​Recently, New York state has started cracking down on the secular curriculum of frum schools.
 
You can read a very good defense of this HERE.

​One of the strongest arguments against the claim that frum schools don’t prepare their students properly to compete for a high academic education in the non-Jewish world is that yes, the frum schools always have and will continue to emphasize Torah knowledge and values over secular ones.
 
That’s their purpose.
 
And yes, until Mashiach comes, there will always be resentful alumni who feel that the frum system held them back and forced them to work harder to catch up with their secular counterparts and, in general, caused them a great deal of unhappiness and frustration. Some even say it was like growing up in a cult.
 
Likewise, until Mashiach comes, there will also always be Jews like me who feel that a non-Torah (whether assimilated, Christian, Conservative, or Reform) upbringing held us back (and caused us to make extremely harmful decisions that can never be taken back), and forced us to work harder to catch up with our frummer counterparts and, in general, caused us a great deal of unhappiness and frustration. Some (like me) even say it was like growing up in a cult.
 
Some people start on a higher floor than others. Many people feel they got a wonky start to life.

Hashem gives everyone the challenges they need to grow in the way best for their neshamah and to complete certain tikkunim.
 
That’s no comfort to those who don’t accept the idea of a Wholly Omnipotent All-Knowing & All-Compassionate Creator or the idea of the exalted human soul, but this is nonetheless the Truth, whether people choose to believe it or not.
 
So that’s Argument #1.

​Well, you might say, private schools are doing the job. And frum schools are private schools.
 
The thing is that private schools do teach certain basics like English and math better than public schools, but they mix in a lot of garbage too. Many are highly politicized. For example, students will graduate with the conviction that evolutionary theory is absolutely true and that man-made global warming is not only completely true, but one of the most pressing problems facing mankind today (AND that it can be reversed).
 
And many private-school students also come out with poor middot and values. Society doesn’t care, especially since mainstream media and entertainment adore these poor values and middot. But it’s still a problem whether you recognize it or not.
 
One such problem is that the faculty for private schools and schools for the gifted condition their students into an elitist mentality.

This mentality makes for a very poor work ethic. Why? Because these people feel entitled to high-paying high-level jobs while doing the very minimum required of their position. To their mind, anything beyond the bare minimum is for peons and therefore, they dump all the rest onto their overworked underlings.

​(If you look at struggling or failed institutions and businesses, you’ll see that this is often the underlying dynamic.)
 
I didn’t say that all products of such schooling behave this way. There are some stunning exceptions. But many do possess this elitist real-work-is-for-peons mentality.

So there are 2 major problems crippling America’s educational system:

• A school system that does not teach proper fundamentals (while emphasizing social mores and unproven theories)
• An elitist-entitlement mentality that discourages a healthy work ethic

 
But hey, let’s ignore all that and go after the less than 1%!
 
So the point is that the secular curriculum among frum schools is the least of America’s problems within its educational system
 
Yet they’re targeting the frum school system.
 
And we know what that really means.

Related articles:
Jewish Education in Crisis—Leave Our Yeshivos Alone. Period.
Jewish Education in Crisis – A Torah Perspective
Could You Pass the 8th-Grade Exam of 1895?
The Decline of American Education
Creating a Victim Mentality: A How-To Guide

For a while now, I’ve been feeling like the world is getting narrower and smaller.
 
One of the things that’s happening is many things are losing their seemingly “pareve” or “neutral” status.

For example, it used to be acceptable for even very frum people to go to the professional ball games. It was neutral, it was pareve. 

(In other frum communities in the world, ball games were disdained as a waste of time, but not in America.)

​Yet greater awareness among more yeshivish communities of the prohibition against wasting time has pushed many frum people away from an interest in sports. Furthermore, halftime performances and ads have become completely indecent, ridding ball games of their pareve status. To the minds of many frum people, these games are firmly treif.

Some frum people are still trying to find away to do it ("I'll just close my eyes at half-time..."), but it's getting harder.

“Kosher” reading material barely exists anymore.

Even non-fiction books liberally utilize vulgar language, mock traditional values, laud anti-Torah values, and insert raunchiness.

​It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about the history of seafaring, psychological theories, the art of good writing, politics, or anything else, a lot of treif stuff goes in. Yes, sometimes it’s done subtly, but it’s still done.

And even if it’s written from a very conservative point of view by a religious conservative, it usually still contains foul language. 
 
Newspapers aren’t much better, though many give lip service to keeping a clean mouth. But if I spell “table” as “t@ble” or “t*ble,” do you honestly not hear the entire word in your head? Of course you do.
 
Speaking of foul language, words censored from TV networks in the Eighties are bandied about freely in the new millennium.

​Grandparents who washed their own children’s mouths out for lesser words are now using worse language to those now adult children in casual conversations and emails.
 
There are even frum people (albeit yeshivish people less so) sprinkle their conversations with foul language.

Books for pregnant women or mothers of toddlers feature indecently dressed young women on the cover—just to be hip and modern.

​But in front of your husband and children, you can’t read about what age to introduce yogurt without kashering up the cover somehow.

Newspapers and TV news portray women as skimpily as possible (including the news anchors themselves) and gory or morbid images are no longer omitted. Long gone is the professional look of Joan Lunden of “Good Morning America,” with her feminine suits and buttoned-up-to-the-neck girly ties and natural make-up. Today’s professional high-ranking women dress like cocktail waitresses while the men still need to wear 3-piece suits and neckties.

​And this is considered "equality," for some reason.
 
Much of frum media freely displays images of reshaim, untsnius images and videos, violent or disturbing images, and articles that don’t really suit a frum readership. Some frum media has also started featuring images of professional women dressed for a beach party.

​The Mickey Mouse show went from being a wholesome young show to being a raunchy pop exhibition.
 
Children’s movies portray morbid images and glorify raunchy jokes and impure spirituality.

For example, the re-make of A Little Princess features a split-second cut of a dead solider with his face alight in blue methane flames. Really appropriate viewing for kindergartners, to be sure! [sarc] (And there’s this creepy Eastern mysticism theme throughout.)

​A friend of mine entered the ladies room in a mall in a part of the USA known for its traditional and religious values.

At the entrance stood a vending machine packed with offerings that I cannot mention on this blog. (Suffice to say, it wasn’t a food vending machine.)

​“Can you imagine taking your 6-year-old to the potty and having to pass by this?” she said.

No, I really can’t.

But it’s standing there, unprotested.

One day, my son came home from yeshivah excited to have us hear the latest song from a frum singer.

His older brother has a phone bought with his own money and decided to show everyone the video of the song. One minute into the song, I noticed everyone get up and leave, looking a bit discomfited and shy to tell me why.

What could be wrong? This singer’s songs contain a lot about emuna and other beautiful concepts. I took a look and the video and said, “Oh.”

I’m not looking to bash the artist, so I’ll leave out details of the video, but it’s something that normal young men would definitely find alluring, even though other technicalities of tsnius were observed.
 
And there are several music videos out by frum people that contain women who are dressed or behaving in a manner not in line with tsnius.

I understand that some women feel “deleted” by the lack of females in frum media, and frankly, I like to look at images of women too. (In general, I like to see the photographs of people described in a book or article).

It's a halachic discussion, not a social one, whether images of women should be portrayed in videos and newspapers. But regardless, the behavior and style of the women in these videos isn’t appropriate. And as is usually the case, it seems like the women in these videos honestly do not realize that their behavior and style are inappropriate. (Women often do not understand what men find alluring. That's pretty normal.)

​By the way, I have books about frum women which contain photographs that I can gaze at to my heart’s content. I love seeing how frum women dressed throughout the ages in all different cultures.
 
Anyway, I think it means something when a yeshivah bachur cannot comfortably watch a video put out by frum men. (Who, being men themselves, should know exactly how males feel when seeing young females dress or behave like that. So what is going on with these guys? Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. I'm honestly perplexed as to what they are thinking.)

And that's in addition to the fact that frum women traditionally maintain their dignity and refinement even when there are no men around.

​Tsnius is not just about male taavah.

After all, we're a Nation of priests and princes and princesses. Men are supposed to dress tsniusly too. And most frum men do.

In fact, chassidish men dress even more tsniusly with more layers than the vast majority of frum women. Where's the equality? 

Yet I know that just for saying that there's a problem with tsnius in the frum media, some frum people are going to get offended and think that I just don’t understand.

Perhaps I am uptight, repressed, controlling, judgmental, and ignorant of “real” halacha!

(For those well-meaning people, I’d just like to make a plea of understanding for myself: Please know that I'm a formerly secular person who, on the path to becoming charedi, was a lot more modern for a few years, so it’s unlikely you will be able to "enlighten" me with something I haven't already heard & didn’t say myself in my younger years. Yup, I probably said it myself at some point.)

Traditional values in general are under attack.

​I’m still amazed at how fast society accepted all this gender dysphoria as legit.

​It took a couple of generations for same-gender relationships to gain widespread acceptability. When gender dysphoria as a legitimate lifestyle came out a couple of years ago, I laughed.

Now I’m not laughing.

​Against all rationale, it gained widespread acceptance—along with the predicted crimes as a result.
 
The fact that gender-based pronouns are even an issue is a serious sign of insanity (except for the extremely rare situation in which a person suffers a medically diagnosed chromosomal and physical anomaly in this area—but even they undergo tests and evaluations to choose one gender or the other).

​And despite lack of evidence—or even evidence to the contrary—a denial of evolution brands you a dummy.

​A denial of man-made global warming or an opposition to useless carbon taxes brands you a cruel uncaring nitwit—and again, even if you have evidence to support your views, your name is still mud.

​Jew-hatred keeps rising.

Jews, especially outside of North America cannot keep a low enough profile, cannot keep their heads down enough.

When you have elderly Jews gunned down in America and pre-teen Jewish girls attacked on a bus or the street in Europe (and that’s just 2 examples), then you know you have a severe problem coming on.

When the world’s most respected newspapers do things like portray authentic Judaism & Torah Jews in the worst light and report the justified shooting of a terrorist running down innocent victims with his car as “Israeli soldiers shoot Palestinian driver,” you know that the world is closing in on you.
 
In American politics, the Democrat Party is openly anti-Israel and openly anti-Torah Judaism. (Jews themselves are still okay though—as long as they toe the Leftist line).

But even on the more conservative Republican side of things, there is a growing number of people who also hate Israel and who solidly believe in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.

​American Christians are a mixed bag because while there are some who sincerely appreciate Jews and Israel, there are a great many who possess underlying hostility—even if they themselves aren’t aware of it, but you can pick it up in their words and the way they look at you or deal with other Jews. In their heart of hearts, they believe that even the saintliest Jew (who firmly believes in God, by the way) is going to Hell—simply because the Jew refuses to believe in a divine trio.

(There are many more examples of an increasingly narrow world, but this post is long enough as is.)
 
In other words, hardly anything in the gashmius world is "kosher" anymore.
 
And anything you do to increase your spiritual and halachic awareness automatically shrinks your world—the world of gashmius, anyway.
 
But there’s something very good about all this...!

​The Torah's world is as deep & expansive as it ever was.
 
A great many people are seeking to immerse themselves in the light of Torah.

​People are struggling to conquer their worst middot. People are turning to Hashem to speak with Him and build a relationship with Him.
 
Chessed organizations, services that cater to the ill and their families, organizations and individuals who deal with troubled youth. Tehillim groups, and prayer gatherings are not only thriving, but expanding and improving.
 
Recently, I decided to start learning Mishlei/Proverbs with Rashi. I go at a very slow pace. And while I’m immersed in it, I’m in bliss. First of all, the metaphors on their own are very compelling. But Rashi (and other commentaries) expand the metaphors to reveal even deeper meanings. And it’s deliciously geshmak.
 
As another example, Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender’s Words of Faith is a compelling book that’s surprisingly hard to put down once you start reading it.

It feels good to learn Likutei Moharan, to completely focus on a part of Mesillat Yesharim that really speaks to you, to listen to your favorite frum speaker’s words of inspiration…it feels very good to talk to Hashem as you would to the perfect friend who understands and forgives you for everything, and who can always help you and genuinely wants to help you…
 
And yet…do you have any idea how hard it is for me to get myself to sit down and do what I need to do—do what I LOVE to do?
 
What crazy resistance! It’s so illogical!
 
I LIKE learning Mishlei with Rashi. I LIKE talking to Hashem. And yet when I have the time to do it, resistance crowds in. I have to really fight it.
 
In Garden of Emuna, Rav Shalom Arush wrote that there’s always a yetzer hara against speaking to Hashem. He feels it too, he says. And this is from Rav Arush, who has regularly done 6-8 hours of hitbodedut with Hashem.
 
Rav Bender said that even a book's binding can be an obstacle. Just needing to get up and open the sefer can incite the yetzer hara to say, “Oh, it’s too much trouble…I just don’t feel like it…”
 
It’s totally frustrating, yet completely natural.
 
So it’s a funny thing that so much of the Torah world is so enjoyable, yet there’s a resistance that isn’t there about less enjoyable and genuinely meaningless things.
 
And that’s the yetzer hara for you.
 
Anyway, I’m not sure what the original source is, but it has been common knowledge for a while that Hashem is going to force people to stop straddling the fence and decide. Apparently, each person is going reach a type of breaking point where he or she will be forced to pick a side.
 
Some people have picked a side, but haven’t scooted into that side far enough or are still hanging onto stuff from the other side.

​Others have picked the wrong side (but they can always change).

​And others still wobble between both sides. 

​We see that in general society, picking a side demands a lot of courage.

After investing a ton of research, one feminist shed her feminism. She said that she wants to focus on equal rights equally for both genders--equally. What could possibly be wrong with that? She doesn’t want to emphasize just women’s rights any longer, so she no longer goes by the feminist label.

And even though she still holds by the other depraved liberal ideologies, she has been raked across the coals by the mainstream media and her liberal community—just for refusing to call herself a feminist any longer. She still supports women’s rights, but not exclusively. That’s all! And now she has been under attack.
 
Another man who always considered himself attracted to men only and had indeed immersed himself in that lifestyle since his early teens decided to change.

At one point, he realized that he was actually attracted to women and that his former orientation had been a lie and a response to trauma.

In other words, he’d been repressed.

So he got his act together and married a wonderful woman and he’s really happy in his new (and authentic) orientation.
 
Yet he underwent a massive years-long character assassination because of it.

Especially because he’d never been with a woman before and only men, his “conversion” was considered quite radical and a slap in the face of all the pro-toeva theorists. So this guy, who seems like a real sweetie, was attacked for 8 years by his university faculty, his liberal students, his liberal family members, Leftist activists off-campus, a journalist who represented a civil rights org, and so on.
 
All because he said that being raised by a toeva parent wasn’t so great and because he switched orientations when he was 28.

​That’s it! And he was slaughtered by all the pro-tolerance peace ‘n’ love-niks.
 
Kumbaya, dude.

So the world is shrinking and closing in on every last shred of decency and Truth.
 
But the real world—the world of Torah—is wonderfully spacious yet cozy, and it’s full of beautiful light and color.
 
We just need to slide into it.

​One of the big propaganda pieces with which I grew up is that abortion is a right and that abortion needs to be safe (for the mother at least; it’s never safe for the baby) and legal.

Horror stories of illegal abortions and extremely fertile impoverished mothers abounded.
 
Yet who hears the stories of young women who died during legal abortions in certified clinics nowadays?
 
And what about the botched legal abortions which left the baby alive and deformed for life?
 
(Fortunately, some of these babies grew up to be very powerful pro-life speakers, baruch Hashem.)

​But unless you actively seek out pro-life articles & books, you never hear the above stories.
 
Another group you rarely hear about are the missed abortions.
 
The truth is that previously, abortion’s legal restrictions and lack of safety are exactly what saved the lives of many babies and their mothers—a fact I only discovered over the years from listening to a variety of true stories.

In other words, many lives were not only saved but enriched only because abortion was neither safe nor legal.

​One woman I knew described how her mother’s doctor told her that she must abort the baby (my friend) or else she (my friend's mother) would go blind. Yet by the time the doctor made this proclamation and by the time her mother managed to get an appoint for a legal abortion, too much time had gone by and she could no longer get an abortion.

​She ended up giving birth to a baby girl who became exactly the friend I needed during a difficult time in my life -- so I'm very grateful for her existence. This friend also became sincerely frum, married a wonderful guy, and had a beautiful large family. She and her husband also do a lot for the community. And although my friend denies it, it looks to me like she gives her parents more Yiddishe nachas than her siblings combined.

​P.S. Her mother's eyesight ended up being just fine.

A high school classmate once told me how his mother went to abort him when she found herself with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy at age 19.

Fortunately, the abortionist was also an extortionist.

He took her money, gave her a couple of pills (which she later assumed were aspirin), and told her to go home and lift the furniture a lot. Despite all the exertion, she carried to term (I guess she didn't have enough money left to try for another abortion) and produced my classmate, who ended up being a Godsend.

​From a young age, he protected his mother, helped his mother with the housework and the younger siblings who followed, was always very nice, and did well in school, and ended up going to college on a military scholarship, thereby ending his family's cycle of poverty.

A somewhat assimilated Eastern European Jewish woman told me how she found herself pregnant with her third child not long after she and her husband and children arrived in America. She explained that they were still getting settled and still so poor, they could not see a way to manage with another child at that time.

​It simply seemed impossible.

But due to the restrictive laws of that time, by the time she realized she was pregnant and tracked down an abortionist, it was too late to perform a safe (for the mother at least) abortion.

She brought that child into the world and she remarked on how she always had a lot of nachas from him. “He’s the biggest, handsomest, and best-behaved of my children,” she said. “He was always very good to me. Even now that he’s dorming away at university, he still calls me regularly to chat. His brothers never did that. He’s the most attached to me and such a good boy.”

Then she looked at me with wide eyes as she took another drag on her cigarette and said, “And to think—I wanted to kill him!”

My great-grandparents immigrated to America from Germany at the turn of the 20th Century.

They ended up with 8 kids, but I was told that my great-grandmother had her children between abortions. Apparently, she found my great-grandfather difficult to deal with and having one child after another added more stress than she felt she could handle -- although clearly, she was wrong. (From the little I know, my great-grandfather seemed like a nominally frum am ha’aretz with a strong control streak).

Being that birth control back then demanded the cooperation of the husband, my great-grandmother resorted to abortion under the false impression that Judaism didn’t consider it so bad. (This is part of the problem with Jews who practice Orthodox Judaism by rote, but aren’t actually knowledgeable and why Chazal traditionally looked down on people who were frum amei aretz. Due to ignorance, such people can't actually keep the Torah properly and end up transgressing.)

My grandfather and his younger brother were the only ones born in America. When she found out she was pregnant with my grandfather, she wanted to abort him. But the abortionist was out of town and by the time he came back, it was too late.

​Interestingly, from the time he was little, my great-grandmother felt a warm connection with him and enjoyed an especially close relationship with him throughout her life.

Although we, as parents, should not favor one child over the other nor should we judge a child’s worth by what the child gives us, I still find it interesting that in all the above stories, the child who was supposed to be aborted was the child who ended up giving the mother the most.

Sure, I suppose it's not always true that the child intended for abortion ends up giving the mother the most. But I definitely saw this pattern in the incidents I discovered.
 
And finally, while I’m grateful to Hashem for intervening with my great-grandmother so that my children & I could descended from the child she originally intended to abort, there’s another life saved by that missed abortion.
 
During America's 1940s, a black man was accused of a murder he did not commit. But the white cops were fine with letting the black man take the rap for it. Fortunately, my grandfather had the proof that the black man did not kill anybody and Grandpa intervened with the authorities to set him free.

​Without my grandfather, that man would be dead.

​(You can read about it in Values: When People Want to BE Good & Not Just “Feel” Good.)
 
So these are the stories you won’t hear because they don’t fit the mainstream agenda. Because abortion was mostly illegal and unsafe, many lives were saved and many mothers experienced lifelong nachas they would never otherwise enjoy.

A summary of events follows (the REAL events, not El Al’s fairy tale of the monstrous penguins)...
 
Here are 4 eyewitness testimonies:

What Really Happened on Flight 002
Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz is an Israeli hero.

​While I’m not one of his voters (he’s in the religious Zionist camp while I’m in the charedi one), I have profound respect for the kind of Jew who, as he’s lying wounded on the battleground and almost completely split in two, cares only for his secular comrade’s spiritual progress.
 
(Please see HERE for that whole story.)
 
That’s my kind of Jew!
 
And I’ll certainly believe him over El Al’s Facebook page any day.
 
A Few Thoughts From a Passenger on El Al Flight 002
A very level-headed & convincing account of events.

FIRST PERSON ACCOUNT: El Al Fiasco Ends in Display of Achdus, Kiddush Hashem on Shabbos in Athens
​I think his point about it all maybe being Hashem's way of getting funding for a mikveh is a good one.
 
El-Al Sponsered Shabbos of Unity (also an eyewitness report)
Omigosh, you mean it was some secular people yelling at some of the shomrei Shabbat, and not the other way around?
 
Could it be? But secular Israelis NEVER raise their voice to one another. Hmm…I’ll have to get back to you on this one. (Just kidding.)
 
No, but seriously. It seems that regardless of the passenger’s religious observance, nearly all the Jews on the plane were behaving with achdut and helpfulness.
 
And as many others pointed out, it wasn’t a secular-religious issue as portrayed in the media.
 
I totally agree with Ben Chafetz, that the fiasco could’ve been reported in a very positive way -- to El-Al's benefit.
 
From a religious point of view, it was more of a success than a failure (although I'm very sorry for the inconvenience & stress everyone experienced before & after this amazing Shabbat):
​

• Dozens of different types of Jews being mosser nefesh for Shabbat.
• Wonderful achdus and achvah.
• Monstrous penguins—oops! I mean charedim—and other types of religious Jews sharing their mehadrin meals with their secular brothers and sisters who didn’t receive any food at all.
• Chabad does it again! With only a few hours to prepare for hundreds of people in all different situations (mothers with small children, Chassidic businessmen, rabbis, people with medical issues, etc.), the Hendels merited enormous success & blessing.
• All culminating in an unforgettable Shabbat and a particularly stunning kiddush Hashem.

 
After reading this, I actually felt bad for the committed Sabbath-transgressors who went on to catch another flight on a different airline for Shabbat.

For sure, the frum Jews enjoyed their weekend much more on both the physical and the spiritual levels.

May we all merit to join together in such achdut & chessed around a mitzvah.

They're almost finished counting up the votes from the city elections in Eretz Yisrael. Smaller cities have finished the counts while larger cities, especially with soldiers voting outside their cities on faraway bases, are still raking in the final votes.

One of the cities I was most concerned about was Jerusalem, and it's going for Round 2 between 2 candidates, so we'll see how that goes.

But an election revolution that brings a lot of joy is the replacement of Haifa's incumbent mayor by Einat Kalish-Rotem. The other mayor was a real hater. Einat Kalish-Rotem earned the heartfelt support of Haifa's religious population -- and won by a landslide.

(This comes around a year after Rav Chaim Kanievsky termed the former mayor "a rasha" and wished for his downfall.)

Hopefully, this is finally closing the chapter on what was once Rabidly Red Haifa.

But it's not over yet. Kalish-Rotem is not Torah-observant and she's a member of Labor, which is a Leftist party.

​So we'll see how it goes.

I wish Haifa's new mayor a lot of bracha and hatzlacha. May Hashem grant her the wisdom and insight to govern in a way that truly benefits Am Yisrael.

Here is an uplifting video of a chareidi center in Haifa as the results were being announced.

​www.kikar.co.il/295206.html

The rejoicing over the victory of Einat Kalish-Rotem explodes around the 20-second mark of the video when the speaker announces that the hater-mayor only received 30% of the vote. It's followed by dancing in the streets.

Recently, a 22-year-old Arab construction worker was killed on site in Beit Shemesh when a construction digger fell on him.

(The digger was held up on supports and the worker had gone down to check the pipes to make sure the pipes hadn't been damaged by the digging. Unfortunately, the workers hadn't secured the supports properly. Furthermore, for extra safety precaution, the worker should not have gone under the digger, but waited until the digger backed up out of harm's way.)

My 21-year-old son happened to be there at the time. (He doesn't know CPR or first aid, so he couldn't help, but the event inspired him to start looking into a course to become a paramedic so he wouldn't need to stand by uselessly if in that situation again, chas v'shalom.)

And this is what my son said happened:

Immediately, the driver moved the digger up off the injured and moved back. Two other Arab workers jumped down into the pit to help the wounded worker. Those 2 were from the same village as the injured and were also his cousins.

The rest of his co-coreligionists whipped out their smartphones and started filming.

(Apparently, poor impoverished persecuted people always have access to the latest technology. And also reliable Internet service.)

Working nearby was an FFB Breslover chassid from Bnei Brak (one of the most despised communities among Israeli Leftists). He rushed to the scene and also jumped into the pit to apply first-aid (something the 2 cousins did not know how to do, so they were standing there crying and shouting helplessly).

Upon seeing that he could not help the injured in such a narrow space, he had the 2 cousins hoist the injured out of the pit.

Now the Breslover started working in earnest on the injured Arab.

This was not easy because, without going into detail, the victim was a mess. He was still alive at this point, but blessedly unconscious. In short, the Breslover ended up with blood all over his bare unprotected hands in an effort to clear breathing space for the victim.

My son also had his smartphone with him, but felt it would be in bad taste to film the event, both because it seems callous to simply film someone's gory dying moments and also callous to treat it like an Instagram-moment when the distraught cousins were right there. (Wouldn't that make the cousins feel even worse?)

However, the other workers did not feel the same and kept their smartphone-cameras centered on the goings-on. They didn't even daven (except for the 2 cousins, of course). Nor did they do teshuvah over not building the supports securely.

O, the glorious display of ahavas Yishmael!

Good thing there was a Breslover chassid around when they needed one.

Anyway, Magen David Adom and Hatzalah arrived, and they worked and worked over the victim. 

The Magen David Adom paramedics were all Jews -- wearing kippahs, mostly. And of course, the Hatzalah guys consisted of the much-despised chassidish chareidi Jews. Also, the Hatzalah guys are volunteers -- meaning, they don't get paid to work in gore and save lives.

Anyway, my son remarked at how impressed he was by the dedication of the MDA and Hatzalah guys. He said they used everything they had to restore the young man back to life and didn't give up on the Arab construction worker until the fatal truth became impossible to deny. Even 20 minutes after everyone was sure he was dead, they kept pumping the blood out of his lungs and doing everything they could to revive him.

Despite the fact that surveys consistently show that at least half of the Mohammedans in Eretz Yisrael are okay with suicide bombing attacks against Jews and other problematic notions, these Jewish (including the much maligned chassidic) paramedics gave everything they had to revive this young Muslim construction worker.

His distraught cousins started crying out "Allahu akhbar!" in their grief.

And the rest uploaded their brand-new video clip to YouTube.

(I'm not joking. My son saw it himself.)

I'm not reporting this to convince anyone who doesn't already know how great Jews -- particularly religious Jews -- are (yes, even with all our wonky faults).

People who hate frummies or Israelis or themselves can't be convinced. 

(I believe that's why some genuinely intelligent Jews -- like the last Lubavitcher Rebbe -- emphasized the need for blanket insistence on our refusal to give up Land, etc., and not try to convince, per se. Just to stand unyielding. Because even the most compelling truth just sounds like a bunch of blah-blah to the close-minded.)  

So I very much believe in preaching to the choir and that's it.

Because the frum community (with a few exceptions) is so self-critical, it's important to remind ourselves that for all our flaws and for everything that's wrong with us, we are still full of zechuyot like a large juicy pomegranate.

​So if you are a frummie (Torah-observant Jew), a wannabe frummie, or a non-Jewish pro-frummie, this post is for you.

And with that, this post will now take a couple of dips into irony...

(I have to state that outright because, somehow, humor -- especially satire and irony -- gets totally lost on the Internet. Maybe it's abducted by aliens.)

It's worth noting: None of the chassidish Hatzalah paramedics nor the FFB Breslover from Bnei Brak ever served in the army.

Yet they clearly aren't "parasites."

(Nor are they apparently racists or self-serving religious fanatics.)

Sure, an Israeli politician who served as "a correspondent" in the IDF and sat around ruminating over whether a verb should be written as "nifal" or "hufal" and did absolutely nothing of use to the actual military...he can write off committed Jews as "parasites" and insist that they perform "army service" instead of Torah learning (even if they NEVER contribute to actual combat or defense, and are one of the hundreds of "soldiers" who contribute absolutely nothing, militarily speaking, and sit around in air-conditioned bases all day watching American cable TV -- I'm not kidding).

Curiously, learning Torah in a yeshivah is a serious problem that apparently threatens Israel's existence and -- even worse in the eyes of Leftists -- Israel's social fabric, but spending your "military" service on a base texting and watching TV is the pinnacle of social and national contribution.

Hmm...

I mean, if we were talking ACTUAL combat soldiers and other ESSENTIAL military roles, that would be one thing.

But that's not the debate among the "Mandatory-Draft-For-ALL" extremists.

​According to military recruit extremists, all Israeli citizens MUST "serve" in the IDF -- even if they do absolutely nothing and only serve every other week (AKA "shavua-shavua") -- otherwise they are "parasites" and not "carrying their equal share of the burden."

And yes, I realize the above politician claims to have served in the armored corps at one point (despite conflicting reports to the contrary), but my point is that he keeps referring to his stint in B'Machaneh (In the Camp) as ARMY service -- as if!

And he thinks EVERYONE must do such "army service."

Just as another example of what non-essential army service is like:

One December a couple of years back during my son's service in the IDF, my son's roommates were non-Jewish Ukrainians who decorated their shared room with shiny colored tinsel & sang with gusto, "We wish you a merry...!"

Of course, you can imagine the great Yiddishe nachas I experienced at hearing that, especially knowing my son was serving in the only Jewish army in the world. So geshmak, let me tell you.

I don't know how savage terrorists respond to robust Ukrainian caroling, but I suppose "Santa Claus is coming to town" could be done in a menacing manner, if sung just right...

But I'll leave it up to B'Machaneh's 1983 correspondent to work that out.

You should also know that according to mandatory-draft-for-all radicals, these caroling Ukrainians are the REAL Israeli citizens who "carry their equal share of the burden" (they watched Friends while wearing authentic IDF uniforms!), while charedim are parasites who do not "carry their equal share of the burden." 

And the guy who penned propaganda pieces for B'Machaneh and later went on to perfect his best imitation of Netanyahu's I'm-Serious-and-Focused-You-Can-Trust-Me one-eyebrow-arch: He considered his military service "contribution" as having "carried his equal share of the burden."

​Mamesh.

But seriously...do you feel safer now?

I mean, now that you know there are caroling Ukrainians who only serve every other week in a position that entails watching TV most of the time, do you feel unconquerable?

Like I said, I suppose "Santa Claus is coming to town" could sound menacing if sung just right: "He knows when you are sleeping! He knows when you're awake!" -- just like Google & Facebook!

Also, do you feel safer now that you know there are IDF graphic designers and writers who wear real honest-to-gosh IDF uniforms to work in their magazine office? 

What can our enemies possibly do against our Photoshop and Word Office capabilities?

Ha! Take THAT, ISIS & Hamas! 

We will airbrush photos of your AK-47s with #FFFOEC PINK!

​We will spellcheck your grammar!

And if we're feeling particularly savage, we might even force you to try saying "P" and thus pronounce your alleged origin correctly.

Beware!

And those who think that Israelis are awful nasty brutes and think that the charedi Jews in particular are hate-filled fanatics whose encroaching growth must be halted at all costs -- and that everyone is a racist except those who hate the religious and the Right -- those radicals aren't going to be convinced that it's they who are the hate-filled racist fanatics...and not us.

Back to the initial true story in this post: Jews going all out to resuscitate someone possibly associated with Jew-killers just because he's a human being?

That's just considered an insignificant fluke by the real haters. In fact, they don't even bother knowing about it.

So this is just to boost you, the Torah-loving Jew, and remind you that you're part of a people who are mostly extremely compassionate (sometimes too compassionate, even) and proactive with chessed. ​​

And our Torah learning and our commitment to Torah values is the real deal.

Don't believe any hype that claims otherwise.

​Ashreinu!

Related links:

B'Machaneh: Do They Roast Marshmallows & Sing Folk Songs around a Camp Fire? 

​Before He Started Perfecting Netanyahu's I'm-Serious-and-Focused-You-Can-Trust-Me one-eyebrow-arch

As explained in a previous post, one of the most powerful tools of the Yetzer Hara is "New!"

Some of the most harmful ideologies have used this.

Nazism promoted itself as a new solution to old problems. Combining nationalism with socialism was presented as the best way to achieve equality in society -- at least for those deemed Aryan, anyway. 

New cars! New vacation opportunities! New laws for factory works!

In reality, Nazism derived much of its ideology from pagan occult traditions. Even its infamous swastika is just the old Buddhist symbol for death and decline.

And its hatred of Jews was nothing new either.

Communism also touted itself as a new solution to old problems. But it turned totalitarian fairly quickly. "Rob from the rich and give to the poor" is not a new concept, nor is the idea that the government owns your stuff and can parcel it out according to whim.

The problem comes when new gets mixed with old. 

For example, in the above example of Nazism, the VW bugs produced in Germany were indeed a new kind of car. (Cars in general were newer to the scene.) And the idea of parceling out cars to citizens was technically a new idea.

But the foundation for Nazi ideology was pretty old. And the idea of catering to a chosen populace over another populace is also pretty old and overdone.

Thus, the means for carrying out these ideologies and methods were new, but the ideologies and methods themselves were not new.

Likewise, feminism presented itself as "New!"

They peppered their propaganda with persuasive words related to "new": "Remarkable! Revolutionary! Discover! The New Woman!"

("Self-discovery" was and still is a big hit with them.)

Yet much of what they presented as new wasn't actually so new. It was old with a new twist.

Women & Housework
For example, the idea of "freeing" women from domestic chores? Women who could afford it have been doing that since time immemorial.

The modern twist was that rather than being born or marrying into such financial capability, feminists wanted women themselves to earn it.

Women & Paid Work
Likewise, there have always been working women. There have even been women were the main breadwinners, either because they were widows or for some Jewish women of yore, because they wanted their husbands to learn Torah full-time.

The modern twist was that feminists wanted this for all women.

Women & Respected Professions
Throughout the ages, you can find women who fulfilled professional jobs of authority. There were ruling queens, doctors, lawyers, sailors, soldiers, storekeepers, printers, teachers, and more.

Massachusetts midwife Martha Ballard would be called a "healer" in today's lingo, but back then, her ability to also treat disease was simply part of what a midwife did -- and something she did quite successfully. According to what she writes in her diary during the years 1785-1812, she was clearly considered a respected medical professional & colleague by the male doctors who knew her. 

And the modern twist?

Feminists wanted access for all women to any profession they desired -- and this included access to the education necessary for the desired profession.

This coincided with increased opportunities for males, BTW. Unless they hailed from the "right" class, many males throughout the ages never managed to achieve professions, education, prestige, or other opportunities outside their limited station. 

So the expansion of opportunities for women actually coincided with expanding opportunities for men, and wasn't just a feminist thing nor just a feminist accomplishment.

Women & Childcare
And since time immemorial, women who could afford to hired others to care for their children. Yes, the mothers and caretakers and children remained on the same property, often in the same building together. But wet-nurses, nursemaids, nannies, and governesses often fulfilled the roles that mothers otherwise fill. Even today, many women who can afford it do hire a nanny or two.

In Dov B. Lederman's remarkable book, These Children are Mine: A Story of Survival and Rescue, Lederman remembers his childhood governess and their walks to the park. He also remembers kindergarten as a "newfangled invention," recalling that children generally started school at the age of 7.

In fact, Lederman recalls overhearing his mother speaking to someone about "the horror of taking a child away from his parents and sending him to kindergarten at a tender age." 

(But please note that even as Lederman's mother opposed kindergarten, the responsibility for her child did not rest on her alone 24/7; she hired a governess to lighten that responsibility.)

And that's the modern twist.

Many working women couldn't (and still can't) afford to hire a nanny to their home. So they searched outside the home for babysitting and daycares and preschools (which didn't exist in the quantities and quality they do now). Nowadays, these are popular options in modern society. But having your child physically far away from you -- even an hour's traveling time between mother and child -- is the norm. No longer under the same roof, the child is part of a group and hopefully receives the necessary care and attention as one of several.

​So none of the above is "new" as in "Never before seen!" or "Unprecedented!" or "Revolutionary!" or "Breakthrough!"-- which is how the above is presented to society.

What's new is the following:

• Breadth (widespread; the above is embraced by most women in modern society)
• Acceptability (Female lawyers, for example, are no longer an oddity.)
• Opportunity (Women - and men, for that matter - can access opportunities previously available only to upper-class white men.)

Acceptability & Opportunity also mean that discrimination is down. It's down for everyone at this point (except for white males). In fact, some companies and departments actively seek out female students and employees.

• Long-distance separation between mothers & children (although even this occurred in some areas during certain eras, such as British colonists in India sending young children to boarding schools in England or widowed parents placing their children in orphanages to meet the children's physical and educational needs, even if the parents made regular visits)
• Group care (although, again, children in boarding schools or orphanages received group care)

Therefore, certain attitudes and methods common today are different, but the actual ideas (women investing time and energy in something other than domestic responsibilities or hiring another person to carry out specific maternal responsibilities) aren't new at all.

The problem for frum Jews in all this is that when something is presented as completely new, it appears that there isn't any precedence for it.

Therefore, it gives the impression of not being covered by Chazal or halacha or mussar.

And if it appears to not be addressed by Torah sources, then where does the frum Yid feel he or she should look to for guidance?

To psychologists. Consultants. Researchers. Teachers.

Secular professionals, in other words. (Or frum professionals taught secular theories.)

​This is a problem, though it doesn't look like one at first.

The more something is "new," the less likely it is to be found in Torah sources...because it's new, right? It wasn't around during the composition of the Shulchan Aruch. It's not there, so we just have to come up with stuff on our own!

But as stated in a previous post, Chazal do discuss working mothers and this idea is even mentioned in Mishlei/Proverbs.

It's very important to hold out against the flood of "New!"

It's not good (or even true) when we think we're outside or above Torah.

I heard of a chassidish family in the Sixties who lived in an area in which feminists demanded the right to become firemen. The chassidish teens watched in fascination as these feminists raced around town in shiny red fire trucks.

The news outlets raved about it and it all seemed very exciting.

So the kids ran home and enthused about it to their old chassidish grandmother, who'd lived through 2 world wars and survived a death camp before finding refuge in America.

She'd seen all the "modern" movements come and go and she knew just how to handle them. (She also knew first-hand how extremely destructive these things tend to be.)

So Bubby said, "Well, I don't know about female fire fighters. So let's go look it up in the Shulchan Aruch."

That immediately set things into an interesting perspective. What could the Shulchan Aruch have to say about female fire fighters? After all, this was new!

At the same time, that immediately took some air out of the feminist sails. Maybe it wasn't actually so new?

Let's go see!

So Bubby opened the book and read the appropriate passages, then said, "You know, all I see here is that if there's a fire, then anyone who can needs to help put it out. It doesn't matter if you're male or female. If there's a fire and you can extinguish it, then you're obligated to do so."

Oh.

Well then...it's just another halachic obligation. 

Put into that perspective, then the modern twist is NOT the idea of a female fire fighter, but the idea of a fire-fighting force at all. In fact, the trucks and sirens themselves are suddenly "new"! (They weren't around in the time of the Shulchan Aruch either.)

Except that they aren't so new because the kids had been born into the existence of a fire department and indeed, horse-drawn fire engines had preceded trucks by decades.

Meh.

Then Bubby commented that she didn't see the point of racing around town in fire trucks with the sirens blaring if you're anyway obligated to put out a fire if you can.

And maybe there was concern whether these women had the physical strength to deal with the high-pressure fire hose, climb the ladder wearing cumbersome equipment, drag heavy people or more than one person at a time to safety.

There was possibly even concern about the danger to life and property if a fire emergency occurred while the trucks were already occupied with these feministy non-fire-emergency purposes (which also makes the trucks low on gas, etc.).

And that just took the wind of out the sails completely.

It's not new, it's not that big a deal, so...who cares? What's all the hype?

So instead of seeing them as remarkable or glorious, the chassidish kids were able to see these fire-truck feminists for what they actually were: useless show-offs wasting time and vital community resources. 

So when something is promoted as "New!" (or any synonym thereof), it's a good idea to look behind the hype and discover whether it's merely the same old Yetzer Hara trussed up in a new disguise.

Related Posts:
The True History of Women's Work
New-Age Nazis

Recently, I came across a section in the Kav Hayashar that describes the 10 consequences that will happen to those who oppress the Jewish people, just as these 10 consequences happened to the ancient Egyptians who oppressed Am Yisrael.

​Symbolized by the 10 pieces of chametz placed around the home the night before Pesach on Bedikat Chametz (they also symbolize the 10 Plagues), the Kav Hayashar explains the following in Chapter 89:

It occurred to me these judgments seem to be happening now.

True, we're not seeing them in full, but perhaps we are seeing the beginning of this process.

Our enemies, though they also attack us, mostly fight each other, eradicating each other. They're uprooting each other and shaking each other out, so to speak.

​Earthquakes (a definite form of shaking) have been occurring all over, but it can't be denied they've also happened in places that contain they who oppose Israel, whether for religious reasons or political (Leftist) reasons.

And in fact, the above list strikes those who oppose the core VALUES of Yisrael, whether they politically support the State of Israel or not. And many places stricken by the above definitely reject Torah values.

​Furthermore, with gender-change surgeries on the rise, we are certainly seeing a rise in the literal uprooting of the male part.

And the people who opt for these radical surgeries are people who oppose Torah values with all their might, with leaders bent on coercing the rest of society to think like them.

​"Confound them" -- society is certainly becoming more and more confounded, isn't it?

​Shocking things happen and no one on either side quite knows how to respond.

Just as one of many examples, President Trump's rapid ascendancy certainly confounded a great many Leftists to the point that we've seen the rise in something coined "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

And look at how many people are on psychotropic medication, especially children.

Drinking has been a problem for decades, but now there's also what's called an "opium epidemic."

People feel they can't manage life on their own.

Suicide is up among youth in America, one of the world's best places to live. 

​It all fits the above, except that instead of getting hit by a storm of hail, locusts, or frogs, people are doing it to themselves. (Although yes, the wildfires and volcanoes and earthquakes aren't being caused by humans.) 

While those on the political right in support of traditional values (some of whom are also Jew-haters and despise our pure monotheism) view the above as a type of persecution (as I do) and a war on traditional values, I'm starting to wonder whether maybe it's not so much an attack on us, but Heavenly Judgement being carried out against them.

True, we're affected by their meshugas, but it seems like they're actually suffering more, even if they don't realize it. Or even if they misidentify the source of their suffering.

​For example, those suffering from gender confusion point to society's nonacceptance of their dysphoria as the source of their suffering, but the truth is that the source of their suffering is their own dysphoria and their unwillingness to take an honest look at what really needs to be healed.

At least we have the Torah. We have Hashem. We have emuna.

​What do they have? 

Nothing.

As things start shaking up, confounding, uprooting, shattering, abandoning, destroying, we have the unbreakable Cord of Emuna on which to grasp tight.

They have nothing.

And this Cord of Emuna is available to anyone who wants to grasp on to it.

Anyone. You just have to grab it.

Ashreinu! Mah tov chelkeinu!

Have you ever noticed how Jewish women never try to take on the mitzvah of a beard?

Despite the powerful segulot of an untrimmed in beard described in Torah literature, women do nothing to try to grow a beard. They do nothing to even sport a fake beard.

In fact, many women invest money and time in efforts to eradicate any facial hair!

Furthermore, when perusing literature that glorifies a Jewish beard, you never hear a peep from women, like the following:

• "But what about us? Don't we matter?"
• "If Judaism prizes a bushy bristly face over a smooth-skinned one, then that innately discriminates against women."
• "As a woman, what can I do to compensate for a lack of beard? What are MY mitzvot?"
• "I feel bad every time I come across yet another Chazal praising the deep kabbalistic importance of growing a beard. It makes me feel like I'm worth less than a man."
• "In Judaism, the beard symbolizes the 13 Attributes of Mercy. Also, I read a Chabad article that emphasized how the beard represents the flow of ideals and philosophies of our minds to our everyday lifestyle. As a woman, how can I access all this too?"

In fact, I don't see that women focus on the beard issue at all or wrangle with it in any way.

What woman discusses her struggles to accept her beardless self the way it is or to internalize that a smooth-skinned face is a desirable part of sheh asani k'rtzono - that her lack of hairy jaw is simply Hashem's Will in His creation of women?

I've never a seen a woman give a class on how covering her hair or raising children or getting ready for Shabbat is on par with growing a beard.

Women don't seem to dwell on the whole beard issue at all; they just go on with their lives and their avodah.

It's also interesting to note that women don't fight for the right to have payos (a Torah commandment). In fact, when some married women try to make arguments for not covering their hair, they never bring up the issue of displaying payos. Everyone just seems to accept the fact that the mitzvah of payos is for men.

Nor is there any feminist movement for brit milah, despite the incredible benefits (both medical and spiritual) Jewish men received from this mitzvah.

(And don't say it's because women lack the necessary appendage; both the Yishmaelite and African cultures found a way around that obstacle, horrifically enough.)

I'm not trying to make fun of women who struggle with certain attitudes within in Torah Judaism. I struggled with several myself.

And BTW: If you do happen to struggle with your biological inability to grow a beard or fulfill brit milah, then you need to deal with that head-on just as any of us need to deal with any issue that Torah attitudes and Laws bring up within us.

I just thought that the beard attitude might shed some perspective on where women are coming from when a particular halacha or tradition makes them feel excluded or diminished.

It's often worthwhile pondering why you feel one way about one issue, but a totally different way regarding a similar issue.

With regarding to last week's contemptuous parading of severely anti-Torah ideologies, it got me thinking:

What if people decided to hold a demonstration in favor of lashon hara?

What if they decided to plaster posters around Yerushalayim in favor of lashon hara?

After all, we've spoken lashon hara before, whether we realized it at the time or not.

Or maybe we knew it was wrong, but we got overwhelmed by negative emotions and the lashon hara just spewed out.

Furthermore, you could make a emotionally compelling argument for the benefits of lashon hara:

• freedom of self-expression
• need for validation
• I feel SO much better after I've gotten stuff off my chest.
• I've got the Constitutional right to say what I want.
• The Torah says I'm forbidden to hold grudges in my heart, so I need to release my grudges out into the open.
• Restraining my true thoughts and feelings is like lying. I refuse to be dishonest!
• Other people need to know what that person is REALLY like - I'm performing a public service!

And in SPECIFIC cases according to HALACHICALLY DELINEATED guidelines, halacha does allow us to vent (to ONE person and within specific guidelines) or to warn others of another's nefariousness (again, within specific guidelines) -- but not with abandon and certainly not to glorify lashon hara or to proclaim it as a civil "right."

And the same can apply to any transgression.

Furthermore, many transgressions actually feel good -- that's why people commit them.

That's exactly why people struggle.

Maybe you really like pepperoni pizza. Maybe you hate waiting 6 hours just to have a latte after you ate noodles (technically pareve, for crying out loud!) that happened to be cooked in a pot that was definitely fleishig (meaty). Maybe you're stuck in a miserable life and the only thing that really makes you feel better is super-fashionable immodest clothing or flirting with the opposite gender or dance club songs.

Maybe you enjoy sniping a particularly caustic barb at a weak target. Maybe screaming at people when you're angry feels cathartic.

All over Chazal and mussar writings, we keep running into the same idea:

Hashem Himself receives tremendous nachat when we restrain ourselves.

In fact, restraint from committing specific transgressions (like lashon hara, for example) creates tremendous unimaginably glorious light in the Upper Worlds, with a beautiful reward waiting for us.

Hashem knows how much we want to give in. He understands the strength of the pull of certain transgression.

That's why we create so much powerful yet unseen good each time we restrain ourselves.

It's called gevurah.

And being your own gibur (or gibburah) is a beautiful construct to aim for.