Rabbi Weissman: The Serpents Among Us – Part I

 In last week's Torah class we discussed a peculiar teaching from Rabbi Akiva about taking advice and Hashem's response to Yirmiyahu when he asked why the wicked prosper.  As always, lots of guidance from the Torah for our times.  The recording is available here.

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JOWMA has reuploaded their abortion-promoting webinar on YouTube (see lowlights here), but this time they added a disclaimer in the beginning.  Pretty weak damage control there!

On that note...

The Serpents Among Us

On May 21 there was a conference at The Williamsburg Hotel in Brooklyn called Raising the Bar: Improving Health for the Orthodox Community. The conference was spearheaded by Blima Marcus, whose mission is to infiltrate the “Ultra Orthodox” community she claims to be part of, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, with medical propaganda on behalf of government bodies and corporations that are decidedly secular and hostile to the Torah.

One wonders how a nice Ultra Orthodox Jewish girl could make a career out of collaborating with avowed atheists, abomination supporters, baby killers, eugenicists, and the like, in the interests of improving health for the Orthodox community. After all, these people believe there are far too many human beings on earth, and that Orthodox Jews in general have far too many children (considering their antipathy for Orthodox Jews, zero would be an ideal number, but anything more than two is a catastrophe.) It's an odd shidduch – unless the nice Ultra Orthodox Jewish girl is really one of them.

The conference was attended by members of the CDC and heavily subsidized by more than a dozen “hosts” with deep ties to the government and drug companies, despite portraying themselves as serving the local Jewish community. For example, the Boro Park Jewish Community Council signed a massive contract with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to “increase trust regarding the COVID-19 vaccine”, heavily promote the shots within the Orthodox Jewish world, and gather intelligence on the community. For more on this, see Moles and Mosrim in Brooklyn.

Not surprisingly, “Rabbi” Avi Greenstein, president of the BPJCC, was a featured speaker at the conference. His topic was “Growing Health Prevention Focus in Brooklyn: Developing Trust”. Insert your own punchline.

Another sponsor of the event was CHEMED Health Centers, which received nearly $8 million dollars in one government grant alone to “plan, prepare for, promote, distribute, administer, and track COVID–19 vaccines” (see here). In unrelated news, research indicates that CHEMED in Lakewood may have deployed the most toxic batch of Moderna vaccines upon pregnant Jewish women.

The conference featured numerous organizations and speakers who are at war with Hashem. This is not hyperbole or rhetoric. Although they masquerade as healthcare professionals who are concerned first and foremost with protecting G–D-fearing Jews, their actual views are plainly visible, and cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to their professional activities. The Agudas Anshei Emes blog exposed their true colors in a series of posts:

The Atheist Convention: Medical Missionaries in Williamsburg and Boro Park

The Atheist Convention Is Even Worse Than I Knew

How could things get lower than this?

One cannot disagree with any of the information contained in these posts. One can deny that it makes any difference, one can claim that these kofrim and reshaim should be trusted to provide top-notch, unbiased healthcare advice to the Orthodox Jewish community that represents everything these people hate most, but one could hardly be faulted for being skeptical regarding their true intentions.

One might also wonder why a nice Ultra Orthodox Jewish girl, in her quest to provide health education to a community she claims to identify with, invited specifically these “experts”. Is it all a mere coincidence? Is there no one suitable who doesn't support killing babies and sex change operations to guide us on healthy living?

Furthermore, one must wonder why decidedly secular entities would pour millions upon millions of dollars into initiatives such as this conference. Helping Orthodox Jews live longer and have more babies is not a philanthropic cause that would seem to interest them. Yet, when it comes to protecting the health of Orthodox Jews, as far as atheists are concerned, money is no object.

Remarkable, no?

There was a grassroots effort by concerned individuals to warn the community about this “health” conference. This should have come as no surprise to Blima Marcus. After all, as a supposed card-carrying member of the “Ultra Orthodox” community, she should be well aware that G–D-fearing Jews are highly suspicious of government intervention in their affairs, and with good reason – thousands of years of good reason. Regardless of how this intervention comes packaged – inevitably for our benefit and protection – we are right to be concerned about their true motives.

Even if their intentions are indeed altruistic, unlikely as that is, we've learned the hard way (or should have) that people who are distant from the Torah should not have authority over the internal affairs of communities that are committed to the Torah.

Hence, we might have expected Blima Marcus to react to this rightful suspicion with understanding, friendly overtures, and a sincere effort to address these concerns. She should have explained why G–D-fearing Jews should trust these kofrim and not be concerned about our organizations selling out. Are these not at least legitimate questions?