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.

We're still not long after Pesach (even if it feels like Pesach was ages ago) and now we're heading into Shavuot to receive the Torah and solidify ourselves as a committed Nation of God after the initial Redemption from the spiritual darkness of Mitzrayim.

Pesach brings to fore the core of the Jewish people and Judaism. It's all about birth, rebirth, sea-splitting emuna, and Redemption.

Yet the destructive Erev Rav forces quietly tear at the edges of even this most transformative earth-shattering process.

Authentic Jewish tradition tells us that a mind-boggling 80% of Jews in Egypt didn't survive the Plague of Darkness.

Astoundingly, they didn't want to leave the slavery of Egypt.

Ultimately, only 20% made it to the Exodus.
___________
Recently, I was pondering the movement within non-Torah Judaism that refers to itself as "Conservative." (Boy, is that a misnomer!) I grew up within this movement and this was the community and synagogue to which we belonged.

And I was thinking about how much destruction they've wrought upon the Jewish people, all under the cheerful auspices of "progress" and good intentions.

What's insidious about the leaders within this movement is that they're knowledgeable enough to present their fallacious views in a convincing manner to Jews who aren't knowledgeable at all or only minimally knowledgeable.

Recently, Batya Medad blogged about her experiences with this movement (among other topics), saying:
"The vast majority [of Jewish teachers] were actually strictly practicing and believing Orthodox Jews, but they had to dilute their teaching to suit the Conservative theology and the even less Jewishly committed parents, who would have had them fired or pull their kids out of the school if there were signs of 'brainwashing'."

[Emphasis mine -- MR]

This isn't progressive, but dishonestly restrictive -- exactly what the Conservative movement's adherents accuse Torah-true Judaism of being.

A boy I grew up with became a Conservative rabbi a few years ago. This boy possesses a very nice personality; he's warm and caring, and also enthusiastic about Judaism. He attended the rabbinical school of this movement where the indoctrination is very skillful and convincing, and he's brought his theories and enthusiasm to his own congregation.

This is heartbreaking because such a precious Jew could do so much good within the Torah world, but it's very hard to untangle such indoctrinated Jews from the Conservative movement's finely woven heresies. And I've known several Conservative rabbis with this same kind of personality. They care about their congregants and have genuine affection for a lot that Judaism has to offer.

Why? Because Judaism is genuinely beautifully and the thirst within the Jewish soul is only slaked by Torah spirituality.

(Not to mention the Conservative rabbis who are merely good administrators and enjoy the nice home provided by the congregation in addition to the 6-figure salary common among such communities, particularly the larger communities. And yes, I'm aware that some Orthodox rabbis fit this description too.)

To make things more confusing, Conservative rabbis near major Orthodox areas (like New York) practice Judaism similarly to many Modern Orthodox Jews. In fact, I was shocked when one Conservative rabbi told me that he required his female converts to commit to mikveh and taharat hamishpach (the laws of Family Purity) after marriage, in addition to Shabbat and kashrut. (Taharat hamishpacha isn't generally valued or even know about within the Conservative movement.)

But in many parts of the US, the Conservative rabbi and cantor may be the only people who don't drive on Shabbat. Yet even th rabbi and cantor's Shabbat observance is lacking. With no respect for the millennia of interpretation by Sages possessing the intellectual level of Albert Einstein, the Conservative leaders simply pick and choose according to convenience.

God is a far and distant figure subject to their own imagination. And they deal with the personalities within Torah according to their own grasp, meaning that they bring all the greatest of the greats down to their own level (which is low indeed) instead of striving to lift themselves to follow the example of the Patriarchs, Matriarchs, and Prophets.

The result is that there is nothing to aspire to -- except whatever the lowly rabbi or Conservative teacher determines according to his or her own ego and personality limitations.

I remember one Conservative rabbi who rarely even made it to Shacharit services during the week; he just showed up on Shabbat (a "once-a-week" Jew!). Usually, there wasn't even a minyan (even when including the women) for weekday Shacharit despite its location in a predominantly Jewish area. The elderly guys complained about how "the rabbi doesn't even show up for Shacharis! What kind of a rabbi is that?"

A Conservative rabbi, apparently. With a 6-figure salary.

It's also common within the Conservative movement to pick a scene or person from Tanach, ignore wholesale the millennia of Sagely scholarship (mostly because they lack the skills to study it or understand it), then distort it so that the Conservative Jew ends up more religiously observant than, say, Avraham Avinu. (And yes, this is a real example. They believe that Avraham Avinu did not keep kosher, but the Conservative Jew does, so look who's the frummer Yid!) And that's how they justify their lack of observance.

It's incredibly egocentric.

More evidence of the great Conservative ego is their attitude toward women and women's mitzvot.

Their great hero, Solomon Schechter, initially dismissed the eloquently written bilingual (maybe even trilingual?) journal of Gluckel of Hameln simply because it focused on women's daily tasks (in addition to her Torah knowledge, business acumen, high intergrity, and much more).

Also, it's telling how they dump women's mitzvot to the side while promoting men's mitzvot. Women are encouraged to don tallis and tefillin, yet men aren't encouraged to light Shabbat candles, even though they are halachically obligated to if a female isn't lighting for them. In realtime, you see girls in their youth groups wearing tallis, tefillin, and kippahs, but almost none of the boys light Shabbat candles.

And I already mentioned their attitude toward taharat mishpacha...

Apparently, progressive "enlightened" men can't let inconvenient laws get in the way of their taavos.

I remember a Conservative rabbi who got booted out for having an affair with his secretary. This devastated me as a child because I'd liked her so much and couldn't believe such a warm-hearted nice lady could've done such a terrible thing. I remember impassionedly pleading something to parents like, "Are you sure it was with her and not with someone else? Are SURE it was her?"

Furthermore, go to some Conservative synagogues, and you'll see young woman reading from the Torah surrounded by a group of oh-so "helpful" and attentive middle-aged men who were probably too pathetic and Woody Allen-looking to get anywhere near attractive girls in their younger years. Who knew a girl needed so many gabbais to help her out?

Girls also help lead parts of the service.

But where are the boys? Or the middle-aged women?

Teenage and college-age girls are more fun to watch on the pulpit, I guess. (Although these helpful old guys will insist that girls are simply more interested and "more mature." How convenient.)

By the way, I heard this word all the time among the male congregants to describe teenage girls: mature.

Many Conservative rabbis and their male adherents enthuse over young female participation, and are oh-so encouraging of young females while lauding young female "maturity," all under the auspices of "progression."

It's just a load of weasel words, quite frankly.

They care about women's issues in the way that feminism cares about women's issues, which means that it's all about getting women to emulate negative male traits and valuing traditionally male contributions over traditionally female contributions (i.e. careers are in, but childbearing is out, etc.).

Note: The above may not be the case at every single Conservative synagogue across the entire 50 states. But what I wrote of aren't outliers either, despite what a Conservative adherent will otherwise insist.

While conversing with a Conservative rabbi who required some kind of adherence to the laws of taharat mishpacha for his female converts, he mentioned his experiences in archeology and told of an ancient archeological site indicative of Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael.

"And there was NO evidence of a mikveh!" he proclaimed.

(See? This is yet again an example of how they try to make themselves out to be frummer than our ancestors. "We do mikveh and they didn't! We're more machmir than the Avos!")

"How do you know?" I said. "Maybe you guys missed it. Maybe you just dug around it without even realizing it was there. Anyway, a woman's mikveh was often located a bit away for reasons of modesty."

He frowned as he thought this over, then declared, "No, we excavated pretty thoroughly!"

Knowing the technical difficulties and limitations of excavation, I was highly skeptical regarding the proclaimed thoroughness of their excavation. But I went with it and said, "Was there a natural body of water nearby, like a river or something?"

"Yes," he said.

"Well, maybe they just used that," I said. "I mean, we're talking about a Middle Eastern climate, not a Russian climate." These women also spent most of their years nursing and pregnant, which meant they mostly only needed a mikveh once every year or two. "Maybe they didn't feel the need to carve out a whole mikveh when they had a river right there," I added.

He fell silent for several moments, then said, "Hm."

And this is the really sad thing: At that time, this Conservative rabbi was a highly educated guy with degrees from university and his "rabbinical" seminary while I was just this twentysomething housewife pregnant with my second child and working in a little store part-time while my husband learned in kollel. Yet in an argument centering on his area of expertise, the little newly frum kollel wife bested him within a couple of sentences. Logically speaking, that shouldn't have happened.

But embarrassingly, he still managed to get me in the end.

How? He simply twisted over to another topic and distorted it in a way so that I couldn't recognize what he was talking about (although I was definitely familiar with it), and left me stammering, much to my embarrassment and frustration.

At the time, I hadn't yet read up on the different kinds of tactics utilized to manipulate arguments (strawman arguments, sloganeering, distractions, ad hominem attacks, cherry-picking, etc.), so I wasn't aware of what he was doing and got caught in it.

(If you'd like, you can see the continuation of that conversation in a previous post: How to Distort the Torah: A Guide for Apikorsim and Their Victims.)

The above doesn't even begin to cover the devastation of intermarriage that these Conservative "rabbis" have wrought on the Jewish people.

With all their pseudo-"conversions" of people who are either pressured into it by well-meaning yet  presumptuous Conservative Jewish in-laws or non-Jews who like aspects of Judaism without feeling compelled to commit wholeheartedly or for people who enjoy having the now-coveted status of being a minority, the Conservative "rabbinate" decimated the Jewish people in America.

(And yes, I realize there are also Orthodox rabbis who do not take conversion as seriously as they should and thus produce converts who are ill-prepared and ignorant of important aspects Judaism, and whose status is also questionable.)

Anyway...this year, I received emails from members of my old Conservative community (and the accompanying Reform community) which enthused about the family get-togethers for the Pesach Seders. Some were 50% Jewish. Then one enthused, "We had 13 people at the Seder!"

But only one participant was actually Jewish.

So you had non-Jews cooking up and conducting a whole Pesach Seder and chanting about how God took them out of Egypt (when He didn't), and opening the door for Eliyahu Hanavi to come in and take a sip of wine.

Now on the positive side, these predominantly non-Jewish Seders are likely Hashem's way of getting the basic message across to the one sickly elderly Jew at the table. That Jew at least heard the Haggadah and ate some matzah, so maybe some soul-healing will spark from that.

Anyway, the Conservative leaders are hard to argue with. They cherry-pick their knowledge from a wide array of sources within authentic Judaism, science, political movements, and philosophy. Then they distort things to their perspective, something which they are previously taught to do in their seminaries and classes.

So it's all very ingrained.

Then you have the natural human ego and the leadership resistance to admitting that they're living a lie and giving up their nice home and their 6-figure salary.

It's all too human, of course. Which is exactly why you need traditional authentically Jewish mussar to have any chance of battling problematic character traits like greed, the need for honor, ego, and all that.

I'm not really different than them in that respect. The only real difference between me and them is that Hashem has allowed me to access these traditional authentic Jewish sources with an open mind, and these leaders and adherents do not do so.

Having said that, even an entrenched Conservative Movement leader can still do teshuvah.

That's all.

As I look this over, I'm aware of how biting it will sound to those who don't see the Conservative Movement in the same way.

But I'm looking over a long wide swathe of destruction.

Furthermore, so many Jews in this movement have warm Jewish hearts and shining souls. Yet where their beaming hearts and souls channeled?

Into a meaningless vacuum.

Many of the good adults I knew as a child are aged and dying now.

Or dead.

It pains me that, depending on their situation and life choices, they're dying without ever knowing the real beauty and depth of Torah. They only ever tasted a watered-down version.

They're dying with disillusions and confusion about why their children and congregations are so apathetic to that which was so important to their parents and grandparents.

Many are dying without ever having been in an authentic Jewish marriage.

Some die leaving self-hating assimilated progeny behind them.

Others die without leaving behind them even one Jewish child or grandchild.

And some of these non-Jewish children and grandchildren are even antisemitic (in a goody-goody politically correct way, of course).

Within their seventy, eighty, or ninety years, these precious Jews never do even a moment of teshuvah.

And whose fault is that?
___________

B'ezrat Hashem, Mashiach will come soon and sort us all out.

He'll gather all the Jewish neshamas out of whatever Galus (Exile) he finds them in and bring us all Home, hopefully enveloped in within Hashem's Great Loving Revealed Compassion.

In the words of Gidon the Judge at his own family's Pesach Seder around 3100 years ago:
"If our forefathers were tzaddikim, then perform a miracle for us in their merit. And if they were reshaim, then just as you performed for them, perform a miracle for us too."

Amen!
__________

Related posts:
Aliyah, Moving To Israel (Batya Medad's blog post)
Sinking in a Deluge of Quicksand while Dancing the Hora
How to Distort the Torah
True Greatness Hides Itself (more about Gidon the Judge)

The first tragic event to occur on the 17th of Tammuz was Moshe Rabbeinu breaking the first set of Tablets when he saw the Jewish Nation worshiping the Golden Calf.

(For a synopsis of the tragedy, please see What was the Golden Calf?)

How did the Jewish people go from the Divinely gifted exalted spiritual level necessary to receive the Torah in all its glory to worshiping an idol only 40 days later?

Moshe Rabbeinu promised to be up on the mountain with Hashem for 40 days, after which he would return. The people miscalculated, so when Moshe Rabbeinu didn't come back on the 16th of Tammuz, they got worried.

Or did they?

It was actually the Erev Rav who got worried...but not for the reasons you might think.

Well aware that Hashem objected to their presence and that it was Moshe Rabbeinu who allowed them to join along, the Erev Rav feared that without Moshe Rabbeinu, they'd be kicked out by Hashem (as if Hashem couldn't just kick them out if He chose to).

This is why the Erev Rav felt they needed to create a new leader, and to do it on the double.

So they sounded an alarm of sorts that affected the emuna of the Jews.

In addition, the satan (a prosecuting angel) adjusted nature to provide a gloomy atmosphere. And rather than taking an emuna-driven "Let's wait and see" approach of yishuv hadaat, the true Jews of Yisrael got sucked into the Erev Rav fear.

Important Note:

• The Jews NEVER had anything to fear.
• They were beloved to Hashem.
• So even if something had happened to Moshe Rabbeinu, Hashem would still take care of Yisrael as a mother cares for her newborn baby.
• It was the Erev Rav who stood to lose out if Moshe Rabbeinu didn't return.
• The Jews would have been fine all along NO MATTER WHAT.

In other words, the Jews panicked for NO REASON WHATSOEVER.
​
And that was their first mistake.

Before he left, Moshe Rabbeinu told the Elders:
"Wait for us here until we return to you, and here Aharon and Chur are with you; whoever has a case, let him go to them."

So at this point, the Jews consulted with Chur, the son of Miriam Haneviah and Kalev ben Yafuneh.

Apparently, Chur told them in no uncertain terms that they didn't need any new leader and were forbidden from doing so.

So they killed him.

Okay, let's look at this for a minute.

Back then, the Erev Rav was obvious. They even looked different to the point that the Moavites could differentiate between Erev Rav and Yisrael.

​(Please see the Kli Yakar on Parshat Balak for more about that.)

Also, these Erev Rav people were NOT descended from the Avot and Imahot. And the Jews KNEW this.

So why did they listen to the Erev Rav over their own leader (appointed by Moshe Rabbeinu himself), a leader who had proven himself time and again?

(See here for a brief and impressive bio of Chur.)

Picture the scene for a moment:

• You've got these clearly non-Jewish-looking people talking to you in either Egyptian-accented Hebrew or in Egyptian itself,
• people whom you know aren't really a part of you
• and whom you know aren't even wanted by Hashem

...and you decide to listen to them over the daat Torah approved by the greatest prophet who has ever and would ever live?

What on Earth were the Jews thinking?

(For more details please see the Kli Yakar on Parshat Ki Tisa and scroll down past the chelbana.)

Okay, remember:

This whole thing started out as a quest to create a leader.

Not an idol and not a cult, but simply a new leader.

And the Erev Rav probably didn't seem so bad.

They probably just seemed pro-active. Take charge!-types. Self-empowering.

Maybe they even seemed caring and inspirational.

Maybe they conducted promotional self-empowerment seminars.

Yet the Erev Rav, being steeped in Egyptian ways, wanted to be led by the stars, which is why a calf representing the Taurus constellation popped out.

In fact, they assumed that Moshe Rabbeinu's power derived from some kind of star-image, and not from his own inner work and holiness.

Of course, the Jewish women resisted handing over the jewelry for the dastardly deed, but the men insisted and the calf was made.

Once the idol was created, the Jews should have immediately realized what they were getting into.

After all, bovine-shaped idols were all the rage in that part of the world for millennia. It's sort of like if an "Ephraimite" was leading everyone to what he claimed was a Chanukah party and then suddenly whipped out a cross right before the festivities started.

I mean, you know the guy is not Torah-true, and now he's waving this big cross around at the party. And you know that's not just some random giant "T" because Christians have been using that symbol for the past 2000 years.

But what ensued next was a free-for-all that included debauchery, drugs and alcohol, adultery, and blasphemy.

At this point, viewing the scene from above, could you differentiate between the Erev Rav and the Bnei Yisrael?

Not really; they were all acting the same.

Perhaps if you looked carefully, you might notice that only certain people are orchestrating the whole event, and that those people look different than the participants.

​But overall, you would not be able to specify who was who according to behavior.

And upon seeing this, Moshe Rabbeinu smashed the Tablets.

And this is one of the reasons we mourn today.

So what do we learn from this?

• The Erev Rav think only about themselves, which also means they are obsessed with aligning themselves to whoever seems most powerful and they are obsessed with materialism.

• For their own self-interests, they will do whatever they can to get an authentic Yisrael WHO HAS NO REASON TO FEAR all riled up with anxiety and fear over an outcome that affects the Erev Rav ONLY.

• Erev Rav motivations are very different than Jewish motivations, although Erev Rav will speak to Jews in a "Jewish" language, if you get my drift.

​

• This panic discourages authentic Jews from listening to tested-and-true daat Torah.

There are other lessons, but that's all I can think of for now.

So what can we do about it? 

​Here are some question that might have popped up in your mind:

• Are you Erev Rav?
• Are you a Yisrael caught up in an Erev Rav fiesta?
• Are you a Yisrael with Erev Rav sparks pricking about your holy Jewish soul?

You can't really know.

But what you CAN do is take a step back from it all, especially at the following times:

• Are you feeling panicked?

 

• Are you feeling desperate?

 

• Are you feeling like "Move, move, move!" or "Do, do, do!"?

 

• Are you willing to latch on to anyone or anything who seems to promise security and leadership?

 

• Are you listening to the silver-tongued voices of people who obviously aren't the real deal while dismissing authentic daat Torah? (And I mean REAL daat Torah; not every Orthodox rabbi is daat Torah!)

 

• Are you blindly assuming the other cares about the same things you do, when much of what they say or do actually points to a completely different motive?

 

• Do you want to contemplate issues and situations before acting, but you have people around you (or even a voice within yourself), pressuring you to just jump into the frenzy without another thought?

 

• When you want to discuss real issues of emunah and serving Hashem and genuine Torah observance, are you ever waved off, rejected, mocked, or even attacked? (You might even do this to yourself.)

 

• Are you tempted to follow people who couldn't possibly have the answers because they don't possess your Jewish tradition and yichus?

​

• Do you see people insisting that you follow them when you clearly see they're holding up a well-known and forbidden idol...but you're caught up in your fear and peer pressure, and anyway, they've got such convincing reasons for what they're doing?

EREV RAV ALERT!

​The above is the effect of Erev Rav on a Yisrael.

And it's a sign to take a step back from it all and inquire of Hashem.

Our times are different and the Erev Rav no longer look they way they once did.

Remember, at the time they were actually worshiping the Golden Calf, the Erev Rav and Bnei Yisrael were behaving exactly the same.

A Reform rabbi holding up a cross at a Chanukah party can still possess a soul of Yisrael.

They only real way to deal with it is via yishuv hadaat - taking a step back and asking:

• "What's really going on here?"
• "Is this the Torah way? If so, where is it written?"
• "Where is Hashem in all this?"
• "What does He think?"
• "What does He want?"
• "Okay, Hashem...tell me what to do!"

Why couldn't Bnei Yisrael have told the Erev Rav, "Wait a minute, Hashem's in charge. Let's give it another day and see"?

Why couldn't they have listened to Chur?

And even at the point that the calf appeared, could they not have said, "Whoa! Wait just one second here! Hmm...I'm going to step out and do some hitbodedut before I do anything else. At least, I can say a chapter of Tehillim!"

They could have taken a step away from everyone and engaged in conversation with Hashem at any point during the ride.

Even after they'd killed Chur, they still could've stopped the madness. They still could have turned to Hashem.

And THAT would've saved them.

So don't give up.

Even if you find yourself swept up in a crowd led by Erev Rav after your real leader has been murdered and your other true leader has gone undercover...and even when you're faced with a clear symbol of everything that's wrong with the world and you're all hyped up to worship it with the basest human behaviors...

STEP BACK. And talk to Hashem.

It's not too late. Even if the Erev Rav stuff seems to be a part of you, don't give up.

Just turn to Hashem and don't repeat the mistake of the first Seventeenth of Tammuz.

We mourn it in order to rectify it.

​And we can!

I was thinking a lot recently about how different people react to different events and circumstances.
 
Two people can have similar personalities and go through the same events and traumas, and one will take the high road while the other will take the low road.
 
It seems that there are differences at the soul level. Obviously, someone like the Arizal was born with a particularly lofty soul while others possess a not-as-lofty soul even though it is still a holy one.
 
Certainly, classic Jewish sources discuss the idea of how the right kavanot pull down holy souls for conception. A Jewish couple who come together in genuine love and respect will pull down a higher soul. There are stories of tzaddikim whose kavanot pulled down very special souls into their children.
 
At the same time, our Sages also discuss how certain states pull down blemished souls: 

• A child conceived while the mother is niddah
• with a non-Jewish partner or any other forbidden partner
• while either parent is angry
• while either parent is fantasizing about someone else
• while either parent is drunk
• or if the woman is coerced

…any of these will pull down a blemished soul.
 
And what of cases in which we have several generations of Jews conceived in niddah?

What kinds of souls are these?

And it doesn’t just affect Jews from secular upbringings. FFBs can make mistakes in taharat hamishpacha, or conceive children in any of the forbidden states mentioned above.
 
In other words, there are no guarantees regardless of yichus.
 
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the soul is condemned to lowliness for life. A blemish can certainly be cleaned and purified.

Such a soul simply has more work to do to get it up to par.

​Tanach and midrashim contain stories of very great people who were conceived in less than ideal circumstances.

A lot of hard and sincere spiritual work can rectify a soul and bring it to its innate full potential.

(As far as I know, the blemish of the mamzer, a child born of an adulterous union between a married woman and her partner, is one that cannot be rectified within the mamzer's lifetime. The state of mamzerut remains and can be passed on through one's children unless certain measures are taken to prevent this.)

I also wonder about conversion, which pulls down a holy Jewish soul where there was once a non-Jewish soul.

How does that work? We see that there are converts with mind-boggling dedication to Torah, far beyond that which most born Jews could withstand, such as written about in The Secret Saga of a Righteous Convert.

Yet there are others who are quite tepid in their observance, seemingly trying to hold on to as much of the non-Jewish stuff as they can, or to revert back to their non-Jewish ways when the going gets rough (though most deal somewhere between these two extremes).
 
Some female converts told me that upon going to the Israeli Rabbanut to sort things out before their upcoming marriage, they are shocked to learn of something possibly amiss in their conversion certificate or experience, and are directed to undergo another immersion in the mikveh just to make sure everything is 100% kosher.

​As odd as it is to go in for a conversion a week or two before your marriage and after you’ve been fully observant and in a very frum seminary for the past few years, such converts also express a feeling of reassurance.

“Because my child’s Judaism will be defined through me,” say the female converts, “it’s essential that my own status be unquestionable.”

And they also relate that they were able to immerse and say the blessing with even more kavanah now that they had learned and experienced even more about Torah Judaism.

So what’s up with that? Did they receive a whole new soul…again? Or was the Jewish soul they originally received upon the first conversion immersion strengthened or re-purified?

Really, I have no clue and I don’t even know where to start looking. But it is interesting!

To make things even more complex and fascinating, parts of more than one soul can bond together to make a new soul comprised of these different souls.

​(I think this can explain past-life memories that recall copious past lives or remember two different lives occurring within the same time period.)

Furthermore, there are Erev Rav souls and Erev Rav soul-sparks among us.
 
In the Tanya of Lubavitcher chassidus (Igeret Hakodesh, Chapter/Epistle 26), it explains that after Mashiach comes (but before Techiyat Hametim/Resurrection of the Dead), the Jewish souls will merit to taste from the Tree of Life (i.e. the penimiyut of Torah) and thus will automatically know the revealed mitzvot in the same way that Avraham Avinu intuited the revealed mitzvot long before the Torah was actually given on Har Sinai.

And because in this state, they will no longer suffer forgetfulness, they’ll have no need to review as we do now. Instead, Jews will occupy themselves with the deeper hidden aspects of Torah.
 
However, the Erev Rav, who will not taste from the Tree of Life, will need to occupy themselves with Mishnah (all the laws deduced from the Torah) in order to weaken the power of the Sitra Achra (the Dark Side, so to speak).

Apparently, even after Mashiach comes, the Erev Rav will still be caught up in their inclinations to sin and will need to hold on tight to Torah learning in order to strengthen themselves against the Yetzer Hara—just as regular Jews do now.
 
Rivka Levy’s book Unlocking the Secret of the Erev Rav: The Mixed Multitude in Jewish Kabbalah, goes into this more, but apparently the Erev Rav souls are Jewish, but they’re a few steps behind the souls of a Yisrael—a Jew.

​So if I understand the Tanya correctly, after Mashiach comes, the Erev Rav will ascend to the level where regular Jews are holding now, and regular Jews will be on the level of Avraham Avinu.
 
May such a time come soon!
 
(You can also find out more about what traditional Jewish sources like the Kli Yakar say about the Erev Rav by clicking on the “Erev Rav” option in the "Categories" section in the sidebar on the mid-to-upper right.)

Anyway, we clearly have a wide variety of souls bobbing around the world right now.

Long ago, our Sages predicted that all the souls would need to come down into the world for their final chance at rectification before Mashiach comes and we’re seeing this now.
 
Sometimes, a person’s soul is so lofty, its light shines through all its owner’s grime.

You sometimes see secular Jews who behave with greatness and light.

You also see struggling or downtrodden frum Jews who seem to have something special to them, like a great soul that hasn’t yet realized its potential.
 
On the other hand, you may also see highly respected Orthodox Jews in important positions, but when you look them in the eye, it’s opaque as if there’s nothing there inside.

Or they are surprisingly superficial or shallow (even if they are academically very intelligent or possess sharp administrative skills) or cynical or quarrelsome or snobby.
 
Because of this, we all need to have a lot of patience both with ourselves and others.
 
We don’t know what kind of soul we have and the long road of rectifications necessary for our soul.

We also don’t know what other people are dealing with and what they are meant to be doing.
 
Of course, we know that, for example, every Jew must keep Shabbat. But we don’t know exactly how that is supposed to be expressed for a particular soul.

For example, does this particular soul need:

• …to take out Shabbat at the regular time or the later Rabbeinu Tam time?
• …Shabbat meals that consist of lots of divrei Torah or lots of singing zemirot? Or both?
• Lots of salads or lots of desserts or lots of kugels?
• Heavy on the meat or heavy or the fish or heavy on Cornish hens?
• A dignified formal meal served on fine china or a lively meal eaten from disposable dinnerware?
• Gefilte fish or spicy fish?
• Going all-out for big melaveh malka bash or taking 10 minutes for a piece of chocolate and a hot freshly made cup of coffee?

 
Furthermore, even if we know where someone is supposed to arrive (at mitzvah observance), we don’t know HOW they’re supposed to get there.

For example, I’ve known young women who started off their mitzvah observance with Shabbat and learning the laws of lashon hara while still wearing pants.

​Others started off with Shabbat and wearing long skirts, but only focused on lashon hara later.

This is why it is so important to forge a relationship with Hashem and really discuss your issues with Him in order to get yourself sorted out, and why it is also vitally important to pray for others to do teshuvah from love and to complete their rectifications in this lifetime.

Because there is so much that we just don’t know.

Praying for others works.

If they have souls of Yisrael, then davening for them is a great act of sisterly or brotherly love and helps them to come closer to their soul's potential, which also sweetens harsh judgements and helps bring Mashiach faster.

If they have Erev Rav souls, then davening still helps.

The Komarna Rebbe has said that davening for the Erev Rav to do teshuvah actually nullifies their power because the one holy spark that was holding them up gets sucked out (elevated out of them?) and they are rendered totally powerless.

This is described here and more fully in this book You are What You Hate.

(Disclaimer: While I have read many articles on that site, I have not actually read this book, although I would really like to.)

Yet as Unlocking the Secret of the Erev Rav posits, even that's not so simple because the Erev Rav soul-sparks seem to be mixed up within the souls of Yisrael.

So it's best to just use the most powerful weapon we have: heartfelt prayer.

Over Shabbat Parshat Shoftim, I was getting all nervous and paranoid about something that had happened toward the end of that week. Strangely, going into Shabbat didn't do much to calm my fears. I could tell I was overreacting and that it was just my imagination going into overdrive, but I still had a very hard time letting go of the whole thing.
 
Finally, I forced myself to sit down and read the Haftarah.
 
(I can't manage to get to shul, so I just read it on my own.)
 
The very first verse (Yeshayah 51:12) knocked me between the eyes:

"I, I am He Who comforts you all. Who are you that you should be afraid of mortals who will die and of men who will be given over as grass?"

[Note: The Malbim defines this specific type of grass (chatzir) as a type of grass that withers and dries up before its time.]
 
In part, it was the sudden switch to feminine form (Mi aht?) that hit me so hard, as if Hashem was sending a personal message.
 

Rashi and Metzudat David both interpret it as saying:
"Who are you? A daughter of tzaddikim, full of merits! Why do you fear a mortal whose end is to die?"
 
Why, indeed?

Not only did I find the verse immediately soothing, but the messages implied were also encouraging and can set you straight if you've veered off.
 
First of all, Rashi and Metzudat David teach us that when someone has lost their emuna to a certain extent and is crying out or otherwise behaving in a fearful or desperate manner, the proper reaction is to build them up--remind them who they are.
 

• "Hey, you're not some bum off the street, remember--you're the child of tzaddikim! You're inherently special. You're genetically programmed to be more than whatever you feel you are right now. That's right; you can't really do anything to nullify that specialness, regardless of how low you've sunk. It's just an innate part of who you are, no matter what."

 

• "Also, aside from your lineage and genetics, you yourself are just brimming with zechuyot and all sorts of goodness!"

 
And once you've set things in their proper perspective, then you confront them with pure logic:

• "Those other guys--the Erev Rav, the Esavniks, the missionaries, the jihadi Yishmaelim, and all the rest? They've got nothing over you. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. You've got the whole package. In fact, not only are they going to just drop dead at some point, but they'll also just dry up before their time. Yeah, they look like lush strong grass, but guess what? They're not. It's all an illusion. Just keep up your courage and bide your time, and you'll see."

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Interestingly, the Malbim's definition of chatzir implies a process. The chatzir doesn't just go from its peak lushness to dead grass within a moment. 
 
It dries up. (mityavesh--מתיבש—literally means "becomes dry")
 
It starts off all lush and green, but then it gradually yellows and looses its vitality—and it does so before its time.
 
(Sort of like Hillary Clinton is now.)
 
So courage, all you fabulous brothers and sisters—and don't let the baddies get you down.
 
You have the power—because you have Hashem.

Remember who you really are.