17 Sivan 5784
This is the lowest generation ever in the history of our nation. Consequently, the leadership is a non-leadership and the rabbis by and large are mostly from the Erev Rav as it is written:
"Before the arrival of Moshiach, most of the rabbis will be from the Erev Rav, because Israel in themselves are holy, but the Erev Rav only work for their own benefit . . . " (Divrei Chaim, Parashas Vayakhel, 'Omissions')
Even when the rabbi is entirely righteous, no one is perfect and never makes a mistake. Therefore, it is encumbent upon us to learn from earlier sources and to be familiar with the traditional (proven over centuries) commentaries, so that when we listen to what passes for current Torah scholarship (over Youtube and internet sites), we can be a better judge of the accuracy of what we are hearing.
Unfortunately, I am hearing some very questionable and concerning, if not outright disturbing and heretical, teachings being passed on for which no basis can be found in any earlier source. And for some reason, people do not listen with discerning ears, but swallow every word without question. 99% could be true and 1% could be kefirah, but woe to us for the 1% because over time, it can bring us far, far from the whole truth. And if each lesson consumed has just that 1% error, what does that add up to over weeks and months and years?
Jewish life is all about separating between the good and the not good, taking what's of value and leaving aside what is not, and knowing when it's just too dangerous to consider whether anything a particular person has to say is of any value; when the risk of error has become too dear.
In my experience, the Jewish neshamah has an internal gauge that can measure the truth and it triggers a warning when something is out of kilter. Make a mental note to yourself to check it out further and see if it can be confirmed by other provenly reliable sources. Like I am doing with the following from Rabbi Efraim Palvanov, whom I find to be consistently problematic...
...the Torah tells us that Moses married a Cushite woman. While there are certainly numerous differing interpretations of what exactly happened there, the simple pshat seems to be that Moses married a black woman and Miriam apparently had a problem with this. In turn, measure-for-measure, God punished Miriam by making her skin “snow-white” (Numbers 12:10). Perhaps God was sending Miriam a message: you’re not so white yourself!
... we read that “when a stranger who resides with you offers a Passover sacrifice to God, it must be offered in accordance with the rules and rites of the Passover offering. There shall be one law for you, for the stranger (ger), and the citizen of the land.” (Numbers 9:14) The Torah says that even foreigners and those non-Jews dwelling among us could participate in Passover.
"The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "This is the statute of the Passover sacrifice: No estranged one (ben nechar) may partake of it." (Shemot 12:43)
No estranged one: Whose deeds have become estranged from his Father in heaven. Both a gentile and an Israelite apostate are meant. — [from Mechilta]
I don't think that the rav you paraphrase is incompatible with our mesorah, specifically what Rambam says:
ReplyDelete“And all these matters of Jesus of Nazareth and that of the Ishmaelite who arose after him are only to straighten the way of the king Messiah and to fix the entire world, to serve God as one.”
Exact quote: "...there's a second job that they have. What is that second job? To be a model of kiddushim tihiyu of being holy for the goyim. It is their job to demonstrate to the goyim what the truth is...now that God destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, therefore that job of being a model for the truth cannot be done by the Jews, so that job had to be given to somebody else. Well who else is there? That was plan A. Who's Plan B and you know who they are? The goyim - Christianity."
DeleteAs to the Rambam, it's best to quote the entire thing...
Laws of Kings, Laws 11:10-12 (Capach Edition): “…Can there be a greater stumbling block than this (Christianity)? That all the prophets spoke that the Messiah will redeem Israel and save them, and gather their dispersed and strengthen their Mitzvot, and this (one, i.e., Jesus) caused the Jews to be destroyed by the sword, and scattered their remnants and humbled them, and exchanged the Torah, and caused the majority of the world to err to serve a god other than the Lord. Nevertheless, the thoughts of the Creator of the world are not within the power of man to reach them, ‘for our ways are not His ways, nor are our thoughts His thoughts.’ And all these matters of Jesus of Nazareth and that of the Ishmaelite who arose after him are only to straighten the way of the king Messiah and to fix the entire world, to serve God as one, as it is stated (Zephaniah 3:9), "For then I will turn to the peoples (into) clear speech, to all call in the name of G-d and serve Him unanimously. How (will this come about)? The entire world has already become filled with the mention of the Messiah, with words of Torah and words of mitzvos and these matters have spread to the furthermost isles, to many nations of uncircumcised hearts, and they discuss these matters and the mitzvot of the Torah. Some say: "These mitzvoth are true, but were already nullified in the present age and are not applicable for all time." Others say: "Hidden matters are in them (mitzvos) and they are not to be taken literally, and the messiah has already come and revealed their hidden (meanings). And when the true Messiah stands, and he is successful and is raised and exalted, immediately they all will retract and will know that fallacy they inherited from their fathers, and that their prophets and fathers caused them to err.”
Recall that this rabbi claims to be basing his ideas on the Ramchal not the Rambam and I already proved that the views he is expressing do not comport with the teachings of Ramchal.
Furthermore, the Rambam gives no indication that Christianity had taken over any mission given to the Jews because of their failure. Or that Eisav comes back to save the day. In fact, an honest and knowledgeable assessment of history at the end of days will show that the Rambam was overly optimistic as to Christianity's influence on the world. His initial words are far more astute: "…Can there be a greater stumbling block than this (Christianity)?"
The Rambam is absolutely scathing about xns and muslims, what their end will be, when they discover the error of their ways. In any case, any 'straightening' for them is vis-a-vis gentiles. They are absolutely not allowed to try to draw Jews away from the path of Torah, nor are they allowed to join with Jews in a 'grafting' onto our tradition. We are a people who dwells alone. This is repeated throughout the Torah and is reflected in the halacha.
DeleteThank you Devorah !
ReplyDeleteYou are right on with this article
I have told others about problematic
info said by Rabbi Palvanov.
On bring “ Homosexuality is not an obamination , it is only a sin “
Also there are other Rabbis who may say correct Things from the Torah but they have images of immodest women in their Videos!
You are totally correct - if 1% is problematic you must not listen to these Rabbis .
Even Rabbi Ben Nir Artzi who many love to follow has been publically called a Big Faker by Rabbi Yosef Mixrachi !
in his recent Shiur.
My Rabbi said “ If anyone tells you he knows what’s going to happen ,
throw stones at him ! Only Hashem
knows what’s going to happen !
In this day and age, why even bother listening to anyone.
ReplyDelete'And what if a famous, popular and authoritative rabbi says that "when God's Plan A with the Jews failed, He went to Plan B and used the gentiles to spread the knowledge of Torah via Christianity"? ' I saw this one and have heard that before from that rabbi. I have also heard xtians using this to rub in the faces of Jews. One needs to be very careful when saying things that may give missionaries more fuel against unlearned Jews.
ReplyDeleteit's been awhile that i am slowly separating myself from the most information in the internet, even jewish, how much has been said, when, how, who and why! nothing satisfies me any more, i think my soul want my vessel to be empty for absorbing only God ( Torah and good books help ) to have quiet time with Him and wait...hope you understand
ReplyDeleteAgree with you 100% about the Rabbi's interpretation on a number of'
ReplyDeleteTorah teachings. He also puts too much of an emphasis on science &
technology as if they are the end all. I was glad that others see this too. Your analysis is spot on.
Also, what bothers me is what is this insanity of observant Jews giving
stupid interpretations on notzriut, etc. (avoda zorahs). We have one important obligation in that regard and that is to prevent the missionizing, associations &, affiliations they are pushing on our people. H' Yerachem; our spiritual and physical lives (pereadam) are being threatened from all sides.
As far as the rabbis are concerned, we know that most rabbis at these
end days time are Erev Rav, literally. We have to use our own smarts and gut feelings to stay away from the Erev Rav in any form, and rely only on Hashem and our holy Chazal and their teachings. One usually can realize who is a true Rav today. We are in the lowest generation and not for one moment can we compare anyone today to our greats of yesteryear.
Because of the technology today, even supposed G-D fearing Jews
nowadays seem to put their faith & reliance on that rather than Hashem. Really disgraceful that we even have such a probllem.
Jews cannot possibly understand the great damage done to those people who were trapped as children and given a skewed world view that does not comply with reality. And further, no one who has not been there can empathize with the hurt inflicted on converts who are forced continually to confront this horror show over and over again by rabbis who seek to benefit adherents to Christianity rather than their victims who have sought protection and healing under the wings of the Holy Shechinah. Sincere converts are the most neglected, most under-appreciated and underserved members of Jewish society. Can you imagine at all what it's like to hear Christians praised and befriended by other Jews when in your view they are nothing better than spiritual pedophiles. The Torah allowed for gerei toshav to live in Eretz Yisrael in order to escape the influence of idolatry in their home countries. In the State of Israel idolatry is as celebrated by religious Jews as LGBTQ is by the secular Jews!
DeleteOr at least that's how it seems sometimes.
DeleteExactly. There are no more words.
ReplyDeleteTo say.
To hear.
Only words left are from TORAH
Baruch Hashem, we have our ancient (and not so ancient) texts to study. Other than those short inspirational vorts that they publish on WhatsApp from Torah.org, I rarely listen to any shiurum online. And, other than Rav Kook, I don't trust anything that I hear from other Rabbis, even though they may be great chachamim. On the point about Miriam, this rabbi is not correct. It sounds like a very "woke" approach, connecting it to black and white skin color. Miriam's issue was that Moshe Rabbeinu appeard to be setting himself on a higher level than she and Aaron, even though they too were neviim. Moshe had separated from his wife, but they were still with their spouses. Hashem overheard, and afflicted Miriam with tsarat, the punishment for lashon hara. He didn't turn her "white." She understood and did teshuva.
ReplyDeleteDon't our commentators say about Tziporah that here 'black' means
ReplyDeletethat she was a beautiful woman, not black. I'm not sure of the deep reason for this, but this is what I heard.