A Cry to Klal Yisrael: Are We Still the Am HaTorah - or Is K’Maaseh Eretz Mitzrayim the ‘New Normal?’
I shudder to think of the results that cannot be long in coming, Rachmana Litzlan, of the now-widespread violation of prohibitions of this week’s Parsha, Acharei Mos-Kedoshim.
BS”D
Is this what it felt like to live in the times of Yeshaya HaNavi and Yirmiyahu HaNavi, as Klal Yisrael were on a collision course with the churban, but nothing could shake them awake, blind as they were to the coming retribution?
We exist now in a strange dichotomy. On the one hand, there are yeshivos full of Torah learning as never before, the numbers greater than in perhaps 2,000 years, Baruch Hashem.
On the other hand, though, we now see a decay so deep, so vast, it can hardly be fathomed.
We see men who practice mishkav zachar, not in secret shame, but proudly, who call themselves Orthodox, and are still accepted in the community. If a man whose lifestyle is an issur Kareis writes a letter in a Sefer Torah, is the Sefer Torah pasul?
Does this Pasuk - which is in this week’s Parsha -still exist in everyone’s Sifrei Torah?
וְאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁכַּב אֶת זָכָר מִשְׁכְּבֵי אִשָּׁה תּוֹעֵבָה עָשׂוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם מוֹת יוּמָתוּ דְּמֵיהֶם בָּם
“A man who lies with a man as one lies with a woman, they have both done an abomination; they shall be put to death, (by Bais Din) their blood is upon themselves.”
Could the Torah have been more clear than that? Yet it has become fashionable to ignore this Pasuk!
This is how the Times of Israel described Modi Rosenfeld (pictured above.)
Anyone who has listened closely to Rosenfeld’s podcast in the last year would know that he and his husband have been married since 2020.
The pair talk about living and traveling together, and in a recent episode revealed they would be vacationing on Fire Island, which has a famous gay scene, with prominent gay Jewish cookbook author Jake Cohen.
But the news could easily have come as more of a surprise for one swath of Rosenfeld’s core audience: Orthodox Jews from communities like the one where he grew up, where LGBTQ inclusion remains an unfamiliar and often frowned-upon frontier. Rosenfeld has delivered his signature blend of highly informed Jewish comedy, which often digs into the technical details of Jewish law, on kosher Passover cruises; at benefits for Orthodox organizations including yeshivas, Young Israel chapters and Hatzalah, the Orthodox ambulance service; and on the annual Chabad-Lubavitch movement telethon. But until recently, his routine has contained little whiff of his personal life — in fact, some of his jokes suggested to his fans that he had a wife named Stacy.
“Stacy” is in fact his manager and husband, Leo Veiga, a millennial raised Catholic in South Florida whom the 52-year-old Israel-born, Long Island-raised comedian met on the New York City subway in 2015.
THIS is a man that the Orthodox community continues to accept as a practicing Jew, and who wrote a letter in a Sefer Torah?
We have girls who appear Orthodox, their sleeves covering their elbows, who “get engaged” to each other and receive an outpouring of Mazel Tov wishes. The “Orthodox” photographer who does their proposal shoot gushes that she can’t wait for the wedding in June, proudly displays the ‘k’maaseh Eretz Mitzrayim’ “couple” on her website, receives over a thousand “likes,” and immediately deletes all comments protesting the grave breach.
In this upside down world, those who try to speak up against the to’eiva receive the pushback, rather than the sinners.
Those who give tochacha, citing open Halachos, are called “haters.”
We are told very, very strange ideas, never heard before, that one can be living a lifestyle openly and proudly in violation of basic Torah prohibitions and yet be an “Orthodox Jew” at the same time. How is this conceivably possible?
If someone flaunted their Chilul Shabbos or their habitual consumption of pork, shrimp and cheeseburgers, they could not dare to call themselves “frum.” They would not whine about “lack of acceptance” in the Orthodox community - as it’s clear to all that such an individual is NOT ORTHODOX, by virtue of continually, wantonly, violating basic Torah precepts.
But now, people who flaunt their total disdain for one of the gimel chamuros have the audacity to remain in the Orthodox world and call themselves frum, they and their supporters abusing anyone who dares to remind them of Hashem’s prohibitions.
The damage they are doing to the tzibbur is incalculable, as the message becomes: “Somehow, this is OK, and you can do it, too. Halacha isn’t what we thought it was all these years. This lifestyle isn’t so bad - or actually, maybe it’s even beautiful.” And thus the plague spreads. THIS IS THE DEFINITION OF CHILUL HASHEM.
The ridiculous mantras are “we need to support them, or they may commit suicide,” or “the Torah doesn’t forbid this.”
YES, the Torah does unequivocally forbid this.
This is what the Egyptians did in Egypt, that place that was steeped in Tumah to the 50th degree.
This is what those who practiced ancient pagan religions did.
And every society that acted thus, either destroyed themselves or were destroyed. They aren’t here any more.
Where are we heading?
If you look at the following, you will wake up and realize that this horror has come into the frum camp already:
Following is the p’sak I was told in regards to the two-girl “couple.”
I will say that this degree of flaunting their disregard for the Torah elevates their sins from the level of רשעות to the level of מומרות. Their publicizing it and celebrating it is nothing less than שמד.
The rule of ישראל אף על פי שחטא ישראל הוא is only applicable to חטאים, not to a מומר. So they are now Kofrim Gemurim which means they are NOT Jewish anymore.
Which means they are not part of our Nation anymore, just like the Reform and we have NO Chiyuv ערבות on them. No more responsibility to help them in their time of need. They are not רעך. And no duty to chastise them, they are no longer עמיתך.
הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך.
ואהבת לרעך כמוך.
These are NEITHER.
All we need to do is to prevent their sickness from spreading to real Jews.
And to castigate YU for having such students.
Al achas kama v’kama for proud mishkav zachar’niks. Who is going to tell Kerestir that their Sefer Torah has a letter written by an Aino Yehudi and is Pasul?
Yehareig V’al Yaavor
We know that there are three violations that are yehareig v’al ya’avor - that one must die rather than transgress. Avoda zara, Giluy Arayos, and Shefichas Damim.
We just saw how Klal Yisrael has veered into Giluy Arayos.
Now you will see unabashed talk of Shefichas Damim mamesh:
JOWMA, the Jewish Orthodox Women’s Medical Association, is having an educational webinar on May 7th about “Family Planning: Types of Contraception and their risks and benefits, Medical and Surgical Termination.”
As anti-Torah as a “family planning webinar” is, “medical and surgical termination” is infinitely worse. It means abortion. Terminating the pregnancy equals killing the baby.
WHERE DOES A DISCUSSION OF BABY-KILLING come in to a talk about birth control? Are they implying that if someone “accidentally” became pregnant when she had not “planned on it,” she should know that there’s always the option of “termination?”
It absolutely sounds like that is the plan.
Let it be clear that abortion is only mutar when the mother’s life is in danger. Abortion is murder, and a Ben Noach who performs an abortion is chayav misa.
Yet there are “frum” women getting abortions whose lives are not in any danger, and we have even received reports of Chassidishe women who have gotten them for no medical reason at all. Hashem yeracheim.
JOWMA is not considered a “fringe” group. They hold educational events in Boro Park at the Y. Their advertisements have been accepted in every major frum publication. Countless Torah-observant people have innocently attended their webinars. This is so, even though they have no Rabbinical oversight whatsoever, and claim they do not need it, “because they are only discussing medical things.”
But JOWMA does have the support of the OU. (https://accelerator.ou.org/) And Torah Umesorah circulated a letter referring people to JOWMA for medical questions, about two years ago.
HOW HAS OUR HOLY NATION FALLEN SO FAR?
Back to “family planning:”
WHY IS JOWMA coming to teach us how to “plan our families?” We have a Torah and a Mesora. Having a large family is our priority. If a woman feels weakened and needs a break, she has a Rav to discuss it with. Why does she need JOWMA?
Oh, but JOWMA is one better than the Rav! JOWMA isn’t just going to give a six month break if someone needs it. JOWMA will help PLAN the family, so we can be k’chol ha’umos.
Really, large families are so old-fashioned.
Know that “planning the family” is a treif concept through and through. It means deciding in advance, lechatchila, that one only wants X number of children spaced X years apart.
Not the Jewish way, that a couple wants as many children as possible, but she might possibly get run down and need to ask a heter for a short break. No. The opposite, like the Johnsons and MacGregors. A nice, neat, planned-out family. The responsible way to do things, right?
But frum-style Jews do need a family a bit larger than the typical American family, because, well, that’s still our cultural norm. Need to fit in socially, while making life as convenient and hassle-free as possible. Would four be the “perfect number?”
Like the role model, Yitzchok Melber of Tahareinu, who boasted in his Yisrael Hayom interview of his small, well-spaced, 4-child family. “Ani na’eh doreish v’na’eh mekayem,” “I practice what I preach,” he said.
https://www.israelhayom.co.il/article/485645
Yes, if one places the trivialities of life first, there really will not be the time and strength it takes for a big family. A degree, a career, an updated car, nice vacations, a gorgeous house, beautiful clothes. That is a lifestyle choice that will likely involve “needing” to use birth control. Too many children will not fit conveniently into this picture, nor is there energy to birth them and raise them - since it is necessary to work hard to pay for the lifestyle.
But there is another way. The Torah way, according to our holy age-old Mesora, is to put the big family first. Everything else in life gets built around that.
If one places large rocks in a jar first, they can fit in smaller rocks and sand around the large rocks. But if the sand is put in the jar first, the large rocks - representing the most important things in life, such as the large family Hashem wants each Jew to build - are left sticking out. There’s no room for them.
What has gone wrong?
With all the yeshivos, kollelim, learning programs, and Seforim we have available, we are missing critical parts of our basic knowledge of Yiddishkeit and service of Hashem.
As the Navi bemoaned:
וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ יַעַן כִּי נִגַּשׁ הָעָם הַזֶּה בְּפִיו וּבִשְׂפָתָיו כִּבְּדוּנִי וְלִבּוֹ רִחַק מִמֶּנִּי וַתְּהִי יִרְאָתָם אֹתִי מִצְוַת אֲנָשִׁים מְלֻמָּדָה
(ישעיהו פרק כט פסוק יג)
“Hashem said: Inasmuch as this people has drawn close, with its mouth and with its lips it has honored Me, yet it has distanced its HEART from Me - their fear of Me is like rote learning of human commands.”
The Navi foretells the consequences of this empty service of Hashem:
לָכֵן הִנְנִי יוֹסִף לְהַפְלִיא אֶת־הָעָם־הַזֶּה הַפְלֵא וָפֶלֶא וְאָבְדָה חָכְמַת חֲכָמָיו וּבִינַת נְבֹנָיו תִּסְתַּתָּר
(ישעיהו פרק כט פסוק יד)
“Therefore, behold, I will continue to perform more wonders against this people - wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of its wise men will be lost and the understanding of its sages will become concealed.”
Our Yiddishkeit is so shiny on the outside, but for so many, it is simply cultural. A frum country club. A means of gaining respect.
Our foundational Emuna in Hashem Yisbarach, which keeps us strong in our observance of all other mitzvos, is lacking.
Our knowledge of what Hashem truly wants from us is spotty.
Our deep, critical thinking skills have been purposely ruined by society.
And into this empty fertile field, comes the outside world and dangles their glittering, worthless, destructive and foolish sinfulness, which may look shiny and appealing for a time to those who don’t think too hard.
What can we do?
•We can - and MUST - speak up and push back against the very purposeful infiltration of to’eiva and hedonistic culture. The more pushback there is, the more refusal to go along with this, the less inroads they can make.
If there is not enough protest by Rabbonim and by ordinary people, things will chas veshalom only get worse and worse (as we see happening in front of our eyes, Hashem yeracheim.)
Also, if we are silent, we are held responsible in Shamayim.
•We must learn seforim of Emuna and actively work to increase our deep, unshakable knowledge of the Borei Olam and His Hashgacha of the world and love for us. The seforim of Rav Avigdor Miller, the sefer Be’Emuna Shlaima, and the books of Rabbi David Ashear can be life-changing.
The Emuna of Klal Yisrael at the time of Yetzias Mitzrayim was the catalyst for their Ge’ula. We were redeemed at that time in the merit of our faith, because otherwise, we really did not deserve redemption, being as we were so steeped in the Egyptian culture. In fact, those who did not believe in/desire the redemption passed away during Makkas Choshech.
•We must study the basic foundational texts of Yiddishkeit: Chumash with Rashi, Nevi’im, Rambam, Chovos Halevavos, etc, and ensure that our children study them.
•We must daven as never before. We are facing the greatest threat to our spiritual and physical lives that we have ever faced, although most people do not yet realize it. I heard in the name of a Gadol that if the Yidden in Europe had only davened with the intensity that the Jews in Eretz Yisrael did during WW2, they too would have been saved from the Holocaust.
But they did not.
Let’s strengthen ourselves and those around us, L’ma’an Hashem.
This is literally a time of Mi LaShem Ailai.
Please see Sefer Nechemya for a very moving description of Klal Yisrael returning to Hashem b’tshuva shlaima, en masse.
If you ever wondered what you would have done had you lived at the time of the Eigel, or of Matisyahu, or King Achav, now you have the chance to find out.
Chazak va’amatz. May we soon experience again the nissim that Hashem did for us b’zman yetzias Mitzrayim.
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