Hypocrisy, time for change?

The following excellent articles helped my thinking on the current situation in Beit Shemesh (and Israel) and I encourage you to read them if you haven’t already:

When thugs run schools: http://www.tzedek-tzedek.blogspot.com/2012/01/bet-shemesh-when-thugs-run-schools.html

Everyone is fighting a different battle in Beit Shemesh: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=252080

The Curse of Violent Extremism – from the 10th of Tevet to Bet Shemesh: http://voicesoflss.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/the-curse-of-violent-extremism-from-the-10th-of-tevet-to-bet-shemesh/

Rachel Hershberg – Here’s my update…..: http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2720411183419&id=1651252257

David Ram’s thoughts: http://www.facebook.com/krulwich/posts/266012343458876

There is no community in Israel that doesn’t face its own serious problems, every community has its own pekalach, just like every person has their own pekalach.  Part of life is about the journey towards overcoming these issues on a personal or community level.  To believe that one community has a superior derech to another is just self righteousness.  It’s simply a deviant way of making one feel good about oneself through promoting oneself above others.  It is not by chance that we are all so different, each community has its positive role to play and serious issues to face.  I stress this as I don’t want the following thoughts to be understood as a destructive attack on the Chareidi community.  I can equally point to different, but just as serious, self destructive issues within the dati leumi community.

On reading David Morris’s article on violence against school children it reminded me of my first real encounter with the “off the derech” phenomenon in the Chareidi community.  Ten years ago I ate with a Chareidi family in Telstone.  The husband was an incredible Talmud Chocham, a man of immense intelligence and the wife was clearly a great woman.  The eldest child, a 16 year old boy sat at the shabbos table in jeans and a t-shirt.  It turned out that he went fully off the derech as he could not handle what he felt was the hypocrisy of children being beaten while being taught pirkei avot by their Rebbe.  There was little that the parents could do to address the situation and I can only assume that this was due to some of the issues pointed to by David Morris in the article I referenced above.  Interestingly these issues also result from or are connected to hypocrisy where community members preach Torah values but deviate from them where it serves their purpose.  I think that analysing the role of hypocrisy might give us some understanding of the reaction to the Zealots’ abuse of Orot Banot’s girls and mothers.

The media story went viral on the week of Parshat Vayigash.  I don’t believe that this was a coincidence.  Many people are familiar with the Beis Halevi’s drosh on the midrash dealing with the intense, near war, encounter between Yehuda and Yoseph.  It was a collision of two superpowers, two weltanschauungs, the pious learned Jew and the seeming rich state controlling goy (sound familiar?) and just as things were about to explode Yoseph reveals himself, “I am your brother, is my father still alive”.  As their “living father” had just been discussed, in relation to how he could die if Binyamin was taken away from him, the brothers immediately knew that Yoseph was not asking after his father’s welfare but actually pointing out their deep hypocrisy i.e. you accuse me of being heartless but you sold our father’s favourite son into slavery and then told him that I was dead. Hypocrites he yelled!  The brothers were confounded, they saw themselves for who they really were and suddenly saw through all their deviant moral justifications of their actions against Yoseph.

But when it comes to Yehuda and his lineage this type of hypocrisy is not an anomaly.  It’s a recurring theme, one that maybe recurs until today.  Look at Yehuda and Tamar, and look at King David and Batsheva.  However we see something that leaves a lot of room for optimism and is very heartening, in every case “Yehuda” sees the error of his ways, addresses his hypocrisy and does teshuva.  He needs to be shocked into it, but it happens none the less.

We know that there is mashiach ben Yoseph and mashiach ben David (Yehuda).  We know that they both represent two very different hashkafas and I think it is obvious that these hashkafa’s align with the Dati Leumi and Chareidi communities.  Mashiach ben Yoseph comes first. Yoseph is the secular malchut/kingship.  He is the spiritual, knowledgeable and dedicated Jew who can integrate with and triumphantly face the challenges of the secular world. He is the light to the nations, the tikun of Eisav “the spark that consumes the flax of Eisav (secular world)” but sometimes like in the case of his twin neshama Deena he can get burned where he ventures too near to the secular.  It is clear to me that the Dati leumi community holds this hashkafa, plays this role, risks this danger and too often unwittingly loses members to it.  Mashiach ben David is the spiritual torah centric leadership, a King of Jews.  Maybe he picks up the reins at a time in the future where the Jewish people have evolved (and are ready for him to reign) and more importantly at a time when hypocrisy has been recognised and banished from Torah Judaism.  The Chareidi hashkafa is clearly aligned with Yehuda, it uses it insularity to nurture the Torah within its communities and protect them from outside influences.  Is there a healthy limit to this insularity, can it be taken to an extreme?  Well Yaakov was punished for keeping Deena in a box so that she would not have to marry Eisav and use her “Yoseph-like” qualities to help him do teshuva.  So one can go too far in being insular for the sake of Torah but I think I am going off the point!

Why have the committed Chareidi world been so slow to condemn the violence (if at all) and why have the moderate Chareidi world done little in terms of “actions” to try and remedy the situation?  I’ve heard 3 answers that make sense and currently I’m seeing it as a blend of all 3.  The answers are apathy, fear and hashkafa.  Apathy: It’s not my community.  Fear: The zealots could come after me, my kids won’t get into the right school, I’ll damage shidduch potential. Hashkafa: We don’t agree with the violence but it serves our purpose i.e. it keeps zionism and modernity away from our communities and hashkafa, for some reason, trumps halacha in Eretz Yisrael.  The presence of one factor, hypocrisy, emboldens these 3 drivers and if it was removed, these drivers would be significantly weakened and might even crumble.  Only deep hypocrisy can allow frum Jews to be apathetic to 7 year old girls from other communities being targeted by violent extremists.  Only deep hypocrisy would prevent moderate chareidim from attending the rally held months ago against the extremists terrorising our girls (and hypocrisy certainly allows major rabonim to attend the extremists counter rally).  Only deep hypocrisy allows some Chareidim to turn a blind eye to this intimidation of young girls, which is clearly contrary to the Torah, as it serves their hashkafic interests.

So when will the Chareidi community as a whole suddenly look at itself, see the hypocrisy and mend it’s ways as Yehuda did.  When is the beauty of the Chareidi way going to shine through and be a drawing light of Torah to the entire Jewish people.  When will I once again find that beauty within the Chareidi world that I first thought I found over a decade ago.  I’m waiting for you, I am Yoseph, I am your brother, I am a Jew and I love you.