Looking at what's going on in the world, I find myself growing increasingly concerned for the future.

And I'm far from being the first to come to this conclusion.

Right now, I don't want to go into the nitty-gritty of what we're all seeing and what I think it portends, but I do want to talk about the best response.

And it's not about prepping or making aliyah (which most Jews either won't or can't do right now anyway — and who even says that the Erev Rav leaders would allow millions of Jews, especially if they're frum, to enter?) or writing letters to representatives or newspapers, or signing petitions, and so forth.

(Although if those things will help, then it's good to do them. But they shouldn't be your sole focus.)

There's a lot we can't control and I think this creeping inability to positively affect opinions & situations is only going to increase.

So it's time to re-focus on an age-old authentically Jewish response:

Looking back at the classic parable by Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk (author of the classic Noam Elimelech):

He said that the End of Days will feel like a rope being jerked around.

Only the people who can hold on tight will make it.

This means that you already need to be holding on to the rope when it starts jerking & shaking.

Sure, if you're not already holding on, you can always make a lunge for the rope, hoping to grab onto it as it wildly whips around.

And maybe you'll find a place to grasp. Some people will, I'm sure.

But that's pretty risky.

Better to grab on to the rope NOW.

And to take the metaphor even further: 

Who has a better chance of hanging on:
​

• the person with only their index finger curled around the rope?

or

• the person who has wrapped their arms and legs around the rope and clings to it for dear life?

Or even better:

• the person who coiled that part of the rope around them, so even if their hands slip, they still can't fall off?

I don't know Hashem's Secrets & Cheshbonot, nor do I know the soul-tikkun of others, but it seems to me that part of the reason why so many people are having such a hard time, not just with obvious nisayonot, but with inner trials too. 

Their moods, their perceptions, their feelings...

So many people struggle with depression, despair, disappointment, anger, lethargy, apathy, feelings of rejection, loneliness, and distance from Hashem, and so on.

But those of you who fight your way out of these pits (even when you fall in again for the umpteenth time) are actually forging your connection to Hashem.

In other words, you are securing your grip on the rope.

It may not feel like it, but you are.

And that's exactly what we all need to strengthen ourselves to continue doing.

I'm not trying to be the Voice of Doom.

But if Mashiach doesn't come already, I think things are going to get increasingly more bizarre & difficult in the not-so-distant future.

And I think that focusing on strengthening our relationship with Hashem is a positive way of facing that future.

​Every once in a while, Hashem enables you to come full circle within certain aspects of life.
 
For example, the biography of Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld ztz"l, Guardian of Jerusalem, changed my life and stamped an everlasting imprint on my hashkafah.
 
It was that book which shined light on the shadow surrounding the stories and scenarios I’d been told as a child in the movement for Conservative (which is actually quite liberal) “Judaism.”
 
I never consciously sensed the lies by omission nor the distortions regarding the modern history of Eretz Yisrael.

​But upon reading Guardian of Jerusalem, so much came pouring back to me and I now saw the distorted history I’d been fed—corrected and displayed in full.
 
The maskilim and Leftist “pioneers” portrayed as heroes—they nearly destroyed the struggling Jewish settlement under Turkish rule. It was always either the Sephardi chachamim or the Ashkenazi chachamim who came to the rescue.
 
Yet I was always told the opposite: The religious Jews were always the bad guys; the “enlightened” liberal anti-religious Socialists were the saviors (although the fact that they were Socialists—or even Communists, really—was swept aside in the Commie-fearing Eighties).

I developed tremendous love and reverence for Rav Sonnenfeld, the father of the stream now known as “charedi.” He possessed an overpowering love for every Jew and for Eretz Yisrael.

​He was also a tremendous warrior against the anti-Torah ideologies—but his zeal came from love.
 
He was a warrior from love.
 
Absolutely fearless, a warrior propelled by love, and a great ohev Hashem, ohev Yisrael, and ohev Eretz Yisrael, Rav Sonnenfeld was exactly what I wanted to be.

​And over 20 years later, he is still the example I embrace, even though I’m still dropping very short of his example—mostly because I can’t figure out how to get there. But as usual, I figure there’s value in the effort.
 
Anyway, after one of my sons first started yeshivah, he came home telling me that one of his teachers was Ashkenazi and the great-grandson of Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld. 
 
Stunned with joy and gratitude, I could not believe the big chessed Hashem had done for me by placing the great-grandson of my role model as my son’s teacher.

And this great-grandson was an excellent teacher for teenage boys.

Extremely energetic, good-humored, yet highly intelligent and very much a product of his family’s hashkafah, he was also very understanding of dealing with all the challenges of being a teenage boy and a frum Jew in today’s world.
 
He was very open and honest with the boys about the challenges this generation faces, and he gave over his Torah approach with great passion and conviction.
 
My husband and I met him during a parent-teacher evening and he was very friendly.
 
At one point, I asked my son to do me a big favor. 

​I wanted an answer to a question I’d had about a certain event in the early 1920s, as recorded on pages 135-137 of Guardian of Jerusalem: The Life & Times of Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld.
 
At one point, Rav Sonnenfeld went way out of his way to save the life of a terrible Jew (“one of the leaders of the Zionist Labor Federation, known for his virulent anti-religious attacks”) who needed the superior treatment provided only at Shaarei Tzedek hospital and only Rav Sonnenfeld could make it happen.
 
To provide some background: The Beit Din of Yerushalayim had placed a ban on anyone who entered the Missionary Hospital, whether for work or for treatment, with dire results for anyone who violated this ban.
 
Anyway, it was assumed that the legendary Dr. Wallach of Shaarei Tzedek would refuse to admit a person who both intentionally chose treatment at the Missionary Hospital (despite the ban and the poorer medical treatment there) and was a rabid anti-Torah Leftist bent on destroying Yiddishkeit in Eretz Yisrael.
 
Indeed, upon being brought to Shaarei Tzedek, the Leftist and his family encountered resistance from Dr. Wallach.
 
Interestingly, the family asked an off-the-derech youth to approach Rav Sonnenfeld. This youth was the son of a big talmid chacham and well-known to Rav Sonnenfeld. This youth also knew that Rav Sonnenfeld was “quite upset” with this same youth for leaving Torah and befriending this anti-Torah Leftist.
 
Nonetheless, this youth approached Rav Sonnenfeld at home, where Rav Sonnenfeld still received this youth with warmth.

Upon hearing of the urgent situation, the rav braved a severe thunderstorm to rush to Shaarei Tzedek, where Rav Sonnenfeld insisted that halacha demanded the admission of this dangerously ill traitor (but promised to discuss the matter with Dr. Wallach later).
 
Two weeks later, the anti-Torah Leftist experienced a miraculous recovery, then continued his nefarious activities.
 
Knowing how much the Leftist disliked Rav Sonnenfeld, none of the Leftist's associates informed him of Rav Sonnenfeld’s life-saving intervention & mesirut nefesh.
 
By the way, this also shows the mentality of such people. Why not tell the Leftist leader? Why not tell this rabid hater that one of the Gadolei Hador saved his life? Maybe it would soften him up a bit. At least, it might stop him from attacking the tzaddikim. Maybe he’d more willingly to hear Rav Sonnenfeld’s side and compromise a bit.

​But those who knew davka decided to be careful not to tell him. So once again, we see that Leftists don’t really pursue peace; they have other agendas.
 
Anyway, a year later, this same Leftist delivered a keynote speech at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new settlement in the North. When he reached the climax of his speech, this Leftist gave a frenzied shout:

(page 137)
 
Sitting in the audience was the same youth who’d interceded on the Leftist’s behalf.

This statement spurred the youth to jump to his feet and shout his protest against such slander.

​At the invitation of the shocked Leftist, the youth took over the podium and explained to all assembled “exactly how the ‘black arm’ of R’ Chaim Sonnenfeld had interceded to save the life of one who had vowed to destroy him.”
 
That should make you eat your words, shouldn’t it?

Anyway, I was confused because this Leftist set himself on the warpath to destroy Torah Judaism in Eretz Yisrael.
 
So I didn’t get why Rav Sonnenfeld helped this terrible traitor so much.

​Yes, the book clearly quotes Rav Sonnenfeld’s view that the situation was pikuach nefesh to save a Jewish life. But the halacha isn’t so clear-cut for someone willing to die fighting tzaddikim and shredding Torah Judaism to bits.
 
And before anybody gets lovey-dovey about it, please know that these anti-religious Leftists were killers—sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly—in addition to destroying the Am in a spiritual sense.
 
In fact, these same anti-Torah Leftists later programmed terrible suffering among the religious community of Yerushalayim, causing hundreds of Jews to starve to death.
 
So my son very kindly agreed to ask the great-grandson on my behalf. Why on earth did Rav Sonnenfeld do such a thing?
 
The great-grandson knew exactly to which story my son referred and pondered the question for a moment.
 
Then he said, “I don’t know exactly why he [Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld] did it. It could be that at the time, it wasn’t known that the other guy [the anti-Torah sickie] was so bad.”
 
That could be.

While at the time, the man was a known anti-Torah Leftist leader, it could be that it was only later that the man openly stated his rabid extremism, such as being willing die fighting one of the biggest tzaddikim of that generation.
 
But please note what the great-grandson did NOT say:

• He did not say, “Nebbuch, the anti-religious hack was tinok sheh nishba, of course!”

 

• He did not say, “Ahavas Yisrael, you know.”

 

• He did not say, “Why, alter Zeidy loved EVERYBODY — of course he made every effort to save this hate-filled destroyer of Yiddishkeit!”

​ 
Nope. He didn’t say any of the expected feel-good stuff.
 
Instead, he said he wasn’t sure why his holy great-grandfather went to so much trouble to help this terrible person, then surmised that it wasn’t yet known exactly how bad the terrible person actually was.
 
This sort of fits in with Judaism’s precept of Hashem judging a person ba’asher hu sham—in the place where he is (i.e., in his present state), which is one reason given for Hashem’s Compassion upon Yishmael dying of thirst in the desert (Beresheit 21:17 with Rashi).

​Yishmael would eventually produce a nation of terrorists (along with some very nice people too). But at that moment, he was a 16-year-old boy abandoned by a mother who couldn’t overcome her own pain to comfort him in his suffering.

​(For more on that incident, please also see Salvation is Hashem and scroll down one-third.)

I’d like to make one final point.

(And I'm not going to answer the question posed in the above sub-heading, but leave it to you instead.)
 
It seems to me that Rav Sonnenfeld’s tzidkut was widely known at that time.

Rav Sonnenfeld not only performed tremendous chessed in official capacity, but also as a neighbor and regular passer-by. 

​Rav Sonnenfeld was well-known for his generous tzedakah activities. He was also incredibly humble and a tremendous baal chessed—all in addition to his scholarly brilliance.
 
How is it that the secular Leftists possessed such intense hatred toward Rav Sonnenfeld?
 
Why were they so blind to the rav’s sterling qualities?
 
Furthermore, based on the above story and many others like it, then rav was clearly approachable. People just came to his house or joined him on his walks to davening.

Why didn't his opponents approach him themselves? They could have.
 
So what was going on here?
 
Why did they describe Rav Sonnenfeld as having a “black arm”? Why were they willing to “wage war” against him and even fight him “to the death”?
 
What was so terrifyingly awful about this wise, loving, compassionate, and generous tzaddik?
 
It seems to me the only reason was that these anti-Torah Leftists were rabidly insane.
 
What else explains their all-consuming hatred? Why else were they willing to starve impoverished charedi children in Yerushalayim and elsewhere?
 
Yet people followed them! People listened to what they had to say!
 
How could they?
 
Yet if you look around, it seems we have the same problem today.

​An issue that keeps popping up in Israeli society is giyus banot—female army enlistment.
 
This topic deserves a much bigger post, but we’ll just start out with this.
 
Ever since it became an issue decades ago, every big talmid chacham I’ve heard give his opinion on this has stated that it’s forbidden across the board, no exceptions. Ever.
 
This post isn’t even going to go into the whole reason why the Gedolim so strongly oppose giyus banot, but will briefly describe the historical key to Jewish military success and then address one angle of the whole shebang because it's an angle craftily used by the propaganda machine.

​As described in the posts regarding my son’s army service (plus my own experiences talking to former female IDF “soldiers” & the plain cold hard numbers), the IDF is anyway overstaffed with many soldiers (hundreds at least) serving in imaginary positions—like the girl on my son’s base who was in charge of “culture & recreation,” but did nothing for 6 months except watch pirated movies on her cell phone all day and show the base an American movie one evening.  

​And that’s just one example.
 
And despite propaganda to the contrary, women CANNOT carry out combat duties nearly as well as men.
 
So practical reasons for female enlistment are almost nil.
 
Interestingly, the Gedolim haven’t made exceptions for females who could perform certain military tasks better than males. That’s not the issue.
 
A Jewish army has always depended on the spiritual quality of its soldiers and the spiritual quality of its motivation for its success.
 
WHO is going out to war and WHY?
 
You can read this in Tanach.
 
Yes, Jewish warriors have always displayed superior battle skills, whether in actual battle or in strategy.
 
But historically, the key to their success (or lack of) in battle rested in their hearts.
 
Again, you can see this pattern throughout Jewish history.

But certain powers-that-be are ignoring the historical facts and making giyus banot a pivotal issue.
 
So let’s take a look at one aspect of modern military service that gets pumped in the media because females do tend to perform better than males in this area.

​Because it’s a passive, nitpicky job, women tend to be better at camera surveillance than men.
 
Does this mean that men cannot do it at all?
 
NO.
 
It just means that you’ll find more women suited to this work than men.
 
Does this mean that you need to draft women into the IDF for this work?
 
NO.
 
In a Nachal Charedi unit in the South (I think it’s Givati), they use males to perform this task because they can’t have females on this base due to the Nachal Charedi restrictions. And these males seem to be performing just fine.
 
Furthermore, my son said that when he worked on a base that specialized in surveillance, there were always a couple of guys among the girls. This wasn’t to meet some quota (“We need at least 2 males per X-number females each shift!”); this was because these guys happened to be equally good at surveillance.
 
So they are out there, but yeah, you might need to sift more through the male population to find them.
 
Furthermore, in both recent and wayback history, wars and military efforts have been carried out just fine without any kind of female participation. Defeats & losses have been due to lack of morals or lack of brains or lack of equipment, not lack of females.
 
But due to their hidden (or actually not-so-hidden) agenda, the media & the upper echelons of the IDF like to magnify the female contribution in IDF surveillance.

Watch for this in headlines, the slant of certain articles, and the promotional photos accompanying such articles. You'll see it.

​One much-lauded example occurred a few years ago when a female screen-watcher spotted a group of terrorists scuttling out of a hole in the ground onto completely bare and empty terrain at Kibbutz Sufa.
 
(For a post detailing the miracle without promoting female military service, please see HERE.)

The screen-watcher than alerted the (male) security forces to deal with the issue of the terrorists and the newly revealed underground tunnel.
 
Now, I think many of us saw the actual footage of the event.
 
Does it take any superior skill or courage to spot a GROUP of dark figures scuttling over a bare, empty, pale patch of terrain?
 
NO.
 
Does it take any superior skill or courage to alert your superiors to this activity?
 
NO.
 
Is a male incapable of carrying out this exact same task?
 
NO.
 
In that scenario, the real heroes were shmurah matzah, Shemitah, and their adherents.

​The mass harvesting of grain to produce shmurah matzot for 2 years (including a Shemitah year) was why there was all that pale, empty, bare terrain (instead of the expected cover of tall wheat) that made it so easy to spot a group of darkly clad terrorists.
 
But the IDF high mucky-mucks inserted a whole thing about how a girl spotted the activity and how girls are better at this work ("boys don't have the same powers of concentration") than guys.

Yes, females tend to be better at boring, passive, visual activity ("powers of concentration") than males.
 
So what?
 
Why is THAT such a massive sign of progress for women and their society?

The ability to engage in boring, passive activity and do it well (and not necessarily be so bored by it)?

​That’s a big part of what makes women better mothers, better nursers of babies, and better nurturers of young children. 

It's what enables us to watch our children play at a park and prevent accidents or spot unsavory people who shouldn't be there.

Attention mommies & babysitters: If you are supervising your children at the park while sitting on the bench and staring at them, YOU ARE A HERO (in Hashem's Eyes, which are the only Eyes that matter).

It's what allows you to listen to certain family members or people in your neighborhood who tend to drone on, giving them that listening ear they need. It's a big chessed.

But davka using our innate nature for military surveillance, THAT'S the only time it's considered oh-so laudatory & deserving of media publication?

Though it is politically incorrect amid today’s slavish allegiance to egalitarianism, Judaism embraces tafkid.

And tafkid is a GOOD thing. It's an ELEVATING thing. It's a tool!
 
Just like even the most musically talented and trained Yisrael cannot perform the Levite service in the Beit Hamikdash, women and men are prohibited from crossing certain gender-defined boundaries.
 
A man receives no merit for wearing a long, wide skirt and 70-dinar stockings. Au contraire, he earns the aveirah of beged ishah.
 
On the other hand, a woman who wears such clothing earns tremendous blessing and both spiritual and physical protection, not just upon herself, but upon her family and the entire Am.
 
Likewise, a woman is the designated candle-lighter meant to usher in Shabbat.
 
Have you ever heard of a husband who said, “You know what, Genendel? My eye-hand coordination is superior to yours—I can light the Shabbas candles so much better than you. Furthermore, I can say the blessing with the kavanos of the Rashash! So step aside, sweetie, and allow me to perform licht-bentschen from now on!”?
 
Case in point: There have been many holy mekubalim throughout the ages, yet their wives always carried out the Shabbat candle-lighting (even though the mekubalim possessed the ability to make a bracha with mind-blowing kavanot).

Why?

Because according to God's spiritual physics, you davka NEED the FEMALE candle-lighter to perform this mitzvah (and this tikkun) properly.

Men can and should do this when there is no female to do so, but a husband or son cannot perform this mitzvah instead of his perfectly capable wife or mother.
 
Even going back to the Nevi’im—did any of them ever light Shabbat candles in place of their non-prophesying wife?

And flipping over to the other side of the coin, did female Prophetesses lay tefillin on behalf of their non-Prophet husband? (Meaning, he didn't need to lay tefillin that day because she did it for him? Why not? A Prophetess is so much more qualified than her non-Navi husband! But Hashem's spiritual physics don't allow for such cross-overs.)
 
Some things just can’t cross over. 

Well, not without unwanted consequences, anyway.

Shattered Crystals is the compelling & thought-provoking memoir of a frum woman and her family in Germany.

Mrs. Kanner’s memories begin well before the rise of yemach shemo and show the gradual transformation of what was once one of the most civilized, “progressive,” and refined cultures in the world.
 
The book is apparently out of print, but can be ordered second-hand or found in frum libraries. It can also be legally downloaded here:
http://www.shatteredcrystals.net/files/SHATTERED-CRYSTALS.pdf
This ebook contains beautiful photographs of the Kanners which were not in the original CIS Publishers book, plus a few addendums at the end, one of which describes the 2 older Kanner girls' experiences in America before they reunited with their parents. (Lea, the youngest, was hidden by the French Underground.) Unfortunately, in addition to the trauma of the Shoah, the 2 older girls (Ruth & Eva) also experienced trauma in their new environment from family separation, being shifted from foster home to foster home, cultural and language adjustments, and much more. So while they were lucky to escape the final acts of the Shoah, they still experienced traumatizing challenges. Particularly for Eva, writing this book with her mother helped heal some of that trauma. 
 
Early on, the Kanners realized what was happening.

In fact, the Kanners applied for a visa as early as 1934 and Mr. Kanner even made a pilot trip to Eretz Yisrael in 1935! He visited a niece in Tel Aviv, and together they heard the Nuremberg Laws announced on the radio.

The niece begged Mr. Kanner to remain and send for the rest of the family immediately. She even escorted him to the ship for his return trip, begging him to bring him and his family over immediately.
 
At one point, the Kanners even shipped their belongings to Tel Aviv, intending to follow soon after.
 
The Kanners were #1 on the list for their visa to Palestine.

​Yet every time their turn came up, the Zionist Bureau for the Resettlement of German Jews gave the Kanners’ number to others, always claiming some kind of life-and-death urgency that prioritized others over the Kanners.
 
For some reason, even with Mr. Kanner’s incarceration in the awful Buchenwald camp in 1938, the Bureau still placed other "life-and-death" applicants before the Kanners and denied the Kanners their rightful visa. Ultimately, the Kanners were “number one” on the visa list for 5 years!
 
By the time the Bureau finally granted the Kanners their visas in 1939(!), it was too late. The Shoah had forced the Kanners to flee to France and they could not access their visas.

The observations of the slow-boil transformation from an ideal society to Nazi hell, the pure & selfless love between a frum husband and a frum wife (in some ways, Shattered Crystals is an inspiring love story, especially Mrs. Kanner's courageous dedication to her husband, including wrenching him out of Buchenwald), their dedication to their family members and Jewish orphans and especially their 3 daughters...reading about such admirable Jews against the backdrop of history makes for an enlightening & heartbreaking read.

Yet out of the entire compelling memoir, one dynamic struck me in particular.

The year 1942 found the Kanners in a deplorable transit camp called Nexon.

And as per Mrs. Kanner's noble self, she sought to avoid depression or useless reminiscing by assisting Nexon's nurse (a righteous gentile) in helping Mrs. Kanner's fellow Jews. This great chesed also helped save Mr. & Mrs. Kanner's life later on.

​(Two Kanner daughters had been sent on a kindertransport to America and one daughter was hidden by the French Underground. And yes, b'chasdei Hashem, this entire family survived to be reunited in America much later.)
 
In Mrs. Kanner’s barracks, the women either sat and brooded silently or boasted of their once-classy lifestyle in pre-Nazi Germany while understandably complaining over their current circumstances.
 
For example, one reminisced (pg. 169), “Germany, ah, Germany…In Frankfurt, I had a seven-room house. You see this wool coat? It was my everyday coat. For the theater, I had a gray Persian jacket and a hat to match.”

And another answered, “Do you know the Opera House in Berlin?...My husband and I attended regularly. We had a subscription. We had such beautiful times.”
 
Now.

I cannot judge and will not judge. I cannot know how I would behave in the same situation, chas v’shalom.
 
In fact, I well understand the brooding women. I can picture myself becoming depressed and lethargic after years of persecution and transit camps while my people are being genocided.
 
But as for those who boasted of their former life among the German elite...that same German elite who dumped them into this camp, Nexon, where 1000 fellow Jews died over the course of one winter from lack of hygiene and protection from cold, plus malnutrition.

​The nauseating smell of excrement constantly permeated the entire camp.
 
And yet…“Germany, ah, Germany”?
 
The entire Jewish population of Europe was being massacred by the same people who gave them the Frankfurt Theater and the Opera House in Berlin.

​The same ones!

Again, without judging or imagining I’d be any better, this stood out to me in contrast to so many other Shoah memoirs, particularly those related by frum people.

In the camps or on the run, frum Jews longed for their old Shabbos meals with their families. They longed for peace and enough food to eat. They longed to be reunited with their loved ones.

They did not constantly reminisce about material luxuries or halachically forbidden pastimes. (Yes, of course they missed having food and hot baths, but they did not obsess over former luxuries or their former society that betrayed them. They missed actual people and uplifting spiritual times.)
 
Upon liberation, Jews felt desperate to leave blood-soaked Europe. Many wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael. Even the ones who ended up in America or South America or England usually tried to go to Eretz Yisrael first.
 
Who wanted to go back to Germany (or Poland or Czechoslovakia or…)?
 
Hardly anyone.
 
For example, in A Daughter of Two Mothers: When one Shoah-survivor returned to take final leave of the small Carpathian town where she’d enjoyed several beautiful years with very special Jews (and where most of the non-Jewish population sided with the Nazis against the Jews), she said, “Good-bye forever…I hope never to return to this place!”

Later, upon leaving Budapest (where she’d lived in the lap of luxury) for Eretz Yisrael, she said, “Farewell to you, disloyal homeland that betrayed my people…But you, Hungary my homeland, you betrayed us, your Jews…Farewell, traitorous homeland, forever. I will never return here.”
 
That's right. Despite the pampered lifestyle she’d enjoyed in Budapest, this young woman never sighed, “Hungary, ah, Hungary…” after she saw the collaboration of many Hungarians with the Nazis.

In fact, the only thing she'd missed from her former wealthy life was her sewing machine, which she eventually found and took to Eretz Yisrael and sewed tsnius clothes and clothing l'chvod Shabbat and Chag. (In other words, even this material tool was used for spiritual reasons.)
 
Most Shoah survivors echo Leichu’s reaction, wherever they were from.
 
Yet within the life-destroying camp of Nexon, some women boasted of and yearned for their former German lives even as that same culture and those same people tortured and murdered them in all sorts of horrible ways.
 
Meaning, the EXACT SAME PEOPLE & CULTURE that brought you the Berlin Opera House and the Frankfurt Theater and the fashion culture of Persian jackets with matching hats were the EXACT SAME PEOPLE & CULTURE that also brought you Auschwitz, gas chambers, Buchenwald, Nexon, and the insufferable cattle cars.

​This is definitely food for thought.

​Then Mrs. Kanner observed, “Complaining or boasting, they lived in the past.”

They couldn't stop looking over their shoulder back at their previous life in Germany.
 
And they reminded me of another group of people who either complained or boasted and lived in the past and kept looking over their shoulder back toward their former culture:

Mitzrayim, ah, Mitzrayim…
 
Okay, it’s not exactly the same.
 
In the Midbar, they were surrounded by Divine Clouds and feasted on mann. Very different than a deplorable Nazi camp, to be sure.
 
But the point is, they were missing their former empty meaningless life of spiritual darkness.
 
Yet it goes even deeper than longing for unimportant material luxuries (like the taste of watermelon or the sound of opera).
 
It’s that yearning for the spiritual darkness, which is mistakenly seen as light.

Sunk within the spiritual darkness of secular “progressive” decadent pre-war Germany or within the spiritual darkness of the occultic “progressive” Mitzrayim, both cultures were the pinnacle of civilization in their times and both embraced an ethos that ultimately enslaved the Jewish people and massacred newborn Jewish babies in horrific ways.
 
In other words, it’s not something to get nostalgic over.

In fact, if you’ve read Rav Avigdor Miller’s A Divine Madness, you see the opinion of many Gedolim that the immersion in gray Persian jackets with matching hats and regular attendance at an opera house—all chinam (free of mitzvot, according to Rashi)—is part of what landed them in the transit camps in the first place.

​Again, that's not me saying it. That's Rav Miller and other Gedolim.

But like I said, I’m not here to judge people who find themselves in the middle of a decade-long genocide. 

I can't know if I'd be any better or different.

​Maybe I'd even be much worse.

The point is this: If it strikes me, then that means I need to do some soul-searching.
 
I need to judge myself, not others.
 
But yeah, I could put on blinders and luxuriate in feelings of superiority.

After all, I already live in Eretz Yisrael and I’m already happily living a non-American lifestyle. Also, I have not been to America in over 16 years, nor do I have any desire to return. (In fact, at this point in life, the thought of making a visit to America fills me with dread. But I didn’t always feel that way.)
 
So I could put on blinders and luxuriate in feelings of superiority.

But I think I would be very wrong to do so.
 
I think people (including frum people) can still have attachments to Mitzrayim, even if they’ve left and don’t miss it overall.
 
And before you dismiss the boasters and complainers as Erev Rav, please remember than Erev Rav influence us (if we let them) and we have gotten punished for Erev Rav sins and incitement. This was true in the Midbar and this is true today.
 
One can leave (or get thrown out of) Mitzrayim and still boast of their old Mitzrayim life and complain about their new Midbar life (or get caught up among people who do).
 
But what are the things they miss?
 
Watermelons. Opera. Theater. Gray Persian jackets with matching hats. Luxury homes. Cukes.
 
All produced by the very people who are annihilating them.

Are we attached to anything that is killing us (spiritually or physically)? Or to pastimes or fancies produced by people who are trying to annihilate us (spiritually or physically)?

If so, what?

And how should we detach?

(Hint: Filling ourselves up with Torah gradually elbows out all the garbage.)

B'ezrat Hashem, May we all succeed in completely leaving our own Mitzrayim.

Because so many roles in the frum community are influenced (or actively borrowing from) Western secular psychology, many well-intentioned people tend to address problems backwards.
 
For example, many people struggling with frumkeit and their relationship with Hashem describe some kind of rejection in the background.

Maybe it was from their family or maybe from their school. Maybe it was their community. Maybe they stumbled upon a rabbi or rebbetzin who wasn’t the real deal.
 
Sometimes it was outright rejection, sometimes it was more subtle; like a teacher or parent not addressing their needs fully.
 
So many concerned influencers in the community put tremendous efforts in curing others of what the "experts" perceive as rejectionism.

(This gets even thornier when the pressure to love & accept people who behave in ways that are truly objectionable and yet unconditional love doesn't seem to help much, if at all. But that's a whole other topic.)
 
Needless to say, we all need to work on ahavat Yisrael.

​We need to work on ourselves, investing in a thorough & regular cheshbon hanefesh, which entails clearing up those blindspots & clearing out those clogged middot.
 
However...

​The problem comes when Hashem is whisked out of the picture, as He always is psychology & sociology.

• Hashem is Only Good and All-Compassionate—yet very evil & cruel things occur in the world.  

​

• Some people are meant to be poor—yet we are supposed to do everything we can to help others out of poverty.

(In other words, we aren’t supposed to look at a poor person and say, “Well, obviously, Hashem wanted you to suffer the nisayon of poverty as a tikkun, so why should I give you anything? It’s Hashem’s Will!” That is a cold-hearted, cruel, and anti-Torah way of looking at a person in need.)
 
So yes, we should work on treating every person with fairness and respect.
 
If someone is meant to endure a difficult nisayon, we should not be chosen as the stick with which to beat another.
 
At the same time, people are clearly meant to go through trials in life.

As described in a previous post (Loneliness & Rejection as Aspects of Mashiach), experiences like rejection—especially severe all-encompassing rejection—are aspects of Mashiach.

​Look at what David Hamelech (the progenitor of Mashiach ben David) and Yosef Hatzaddik (the progenitor of Mashiach ben Yosef) went through.
 
They were both rejected by their own brothers—brothers who were very great people in their own right!
 
Being quashed, repressed, and confined in some way also occurred to many supreme Jews in Tanach:

Yosef Hatzaddik, Moshe Rabbeinu, and Yirmiyahu Hanavi were all dumped in prison pits.

​Sara Imeinu and Dina were locked in boxes for their own protection.
 
Being isolated within completely non-Jewish environments is another theme: Yosef Hatzaddik, Moshe Rabbeinu, Daniel, Esther Hamalkah…
 
Can you imagine being in a place where the tumah is literally pervading the air?

Many people think of avodah hazara as some ancient Mesopotamian dude bowing down before something like a golden Pillsbury Doughboy statue, as we see today with Eastern mysticism.
 
No, no, no, no. (Although Eastern mysticism is indeed totally forbidden & extremely harmful.)
 
Avodah zara is the dark occult.

​And it was a highly developed occult back in ancient times. The occult leaders possessed brilliant minds equal to the top scientists of today, and these occult leaders had everything down to a science.
​
If you were in a palace in ancient Egypt or Persia, you were surrounded by dark and spooky tumah, plus demonic forces—talk about being afraid to look under your bed at night or monsters in closets!

The stench of tumadik incense pervaded the environment. (And you thought smog was bad.)
 
Not to mention the nearby presence of practitioners brainwashed into sociopathy, who would even sacrifice their own small child in cruel ways.
 
How would you feel about sleeping in the same building or neighborhood as people who’d done that?
 
Pretty creepy stuff.

I mean, take a look at Moshe Rabbeinu’s experiences, for example:

You see that he grew up in the center of Egyptian avodah zara, which was particularly dark & oppressive tumah.

And he came through that nisayon with flying colors.

Yet upon going to join his brethren, he was proactive in his expression of empathy & justice, and found himself on the run from his fellows, and then imprisoned underground and subsisting on matzah.
 
That’s rejection with a capital “R”!

​Not to mention feeling repressed. He couldn’t fully express his innate nature and talents in a depressing pit. (He couldn’t in Pharaoh’s palace either.)
 
And Moshe Rabbeinu’s difficulties didn’t stop there.

​The very people (the Erev Rav) he tried so hard to help and be mekarev and elevate, not only turned on him personally, but they even messed up everything Moshe Rabbeinu had done for the Am until then! (Yes, I’m talking about the Golden Calf travesty.)
 
So…was Am Yisrael wrong for letting the Erev Rav work them up into a state of panic and then latching on to the Erev Rav’s advice?
 
Yes! And we're still suffering the consequences for that until this day!
 
But this was also Moshe Rabbeinu’s Divinely ordained nisayon.

If you read through Yirmiyahu Hanavi’s saga, his profound ahavat Yisrael can move you to tears.

​Would Yirmiyahu Hanavi have achieved such greatness if everyone had loved him back and been all nicey-nice to him all the time?
 
NO.
 
Where is the challenge of loving people who are easy to love? (The Pele Yoetz makes this point HERE. Please scroll down to "No More Blame Game.")
 
Yirmiyahu Hanavi’s eternally recognized greatness derived from his ability to genuinely love and feel compassion for people who didn’t deserve his love and compassion.

And that’s the lesson repeated throughout Tanach.

​It seems that the way to achieve true spiritual greatness and to reach your full spiritual potential is by responding to rejection and repression in the ideal manner.
 
Even ma’asu habonim hayata l’rosh pinah—The very stone rejected by the experts who know all about the best way to erect buildings?

THAT is the exact stone that ends up as the corner stone foundation of the most important building.
 
The accepted & even much-lauded stones never had any chance of being the cornerstone.
 
Why?
 
Because they weren’t rejected! They were never despised!

The experts LOVED those stones! Everyone oohed and aahed over the loveliness and suitability of those stones.

So those stones never had a chance.
 
Only a despised & rejected stone has any chance of being the coveted cornerstone.

So tachlis, what do we do?
 
First of all, when someone comes to you broken by rejection of any kind, it’s important to empathize. Avot 4:18 warns against dealing with angry or grieving people in a frivolous or overly pious manner.

And if they're so broken or messed-up that they respond inappropriately, we shouldn't embarrass them or see them in that state. (Same Mishnah. Also, in Words of Faith, Rav Bender goes into this concept quite a bit.)
 
There is a time and a place for everything, as emphasized by Kohelet and repeated by the Pele Yoetz and many, many other talmidei chachamim and tzaddikim.
 
You have to use your seichel and your sense of compassion.
 
Yet at some point, the tormented person needs to realize that the very fact of their rejection is meant to be overcome, and not used as an excuse to reject Hashem or to sink into all sorts of forbidden activities.
 
Whapping society over the head to be more accepting and loving isn’t ultimately the answer because Hashem decreed that this person needs to endure this nisayon.
 
Again, I didn’t say we don’t need to be more compassionate as a society.

​I did NOT say that.

We DO need to develop our compassion & empathy!
 
But it’s a paradox.

​You can’t whomp society and coddle the victim as the ULTIMATE solution.
 
And you even see that shitah (based on narrow-minded limited-vision psychology & sociology) is not working.

And probably it’s the very person with the potential to be the rosh pinah, the great leader, the quiet savior, or whatever the ultimate role is meant to be—that’s who is probably being rejected or straight-jacketed.
 
Rejection and repression ARE painful. EXTREMELY painful.
 
They’re also infuriating.
 
That’s the nisayon. We don’t deny pain. That’s not the authentically Jewish way.
 
Let’s just say it outright:

Being rejected IS painful!

​Being straight-jacketed, misunderstood, repressed, quashed, or confined?

​VERY painful! And infuriating!
 
It is! What’s wrong with acknowledging that?
 
At the same time…
 
People who can wrestle their way through the pain and the rage to reach a place of love and proactive compassion end up as beings of tremendous spiritual greatness.
 
And it IS a wrestling match—let there be no illusions about that.
 
Yaakov Avinu wrestled with Esav’s spiritual force all night.
 
In a wrestling match, sometimes you find yourself down for the count in a chokehold.
 
That doesn’t mean you’re a failure. That doesn’t mean you’ve lost.
 
It’s not hopeless.
 
It does mean, however, that you need to find a way to scrabble back up again—despite your injuries.
 
And that’s how it is.

May we all succeed in winning the match!

My Moroccan-born husband grew up in an immigrant neighborhood in Eretz Yisrael.

The neighborhood consisted of lots of Moroccans, plus a generous handful of Bucharians, and one Danish family who, for some reason, ended up there after making aliyah.

My husband attended the local mamlachti-dati (government religious) school along with the rest of the neighborhood. And he was one of the very good boys, in that he was shomer negiah and always wore his kippah & tzitzit, even when playing basketball, plus he always went happily to shul with his father for all the tefillot & voluntarily attended shiurim at night.

(There are more good things to say about my husband, but to head off any ayin hara, we'll stop here.)

Anyway, he'd gotten into Gemara in his teens. And though he always dreamed of joining the army, he decided to go to yeshivah instead. (For more on that story, please see God Helps: A True Story.)

I asked him how that was viewed in his neighborhood, seeing as everyone went to the army and while people had started off as religious, the secularization process went quickly and intensively.

"It was fine," said my husband. He explained that for all its social problems, it was still a traditional community. Therefore, even the more secular-seeming people still held Torah study in high esteem. 

And even though the useless jobnik positions were less back then, people still didn't attack my husband about why their sons had to risk their lives while my husband sat in yeshivah.

They intuitively understood the value of Torah study.

The point here is that, yet again, your average Jew in Eretz Yisrael is not innately offended by yeshivah bochurim not "sharing the burden" of army service.

That unforgiving outrage & seething resentment comes from somewhere else.

Since Shevet Levi in Tanach, the Jewish people have always had Jews who sat and learned continuously.

Mishnah Avot states that the world - not just the Jewish world, but the entire world - stands on 3 things:

1. the Torah
2. the avodah (tefillah & serving Hashem, service in the Beit Hamikdash)
3. gemilut chessedim (acts of loving-kindness)

That's our base and for EVERYONE'S sake, it cannot be weakened.

​(And if you examine these 3 pillars, you'll see they're all linked. In other words, you can't have one - or two - without the other.)

And many, if not most, Jews sense this.

So where is the venom coming from? Where is this seething rip-their-eyes-out resentment coming from?

It's being aggressively imposed upon the innocent Jewish people by media incitement and by those with political agendas.

Ani shalom v'ki adaber hema l'milchamah - I am peace; but when I speak, they are for war." (Tehillim 120:7)

Or, as Rashi interprets it:
"I am at peace with them, but when I speak peacefully with them, they come to wage war with me." 

Another reason why STAY OUT OF IT and APPRECIATE ALL LEGITIMATE TORAH PATHS are such important and helpful advice is that sometimes, you can think that your favorite speaker or your shul rabbi is a tremendous chacham for whom you're willing to go to battle.

This is particularly likely to happen among people who haven't yet gained enough knowledge to know that while their rabbi is a cool guy and a smart one, he's definitely not a talmid chacham.

I learned this lesson the hard way. (Story for another time.)

Anyway, this is something I wish I could shout from the rooftops:
Smicha does NOT mean a rabbi is wise, insightful, or good.

It COULD mean that, but it doesn't have to.

All smicha (rabbinical ordination) really means is that a guy passed a test of academic knowledge. If it was high-level smicha, he's probably intellectually intelligent. 

But that doesn't mean he's "a big talmid chacham!" or anyone you should be swooning or tussling over.

(And yes, I've heard people swooning over or boasting of or defending the honor of their favorite rabbi, calling him a "a big talmid chacham" when he definitely is NOT. A smart guy? Yes. A nice, sincere guy? Maybe. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. A charismatic guy? Yes. An actual talmid chacham? NO.)

So that's another reason not to get too wound up. You might be getting wound up for no good reason at all.

Case in point: When I was becoming frum, I really thought so many people were so smart and so frum, and that certain rabbis I met were powerhouses of Torah knowledge.

Then over the years, I realized that, while all these people should be appreciated and admired and respected for their many good points, they weren't Rebbetzin or Rav Kanievsky.

And that's fine!

So while it's important to humble oneself to listen and learn from people who know more than you, there are still higher levels and lower levels of Torah knowledge & behavior, and we shouldn't make people into something they are not.

It's a tribute to frumkeit that a guy can spend his childhood and young adulthood in yeshivah, and come out with such impressive knowledge. And then as he keeps reviewing throughout life and maybe even gets smicha, he really does accumulate an impressive amount of Torah learning.

VERY GOOD.

But it doesn't mean he has internalized it.

It doesn't mean he is a talmid chacham.

Leftists are just so wacky and self-contradicting, it's hard to take them seriously.

That's why I left the whole Leftist-Liberal shebang.

For example, Israeli Leftists want to make peace with everybody (including remorseless terrorists) and want to reach compromises with all sorts of people (including remorseless terrorists)...unless, of course, those people are religious Jews.

But the latest irony is that in a country surrounded by some of the most powerful and most bloodthirsty terror organizations in the world, to whom do the Blue-White party heads direct the following threat?:

"Anachnu holchim l'marer et chayeihem - We're going to embitter their lives."

The lives of whom?

Hamas? ISIS? Al-Shabaab? Neo-Nazis? Planned Parenthood?

Nope!

"...l'koalitziyah - the Coalition." (Source)

How peaceful! How mature! How idealistic! How beneficial to the country!

What an amazing set of priorities!

Golly, with the State of Israel surrounded by such entities as they are, and with Jew-hatred on the rise worldwide, it makes perfect sense to target the somewhat right-wing and somewhat religiously influenced government Coalition of Netanyahu and "embitter their lives."

(Just kidding.)

There are enemies whose lives definitely could do with some embittering, but the present Coalition is not one of them.

Baruch Hashem, those ego-manical self-destructive dolts lost.

B'ezrat Hashem, may Hashem have great Mercy on us even if we don't deserve it and make it so that the current leadership won't be too awful. (Because honestly? Bibi isn't actually so much better than his enemies.)

Anyway, at the beginning of our marriage, my husband and I went to visit a rabbi (with the rabbi’s agreement) and at my husband’s prompting, I asked the rabbi directly, “What nusach should I daven?”

That question was part of the reason why we were there.

I’m Ashkenazi, my husband is Sephardi, and another rabbi told me that some poskim say the wife should take on her husband’s nusach while some say she should stick to her own familiar nusach.

So we went my husband’s rabbi to get a decisive answer.
 
And the rabbi acted like I hadn’t said anything. He just looked away and didn’t say a word -- not even a grunt.
 
I felt very embarrassed and confused. Had I said something wrong? Or was he thinking it over? Perhaps he hadn’t understood me with my heavy American accent?
 
I glanced at my husband, who also seemed taken aback, but after a long and uncomfortable silence, the rabbi started talking to my husband about something else.
 
I was really confused.

​Also, just for knowing, the rabbi would look at me directly (in a modest manner) and address me directly at other times. So it wasn't that he refused to talk to or look me in the face by custom.
 
At a pause in the conversation, I waited a moment and then politely said something like, “Excuse me, kavod harav, um…I was just interested in knowing what nusach I should daven now?”

He looked at me in an odd way, then turned away and made no response.

​So I said, “Um, the thing is I davened Ashkenazi until now, but now I’m supposed to take on Sephardi minhagim…” I faltered because he still made no reply. “So, uh, I heard that some poskim say one way and some say another and, uh, I was just wondering which nusach I should daven?”
 
He frowned and looked away from me.
 
Now, instead of feeling mildly confused or a bit taken aback like a normal person might, I felt devastated—because this is my sore spot. I’m way too oversensitive in this area.
 
At this point, my husband got up the guts to politely re-ask my question and the rav looked at him, frowned, and made this irritated motion with his hands and shoulders.
 
And my husband immediately raised his palms in surrender, “Okay, sorry, sorry! Never mind. Ah…” And my husband changed the subject.
 
When we got home, I burst into tears as I asked why the rabbi treated me so. My husband tried to make a joke out of it and quipped that apparently the rabbi wanted to rely on my husband.
 
“So why didn’t he SAY that?” I cried. "Why did he act like I don't even exist?"
 
My husband shrugged apologetically. He grew up in a traditional immigrant Moroccan neighborhood in Eretz Yisrael, where respect for people who learned Torah was sacrosanct and he couldn’t bring himself to speak about his rabbi any further.
 
To compound things (and I'm revealing this with my husband's consent), my husband’s father died very suddenly when my husband was a teenager, and he always missed the closeness they’d shared. So he instinctively sought a father figure in his rabbi.

​And this rabbi could be very warm and friendly when they learned or spoke together, and such paternal warmth is what my husband understandably craved—but the rabbi could also be irritable and sharp and prone to short bursts of frightening temper. (I saw it once and it froze me speechless—and all because his wife brought the wrong coffee. Cripes.)
 
What I didn’t know at the time was that this rabbi has a lion-like temper (which was why my husband got nervous when the rabbi got irritable and why my husband was hesitant to push the rabbi to answer the innocent—and very simple!—shaila).
 
And as I also saw several times, this rabbi can be very friendly and warm toward people, then treat them with disdain or hostility. (And he did this to me, sometimes acting like I didn’t exist as he did above, or being really nice and then with a paternal smile, plunge his verbal dagger into my nefesh.)
 
Eventually, we drifted off from him and much to his credit, my husband eventually managed to overcome the very understandable desire for some kind of father figure.
 
In other words, despite his hasmadah in learning and the tremendous intellectual knowledge he possessed, this rabbi's Torah learning remained stuck in his head only and never managed to fully flow down to his heart.

You could definitely see the influence of Torah on him, but there was still a lot missing.
 
And some people are like that.

​For whatever the reason, some people learn tremendous amounts of Torah (sort of like academics like to learn their own weighty tomes and philosophies), but such people never manage to actually INTERNALIZE the Torah they learn. (Or they only internalize a very small percentage of the vast amount of Torah they’ve learned.)
 
Of course, we’re all flawed and even someone who learns Torah for years can still exhibit flawed middot at times.

Only Hashem is perfect.
 
But this rabbi's extreme behavior exhibited itself regularly.
 
And we need to use caution when choosing a rav. Just because someone has a lot of Torah-learning in his background doesn’t mean he is a Torah personality.
 
For example, when a regular frum Jew asked Rav Avigdor Miller how to deal with a learned rabbi’s lack of derech eretz, Rav Avigdor DIDN’T say, “Gevald! Why aren’t you giving him the benefit of the doubt? Who are you, a lowly regular Yid, to judge such a big talmid chacham?!”
 
No.
​
Rav Avigdor knew that rabbis can lack derech eretz. So he recommended that the regular Jew write the rabbi a polite anonymous letter.
 
Here’s the original Q&A:

In Going Home…to Yerushalayim, a commenter asks how can we know who to listen to and who not?
 
It’s an excellent and vitally important question.
 
So first of all, it’s important to pray for this.
 
Both Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender (Words of Faith) and Rav Michel Dorfman recommended saying “Utaknenu b’aitzah tovah milfanecha” (said in Maariv and Bedtime Shema) with as much kavanah as you can regarding this issue.

So when I saw the rabbi erupt into bursts of short but very intense anger (over nonsense), I could have realized he wasn’t the real deal.
 
It was confusing at the time because in those days, there was tremendous pressure on baalei teshuvah to find a rav (any rav!) and many stories showcased how blind obedience to a rav reaped a satisfyingly happy ending.

There are also many stories showing rabbis acting oddly and later revealing profound and legitimate reasons for such behavior.

But they were tzaddikim with ruach hakodesh—which is very different than the vast majority of rabbis who most certainly do NOT possess ruach hakodesh or tzidkus. So you needn’t assume your rabbi’s unhalachic behavior is the result of profound holiness.
 
Anyway, I thought the problem was me and that if I only had enough emunat chachamim, everything would be fine.
 
(But things didn’t work out and I learned a big lesson: Intellect is NOT the same as wisdom. And we shouldn’t place our emuna on a “walking encyclopedia,” but only on a real true chacham.)
 
So it’s not easy and it takes some time, but that’s one way to go.

The following pertains specifically ​to gedolei hador, but it's still good general advice.

This is what Rav Avigdor Miller suggests in Recognizing a Gadol Hador:

• See who other gedolim are calling a gadol.
• Do great rabbanim from outside his group consider him a gadol?

​By the way, we can and certainly should respect all people for the good middot and authentic Torah knowledge they DO possess. Some people are experts on the halachos of tevilat keilim or lashon hara, but lack sensitivity or expertise in other areas.
 
We should not start gossiping about a rabbi’s—or any person’s—bad traits unless there is a halachically mandated benefit in doing so.
 
We must always find a good point in every Jew—the more good points, the merrier.
 
However, on the subject of rabbis, you don’t need FOLLOW them if they aren’t up to par.

​If their views conflict with those mentioned in STANDARD halacha and mussar, you DON’T need to follow them.
 
Yes, you treat them with same courtesy and respect as you do any human being.

But you don't need to follow them.
 
Their opinions and hashkafahs aren’t kodesh kedoshim—unless that rabbi truly embodies Torah haskafah.
 
So if they aren’t representing Torah truth (and long gray or white beards with impressive rabbinical attire and rabbinical degrees don’t AUTOMATICALLY determine their level of Torah truth), you don’t need to (and shouldn’t) follow them.

Frum media isn’t perfect either.

​Please see:
Rav Avigdor Miller on the Yeshivah & the Sane Asylum

And this connects to what’s happening in both Eretz Yisrael & Chutz L’Aretz today:
Are the Reshaim Endangering Us?​

P.S. This post started off with mentioning the problem of a sore oversensitive point. I want to continue discussing how to deal with any point of oversensitiveness. When ignored, it interferes with having a good life and good middot. So more on how to deal with that in 3 Steps toward Overcoming an Oversensitivity in Your Personality.

UPDATE: Upon receiving a message from a concerned reader, I realized that for the sake of maris ayin, a few things should be clarified:

• I write this blog anonymously. Even the 2 or 3 people who know me have no clue who are the family members mentioned in this post.
• My family neither reads this blog nor know it exists, so they cannot be hurt by this post in any way. (I wouldn't have written it this way if they read it.)
• My non-Jewish family members (who think they're Jewish) and their non-Jewish spouses (if they're married) for the most part are anti-Israel anti-religion anti-morality Liberals/Leftists who don't treat me with anywhere near the same warmth and courtesy I treat them. (In fact, they do the opposite.) They are mocking or sneering DESPITE the fact that I DON'T DISCUSS Judaism with them at all or impose on them in anyway, and I always treat them nicely.

(This includes the one previously married to the despicable criminal. That cousin was also there when he was "confronting" me about Holocaust survivors not forgiving Nazis, and she remained silently apathetic the whole time. But she was furious with me later for telling another Jewish family member about it because that Jew also found it offensive & didn't want the menuval at the family Seder.)

• A couple of my not-Jewish-but-think-they-are relatives are very nice to me personally and relatively positive toward my frumkeit, but one holds firm anti-Israel pro-Philistinian views (and we all know what that really means).
• I'm very fond of my Jewish family members (except one), even as I'm sad that they don't know the spiritual treasure they have and I did not say anything about them in this post, except that they're intermarried secular Liberals (without names). Oh wait. I did call one "a lump," and I've deleted that.

If you know for a fact (with sources) that anything I wrote here is genuine lashon hara, I definitely want to know so that I can delete it. 

Thank you!

I’d like to make a quick point about intermarriage.

In my family, intermarriage only started with the generation above mine.

Yet in my generation already, non-Jews outnumbered the Jews if you put all the first-cousins together.

And of the Jews, not one married a Jew (except me). Even the cousins who live in New York, where there’s no dearth of Jews. Even the one who married twice married a non-Jewish woman each time. He has 5 kids in all—none of them Jewish (although one of his sons looks like him, with a very handsome Jewish face, and shares his typically Jewish last name).

If you spread out the net wider, I have one Jewish second-cousin who married a Jew (both not frum). I’ve met his mother 3 times in my life, but never him. I don’t even remember his name.

I also have a third-cousin (whom I only discovered a couple of years ago) who became a Chabadnik and is married to a fellow Chabadnik, and they are producing a lovely family.

That’s it as far as I know!

On my side of the family, my children do not have even 1 Jewish first-cousin. They have 3 Jewish second-cousins, 2 of whom are boys. Barring a miracle, it’s unlikely that these children will marry Jews. Meaning that the 1 girl is the only one to have any chance of continuing the Jewish line—IF she decides to have children. (I have several family members in both my generation and the generation above mine who either decided not to have children, or are taking their time about it, maybe until they run out of time.)

Many of the intermarriages don’t consider themselves intermarriage because they did a fake Conservative or Reform “conversion,” in which there was never any intention to keep even the 10 Commandments.

One does keep kosher, however, but doesn’t fast on Yom Kippur and has never kept Shabbat. (In all fairness, she’s not supposed to keep Shabbat because she is not Jewish. However, she does not know that she’s not Jewish and thinks her observance is perfectly fine.)

Another Reform “convert” does nothing except watch her Jewish husband light Chanukah candles (I'm not even sure if they do it every night of Chanukah) and she attends or even hosts a Pesach Seder once a year. Kashrut doesn’t exist in their home, nor does any other Jewish observance as far as I’ve ever seen.
 
And so on. 

Intermarriage decimates Jewish families that fast.

I'm seeing Jewish family lines completely dead within 1-3 generations of that initial intermarriage. 
 
And the above doesn’t even cover the absurdity of a Pesach Seder in which non-Jews outnumber the Jews 12-1. (Even a 50% non-Jewish Seder is silly. I mean, should Jewish men recite Chana's prayer in which she goes through her female reproductive system which men don't have? It's the same type of thing.)

​Or the unwitting confusion that reigns when you have 3 generations of non-Jews who practice no Judaism, save for maybe a Chanukah candle-lighting and a Pesach Seder, yet consider themselves Jewish because a Conservative or Reform rabbi told them they’re Jewish.
 
(This gets even messier when you throw adoption into the mix, with a non-Jewish-mother-who-thinks-she’s-Jewish adopting a non-Jewish child, then raising the child as an assimilated Jew. I’ve known several families like that.)
 
One non-Jewish cousin (the daughter of the Reform “convert” above) married a guy who planned on undergoing a Reform conversion, but they got divorced before he got his certificate.

​I never liked him, particularly after a conversation in which he unexpectedly demanded to know why ORTHODOX Jews don’t forgive the Germans and why ORTHODOX Jews boycott German products.
 
(That one question exhibited so much irrationality, it took me a moment to even know where to start in response.)
 
Then he kept insisting that Holocaust survivors need to forgive the Nazis. He seemed personally offended that Holocaust survivors don’t forgive Nazis.
 
I was flabbergasted by his attitude (and his sheer chutzpah in pounding me with his attitude—did he honestly expect to me to ever agree with him?) until I learned that after he and my cousin got divorced, he was convicted of particularly heinous crimes against children, one as young as six. (He claimed she asked for it -- literally.) Hopefully, he’ll never leave prison and the daughter he and my cousin have together decided several years ago to just tell everyone her father is dead. And that’s exactly what she does.
 
I guess it takes someone with abominable inclinations and no empathy to find Nazi atrocities forgivable and to get all huffy about those who cannot forgive atrocities.

Anyway, despite their enthusiasm to dupe non-Jews into thinking they're Jews, Reform "rabbis" might want to take at least a minute to probe the views and proclivities of their potential "converts," even if they care nothing for the potential "convert's" actual observance and commitment to Torah Judaism.

​So this is just a small sample of what’s going on.
 
And the Reform and Conservative (which is actually extremely Liberal) movements want to bring all this to Eretz Yisrael.

Better start davening.