described how her appreciation of Judaism led her to start the conversion process. But at one point, she needed to call in to work to let them know she couldn't be there because of Shavuot. And she just couldn't do it. It simply wasn't in her to do it. She realized that she wasn't part of the Jewish destiny as a Jew, and so became a Bat Noach.
So non-Jews living as frum Jews can certainly be nice, but they simply won’t relate personally to the Torah as Jews. The Ohr Hachaim explains that the very source of non-Jewish souls and Jewish souls are completely different (and for the life of me, I can’t remember where).
(It is the Erev Rav souls that are always bad, no matter what.)

Acting Right vs Struggling to Actually Be in the Right
Again, there are definitely times for Jewish parents (and spouses) to pretend to feel something they don’t or be something they aren’t – also known as rising to the occasion. There is also certainly the concept of mitoch lo lishma ba lishma – also known as “fake it until you make it.” Meaning that you know you’re “faking” it with the intention to eventually “make it.” You want to actually become “it” and not just feel good or look good.
But it can’t be that all of frumkeit is always one big act.

Only God Knows – Literally
What I got out of all this is that I need to really work on going b’temimut with Hashem.
I don’t know who is Jewish.
I don’t know who is Erev Rav (although sometimes the indications are quite clear).
I don’t really know anything.
I realized that I have to stop reaching outward and starting delving inward.
Leah needs to be my role model.
Now, maybe Hashem wants something different from you.
Maybe the message I’m getting doesn’t relate to you at all.
If so, then you should probably just ignore this post.
But I’m hearing from so many people who get rejected or have their fire "doused" while doing sincere hishtadlus. People who sincerely follow a “rav” or “rebbetzin” or give their all to their spouse or friend or parent or parent-in-law or frum boss or client – only to be dismissed or straight-jacketed in some way. Sometimes the rejection is disproportionately nasty.
(By the way, when I say “give their all,” I’m not talking about being a martyr or something manipulative like that. I’m talking about people who were motivated by a sense of genuine desire, compassion and empathy, and hope.)
With all the rejection going on and all the wonky responses to core Jewish ideals like emuna and tefillah and being b’simcha and gratitude, I’m getting the strong message that a Jew needs to focus on his or her own avodah to hasten and sweeten the coming of Mashiach – and then let Mashiach sort out all the rest.
Because things are getting more jumbled and confusing even as they’re getting clearer.

P.S. I heard directly from Dayan Fisher ztz’l that when davening to get married, one should daven for Hashem to bring you (or whoever you're davening for) hashidduch hatov v’hanachon b’sha’ah tovah umutzlachat – the good and true shidduch in a good and successful hour.
If it’s your good and true shidduch, it will be a Jewish one.

When I first came to Israel as a young Religious Zionist, I met a woman deemed a tzaddeikes by all who knew her.

Leah carried no title, no yichus, no fame, and her husband was a God-fearing working man who took seriously the times he set aside for Torah-learning.

She never gave shiurim nor wrote a book.

She never did anything obviously heroic.

With quiet wisdom, she raised a frum family in a mixed Israeli neighborhood in a small, clean apartment.

She was just a nice older lady who lived down the block.

But I soon discovered that Leah possessed a greatness beyond comprehension.

Leah once told me, “Love is the most important thing in the world. I was in Auschwitz. Auschwitz was the product of hate. Auschwitz taught me the importance of love.”

Then she continued to talk about love, love, love. And how hate must be avoided at all costs. And she was adamant about avoiding anger.

“We must love everyone. There is something to love in every person.”

Yet at the same time, Leah wasn’t superficial about love.

She never showed approval nor turned a blind eye to bad behavior; instead, her face glowed with concern as she pondered the best way to handle things.

Once, she took me aside, put her hand on my arm, and quietly said, “I know you’re a very fine girl. I really like you. But other people who don’t know you might get the wrong impression because of the slit in your skirt. I know how to sew really well and I can just sew it up for you in a way that looks nice. I’d be happy to do it; it would be no bother. Please understand, I don’t look down on you at all. I see that you are a very fine, tzanua girl. I just don’t want other people who don’t know you like I do to get the wrong impression.”

And she meant it. I felt like she genuinely cared about me.

Though Leah was the real deal, don’t think that she received the appreciation she deserved.

No, that doesn't happen in This World.

Even the people who considered her a tzaddeikes were just as prone to brush off her adherence to basic halacha as “stringent” or consider her determination to love and avoid anger as an endearing quirk.

Yes, these same people chuckled at her affectionately and waved off her advice, just as they would a child.

One "frum" yet proudly modern person even teased Leah about how Leah would lovingly warn single girls not to allow themselves to be “exploited” before they were married.

Leah would just look at these people, clearly measuring the best way to respond. Often, there was nothing for her to do but shrug and sigh, then renew her resolve and soldier on. She knew Hashem was in charge. She’d carried out her responsibility and the rest was up to Him.

Even this person’s making light of basic halacha was from Hashem.

That’s right. Hashem is in charge. Why should she ever give in to anger or hate?

The fact that a survivor of genocide was so normal, so humble, and so emotionally healthy is a testament to the profound depth of Leah’s emuna.

The person Leah loved most was her husband, Aharon. When he died after a long illness,
Leah made sure she said, “Baruch Dayan Emes” before bursting into tears.

As we are bitterly aware, Auschwitz was a place permeated with the horrifying smell of burning Jews, a place that never gave a moment’s respite from the worst torture and death, a place where even the most helpless Jewish baby was considered a verminous threat that must be exterminated at all costs.

We can only imagine how many terrible decrees were canceled, how many dinim were sweetened, and how many miracles were wrought sheerly by the unwavering conviction of this quiet Jewish survivor that Auschwitz was a lesson in the importance of love.

In this week's parsha:

• How to choose the best dayan/rabbinical judge (Hint: Nepotism is REALLY bad.)
• How to be the best dayan
• How to remain strong in war

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The Kli Yakar questions why the Torah doesn’t just say “and they shall judge you” instead of saying “you shall give to yourself.”

 

And instead of saying v’shaftu (which is generally command form, i.e. “And judge!”), why doesn’t it say the usual v’yishfatu ("and they shall judge")?

We see here the greatness of the Kli Yakar.
 
It is human nature to defend and rationalize the behavior of those engaged in the same profession. (For example, try criticizing a doctor – even without mentioning any names – to another doctor. Or complaining about a teacher – again, with no identifying details – to another teacher. You’ll see that they’ll often instinctively search for justification of their anonymous colleague's behavior, even if there seems to be grounds for concern.)

The Kli Yakar himself served as dayan, yet he insists on holding dayanim up to a very high standard throughout his commentary on the Chumash.

No compromises, no exceptions.
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“And he shall say to them, "Hear, O Israel, today you are approaching the battle against your enemies. Let your hearts not be faint; you shall not be afraid, and you shall not be alarmed, and you shall not be terrified because of them.” (20:3) 

The Kli Yakar warns that davka in a time of war, a person needs to more careful than any other time because the yetzer hara, whether for illicit relations or for any other prohibition, is strongest at the time of war in order to topple a person into the hand of his enemy.

So keep that in mind, fellow warriors!

Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz (1550-1619) lived in Bohemia (which is today Poland and Czechoslovakia). He served as rabbi and dayan and wrote several books, the most well-known being his commentary on the Chumash known as the Kli Yakar.
This is my own translation and any errors are also mine. 

The original Erev Rav weren’t atheists in the conventional sense.

They believed in God, but they believed in other forces, too. When Hashem seemed like “the biggest bully on the block” – a terrible way of viewing the Creator – they followed Him. But they always kept their faces looking back toward Mitzrayim, always craving after what Mitzrayim represented while leeching off the holiness of Jewish souls.

The Path of Emuna is fraught with obstacles and stumbling blocks. Any person trodding down that path can find themselves fumbling and bumbling along, and even tripping completely off, landing in a heap to the side.

But as long as they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and get back on the path again despite their scrapes, they’ll be okay.

If they just keep on going, they’ll make it to the end.

Others start out on this path and when they trip off, they lie there in a heap, letting their muscles fall into atrophy.

Others remain at the beginning of the path, running madly in place while juggling twenty large bowling balls (which sometimes fall and crash on their head) and beam with pride about all the hishtadlut they’re doing. (And still others sprint down the wrong path altogether.)

I used to kind of be one of the "jugglers" until Hashem whomped me so hard upside the head, that I was forced to wake up. I call them “hishtadlut heroines” (or “hishtadlus heroines,” depending on your nusach).

These people run from expert to expert, institution to institution, appointment to appointment, consultation to consultation, book to book – and even country to country – in addition to all the hishtadlut they do within their homes.

Now, if a person genuinely needs to go to an expert or consultation or whatever, of course that’s fine. But needless to say, Hashem must be included. He must be taken alongside, so to speak.

And hishtadlut heroines don’t.

They may say they do, they may talk like they do, but when push comes to shove, they just don’t.

And if you decide to drop the act and put your efforts into acknowledging Hashem’s Hand in every aspect of your life, and especially if you try to encourage them to do the same (and I mean encouraging them out of true empathy for their situation in a caring, non-judgmental, gentle way, and not be irritating or pretentious) even only once in something like 3 months after having spent hours and hours listening with genuine empathy to their outpourings and even giving them hands-on assistance in whatever they ask in the hope that it will lighten their burden a bit, it’s shocking how angry or jeering they get (though the confrontation-avoiders ones do it subtly).

And I’m talking about anger and jeering from very good, sincere women.

I found myself coerced into relating to them in the way I am coerced to relate to secular relatives and acquaintances (particularly the atheists):

• I must keep quiet and be very careful not to say any Truth about anything, nor even acknowledge in the vaguest way that there is a Creator.
  
• I must not even mention by accident something I enjoy about my life that is spiritual.
  

At the same time, I must respect everything they say and believe, no matter how offensive or just plain wrong.

In short, in their view, they deserve all the rights while I deserve none.

Why, I wondered, was I finding myself coerced to act around so many frum people exactly the same way I was expected to act around atheists?

Enter the Erev Rav Strategy and Its Devastating Effects
Not surprisingly, the hishtadlut heroines were mostly the products of very unhealthy Erev Rav (and/or Esav) upbringings, whether they came from the most frei background or the most “chashuv.”

Very much to their credit, they were determined to overcome their upbringing. And to an admirably large extent, most of them have.

But they won’t bring Hashem all the way into the picture.

Why?

Because of the Erev Rav influence permeating society.

We have people, including highly esteemed community leaders, acting frum and using the language of emuna and faking the examples of gedolei Yisrael in order to denigrate and control others, and to feed their addiction to their own kavod.

And this deludes the Jewish neshama into thinking that spending time pouring your heart out to Hashem and scraping off the filth plastering your soul is “finding the easy way out” or “sticking your head in the sand” or "being extreme."

The innocent people who unconsciously reject the Path of Emuna are not at all aware of this insidious delusion and would be shocked and offended if they were told. But really, in their heart, they have been abused into thinking like the Erev Rav for whom Hashem is just another "force" in the Universe (chas v'shalom!) and you only need to jump into formation whenever He comes out as the "biggest bully" on the block, the view of Hashem as a "bully" being the biggest and most soul-destroying lie of all.

Because the Erev Rav see Hashem as a "bully," they cannot see Him as He really is: Good. Compassionate. Merciful. Just.

They cannot see that even the harshest stuff is all for the best and meant for our own good.

They cannot see meaning in suffering, just pain and unfair victimization.

And they cruelly twist the holy Jewish neshama into seeing Hashem as the Erev Rav do.

And so you have really wonderful people with amazing potential sprinting in place while juggling twenty bowling balls and looking down their nose at those stumbling down the Path of Emuna, and encouraging them to follow their “running-in-place-while-juggling” example, and even rebuking them or making fun of them.

Can you imagine what these same “jugglers” could accomplish if only they would channel their incredible strength, vigor, and determination toward advancing down the Path of Emuna?

May we all merit to make it down the right Path.

In this week's Kli Yakar:

• Solar paradox
• How to make sure you're on the right side of things when Malachi's prediction of a sun which will "burn like a furnace" comes to fruition
• Why we suffer an overeating epidemic today and how to resist it
  

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