Today at 4:30 PM Israel time will be my weekly Torah class. We will learn an inspiring lesson from Yirmiya and continue our series on Bitachon from the Chovos Halevovos. The link to register for the live program is here.
Thursday at the same time will be my monthly Amalek and Erev Rav program. I will be joined tomorrow by Yoel Berman of Avira D'Eretz Yisrael, which helps religious American Jews find their place and settle in Israel. He is also the editor of a new book, Living in the Land, which features firsthand accounts of people who took the leap (available here). The link to register for this program is here.
In honor of Tu B'Av, for one week you can purchase my illustrated book How To Not Get Married: Break these rules and you have a chance for the discounted price of 35 shekels. Reply to this email to purchase. For those outside of Israel, you can either make aliya really fast, or pay full price on Amazon here (still a bargain).
Lots of important material follows the article.
Tu B'Av Then and Now
Today is Tu B'Av, a holiday that has essentially been expunged from the Jewish calendar. Obscure religious practices like the Tu B'Shvat seder have become trendy, but Tu B'Av, an actual holiday, remains in the dustbin of Jewish history. Although Chazal teach that Tu B'Av was the most joyous of days, the so-called frum world has unofficially decided that Tu B'Av is irrelevant to us today (save the joy of skipping Tachanun) even as we desperately need just what Tu B'Av offered – a straightforward, dignified, and pleasant way for singles to meet and marry.
No, I am not suggesting that single women dance in the fields while bachelors go there to select a wife. However, that's not because it isn't right – that's not even open to debate – but because we aren't right. If we are unable to emulate what our ancestors did on this most joyous of days because it would cause more harm than good, the problem is squarely with us.
I hear the dismissive, self-righteous retort of the typical frum Jew, who manages to be simultaneously brash and timid, learned and unthinking, like no other species on earth: “It's different now.”
And just like that, the conversation is over before it can even begin. It's different now! Our ancestors did whatever they did. It was a long time ago. What difference does it make to us?
Of course, when people say the very same thing about Shabbos, or kashrus, or family purity, or so many “ancient and primitive” laws and traditions, they have immediately excused themselves from the club. The frum Jew may try to split a hair on the fly to justify the status quo – without even giving honest consideration to the problem – and if that fails he will play his trump card: a vague but loud appeal to authority. All the gedolim!
It's a bluff, of course, but highly effective in relieving one of the burden of actually thinking and being able to clearly articulate why he does or doesn't do something. This largely explains in a nutshell how the frum world operates today.
Here's the thing: if we can't emulate what our ancestors did because we're on a lower level, we should be actively working to rectify that, so we can once again emulate what our ancestors did. Isn't that the whole point?
Even if we can't presently emulate what they did, we shouldn't design an alternative system that is contrary to the very spirit of what our ancestors did. And yet, the shidduch world today is just that.
Furthermore, shouldn't we be willing to admit that the shidduch world today, by definition, is largely a b'dieved precisely because singles cannot meet the way they used to? Since when is the frum world not only satisfied with doing things in a b'dieved way, but idealizes it in flagrant disregard of what Chazal teach?
I hope this bothers you.
If you wanted to create a shidduch world that is the polar opposite of Tu B'Av, you could hardly do better than what we have today. Concurrently, if you wanted to create a shidduch world that is inefficient, painful, dehumanizing, and downright cruel, purely out of malice for singles, you could hardly do better than what we have today.
But it works for a lot of people!
Sure it does. It works especially well for the proverbial best boy in Lakewood/Mir/Brisk/Ponovezh and beautiful girls with wealthy parents. It works even better for the sons and daughters of Roshei Yeshiva, for they bypass the shidduch system completely. (If you ever wondered why prominent rabbis seem so detached from the problems in the shidduch world, so personally disengaged even as they issue edicts and proclamations from on high, this is the neatest explanation. Call me whatever names you want, but it's still true.)
If you don't bring pedigree or money to the table, the same people who pride themselves as being most removed from gashmiyus will scoff at you as a candidate for marriage, no matter how big a tzaddik you might otherwise be.
Mind you, the victims in this scenario are hardly deserving of pity, for they perpetuate this unforgiving, un-Torah system. When they enjoy a bit of leverage – or imagine that their value on the shidduch market is higher than it is – they treat others just as poorly as they are treated. They complain only because they played the game and lost, which makes them not so much victims as whiners.
Bottom line: the fact that the status quo works for many people doesn't absolve us for doing things in a way that is inefficient, painful, dehumanizing, and downright cruel to so many others. There is no reason we can't help the same number of people and quite a bit more without so much collateral damage. That should be the objective, not doggedly defending the status quo because it is a social imperative masquerading as a religious one.
There is much we can learn from Tu B'Av of old without reincarnating it in its original form. The most critical lesson is what made it a joyous day in the first place: those who were looking for a shidduch would meet other marriage-minded people in a festive atmosphere, and quite likely return home that very day having found their life partner. There were no shadchanim/gatekeepers in the middle, nor fees to pay.
Single men and women had self-determination. They were able to take matters into their own hands and seal the deal. Not only were the parents and religious leaders unopposed to this, they celebrated it. It was the most joyous of days! The singles went out on their own and chose someone to marry!
Ah, but it's different today! Singles cannot be trusted to behave properly! We must supervise the few gatherings we even permit! We must tightly control their every move lest they fall prey to temptation!
It's not nearly as different as you think. The first Beis Hamikdash was destroyed largely due to promiscuity. Eliyahu HaNavi appeared to Rav Yehuda and said as follows: “You say why hasn't Mashiach come? Yet today is Yom Kippur and many virgins were violated in Neharda'ah” (Yoma 19B).
Is it possible that some people went to the Tu B'Av dances without serious intentions? Of course. Did some people behave inappropriately? Quite likely. Nevertheless, Chazal spoke wistfully of Tu B'Av because in essence the meeting opportunity was a good thing, a wonderful thing. Our job is not to make it physically impossible for people to sin, but to educate them properly and guide them on the right path. Our job is to assist them on their journey, not to control it.
The shidduch world is not about assisting singles. It's about controlling them.
If you are a seriously religious single today, you have virtually no self-determination. There is virtually no opportunity for you to take charge of your personal life and meet your life partner without having a “responsible adult” (that is, a married person) in the middle. Whether this person is supportive or abusive, helpful or in the way, is immaterial; the fact is that it is almost impossible for a seriously religious Jew to get married today without a “responsible adult” granting him the opportunity.
This is an atrocity. It is a crime against singles, a radical departure from all of Jewish history until literally the current generation, and antithetical to the Torah.
If a man decides to be a man and take the direct approach, he will be canceled faster than a dissident in North Korea. Our fathers and grandfathers understood it was their job to ask a woman out. Our mothers and grandmothers expected to be asked out. Sometimes introductions were made, sometimes people met on their own. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't; that's life. But they didn't need to win the attention and favor of a gatekeeper just to get a date, let alone a date with someone of their own choosing.
Today, unless you are part of the Facebook-scrolling, bar-hopping crowd, unless you are the type that goes to shul on Friday night to be part of a singles scene, but sleep in Shabbos morning, you have no self-determination. You cannot ask out a seriously religious girl. She will not want to talk to you. She will certainly not agree to date you. She will be horrified, and she will warn others about you. The crime of a single man speaking to a single woman for purposes of marriage without the prior arrangement of a “responsible married adult” is a notch below rape.
Eliyahu HaNavi has not revealed himself to me, but this has not brought Moshiach closer, either. This is not an improvement over the licentious behavior in Neharda'ah, just an atrocity in the other direction.
In fact, the suffocating nature of the shidduch world, which prevents so many singles from moving forward even as it paves the way for others, directly causes people to commit the very sins it is meant to prevent. If “the system” doesn't work for someone, if their prospects are extremely limited and not remotely suitable, if they can go months and years without dating anyone, and if they have no way of taking matters into their hands, what do you think will happen?
In a best case scenario, the single will remain within the community and suffer all his days as a pariah, a nebach, yet remain strong, unfailingly devout, and never sin.
Such a person is a biblical hero with the best of both Iyov and Yosef. It is doubtful many such people exist, or can continue to exist like that indefinitely.
It is far more likely that singles for whom “the system” doesn't work will see their frustration turn to disaffection, their religious observance will go hot and cold, and they will either go crazy (which is bad for shidduchim) or leave the community (ditto). Either way, they will struggle with sinful desires, which will be greatly exacerbated by remaining single long past the age when it is healthy and normal – which is twenty for men, according to Chazal (Kiddushin 29B). It is foolhardy to believe very many will emerge with a perfect record, to put it mildly.
Congratulations, shidduch overlords. You have destroyed these people's lives, prevented them from getting married and having children, and made it almost impossible for them not to sin, but at least you made sure a single man didn't accidentally spot a single woman in shul or at a wedding. That would be inappropriate! A breach of tznius! Who knows where that might lead?!
Honestly, if you raised these people properly, it would most likely lead to a wedding, a new Jewish home, and beautiful children.
But why take chances?
Rabbis have no right to rob singles of their self-determination under the pretext of preventing bad behavior.
Rabbis have no right to play social engineers and decide at what age grown men and women will be allowed to begin dating. It is not within the purview of rabbis to legislate when yeshiva students will be released from “the freezer” and permitted to marry, or whether the incoming class of seminary girls will have to wait for more of last year's class to get married before they are allowed to move forward with their lives. Rabbis never had such power, and certainly don't today.
This is not normal. It is horrific. It is horrific that people have come to believe this is normal, let alone the Torah way. It is a corruption of the Torah to the highest degree.
Again, you can call me any name you want, but this is basic Torah truth, and all the rabbis in the world with the longest beards and blackest hats cannot change that. If they wish to try, they need to do a lot better than issue proclamations from on high to subservient sheep who are forbidden to question them.
This isn't Judaism. It's despotism, on religious grounds, perhaps with good intentions, but despotism all the same.
It's what drives many of our best and brightest people away from Judaism. The secular scapegoat of the day is not what turns people off to a Torah way of life. It's despotism and hypocrisy.
If you cannot trust men and women who spent their lives in the most prestigious religious institutions to meet and marry on their own without misbehaving, to the extent that you close off any possibility of that happening, that's on you. Even if these concerns are somewhat justified, it's still antithetical to the Torah and our tradition until the present time.
Tu B'Av is a churban today no less than Tisha B'Av.
Every man and woman who is languishing without self-determination is a churban.
It wasn't like this in the past, and it doesn't need to be this way today. Whether you are single or married, a Rosh Yeshiva or just a regular person, you have to decide if you are going to perpetuate the problem, or be part of the solution.
Are you going to make excuses, or are you going to make a difference?
Let's bring back Tu B'Av.
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Jonathan Pollard on Covid and the Godless Israeli Establishment
This is an extremely important excerpt from his recent interview with Tamar Yonah (a link to the complete interview is in the description. Pollard sacrificed so much for Israel and the Jewish people, yet he was able to accept the harsh reality that the Zionist establishment he suffered so much for is an accursed, godless bunch. At the same time, he continues to encourage Jews to get out of galus and make aliya.
If such an iconic fighter for Israel can come to a new understanding of what Israel is and what it isn't, the so-called Dati Leumi world that greatly admires him should be able to do the same — and change its relationship with the regime accordingly.
That would be a game-changer.
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The real Nazis won World War 2 and continue to control world governments to this day. There are no democracies.
No wonder America refused to bomb the tracks to Auschwitz...America built them.
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The only reason why so many people in Israel are all heated over this "judicial reform" hooey is because the media and social media are telling them to. When will people ever learn?
Israel is not a democracy. The Knesset brought us Covid and the Supreme Court didn't overrule them. Our lives don't get better regardless of who wins this tug of war between tyrants. Both sides are in it only for themselves, not for us. They are the ones who benefit by having the peasants fight each other over this, instead of unifying against their common enemy – the ruling class that oppresses all of us.
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Dr. Pierre Kory MD on Childhood Vaccines
Dr. Kory is the heroic doctor who tried valiantly to save Deborah Bucko's life, but was ultimately thwarted by Aaron Glatt (as documented here.)
1 comment:
The elites (they think they are) are, to simplify it all, the notorious Erev Rav. We must remember they came with their tumah (black magic,etc.) and that is why they have had the power throughout the millenia to reach the most powerful positions worldwide and caused (and still do) all the havoc, chaos and destruction wherever they planted themselves.
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