Monday, December 21, 2009

Rav Sternbuch reiterates his condemnation of the EJF & Tropper


Rav Sternbuch, shlita asked me to republish the letter of the Bedatz from two years ago which condemned the EJF and said that no one should have any association with it. He said that the chillul haShem created now is terrible. He said that the present scandal validates the concerns they expressed two years ago - that someone who does what he feels like can come to the worst aveiros. He said he is working on a more comprehensive letter discussing the situation which will be released in the near future.


16 comments :

  1. One has nothing to do with the other. Neither could you say that RAv Sternbuch was "Prophetic" in recommanding to stay away from EJF, since the reasons he cited have nothing to do with this new scandal or Tropper's abusive personality.

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  2. am I reading this wrong and misunderstanding it? it looks like his whole problem with what happened here is that he was teaching and encouraging geirim.

    what does that have to do with the actual scandal?

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  3. "the present scandal validates"

    How is the sexual misconduct of Tropper related to the liberal position of EJF regarding conversion? One could counter-claim that the violence in Yerushalayim reflects the strict position of Edah Charedit regarding conversion. In oder words, this is not a wise stetement, in my eyes.

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  4. Let me contend, then, that both the sexual misconduct of Tropper and the violence of the Charedim in Yerushalim validate that they err in not accepting basic facts of science such as the age of the Universe.

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  5. Moishe Refoel, please stop being foolish. It makes perfect sense that someone reaching out to be megayer shiksas improperly could be "dipping into the cookie jar" at the same time. Someone like Rav Sternbuch who is a tremendous talmid chochom has the ability to see signs that common people cannot.

    Try to think about that instead of brazenly attacking Rav Sternbuch for the violent actions of hotheads that he has been trying to stop. ANd before you falsely blame Rav Sternbuch for not doing enough to stop the rioting, he cannot control the zealots led by Dayan Weiss who even the Mir's Rav Finkel and Rav Elyashev have come out against.

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  6. "he cannot control the zealots led by Dayan Weiss who even the Mir's Rav Finkel and Rav Elyashev have come out against."

    Well you see, this is a common point. None of those Gedolim seems to be able to "control" the masses that claim to be led by them...

    So OK. This would mean that the whole business of "daas torah" is just a scam: you say you follow it when it pleases you, but when you Godol does not agree with you, you just ignore him...

    This might be part of the truth. But part of the truth might also be that those "Gedolim" care about some issues and do not care about others. Neither Reuven Feinstein nor Rav STernbuch seem to care about abuse of power towards Gerim or Giur candidates...

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  7. "It makes perfect sense that someone reaching out to be megayer shiksas improperly could be "dipping into the cookie jar" at the same time."

    In my eyes this is a despicable statement.
    Saying that someone is a "tremendous talmid chochom" is usually a sign of a weak argumentation. I fear this is a case in point.
    Saying that someone is foolish very rarely helps to have good discussions, and I fail to see how I qualified for this description.

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  8. "Try to think about that instead of brazenly attacking Rav Sternbuch for the violent actions of hotheads that he has been trying to stop."

    I did not attack Rav Sternbuch for that. I did attack the notion that Rav Sternbuch's position regarding Giur has somehow been validated by Tropper's private transgressions. To illustrate the absurdity of the notion, I mentioned the violence in Yerushalayim. It should be clear that I do not actually think that such violence validates the view that the Edah Charedit position regarding the age of the Universe is mistaken.

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  9. And Chazal tell us that we know a "memashmesh" is a ganav.

    There are simanim that lay hidden and I could see that Tropper's infatuation with being mekarev shiksas could portend an infatuation of a more personal nature.

    This is also akin to pedophiles who go into whatever field gives them access to chidren.

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  10. "Tropper's infatuation with being mekarev shiksas could portend an infatuation of a more personal nature."

    The other way around I think. His infatuation of a personal nature likely moved him to do things that were not good, for him. With his infatuation, he would also have fallen as a Rav Kehilla with no non-Jewish women. He would have fallen as a medical doctor, as a psychollogist, and so forth. However, that proves nothing: Many doctors, psychologists, and Kehilla rabbis, do not come even close to falling.

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  11. Different occupations have different rules with regard to yichud and other relationships with women for this reason.

    Men who for example are used to working with women or in a profession that regularly deals with women are considered "libo gas bah" (lit. his heart is full with her), in other words a man who loves or overly emphasizes with women.

    Such a man might be a Rabbi who counsels women, a doctor who treats women, a teacher of women or girls or a merchant who sells articles mainly purchased by women.

    Such a man must exercise a greater degree of separation than is normally required by the laws of yichud, between himself and temptation.

    One community Rav I know of has an entirely glass office and will only counsel women if his secretary is immediately outside.

    My husbands maternal grandfather,a"h had a store selling ladies clothing
    and he was known to always step outside,(it was a seasonal business, Asbury Park in the summer and St. Petersburg Beach in the winter) whenever a woman went into a fitting room.

    While such a degree of separation is not generally considered necessary for a shopkeeper in a store with big glass windows and an open door to the street, my husband's grandfather spent his life shopping for and "dressing" women; he was a professed true philogynist (lover of women) and therefore always took the extra measure to avoid the possibility of being in a situation which could potentially become problematic.

    The downfall of Leib Tropper, which was easy to predict is that he has for many years, believed that he was above Torah Law, ie. a Gadol imbued with the rare knowledge and insights which would enable the innovation of halacha.

    Since Tropper's high opinion of himself was not widely shared by our Gedolim, therein laid the predictable problem.

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  12. Boaz found himself spending the night with Ruth, and nothing happened.

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  13. jersey girl is right on the money. and thank you, r. eidensohn for your marvelous blog which i was only recently made aware of as a result of poking around about this scandal. your story about the belzers and r. sterbach had some subtle humor, which i appreciate while realizing it's not your specific approach on the blog. chazak v'ematz.

    i just wanted to say, as i've said elsewhere: the sexual aspects (shmutz) of this thing are almost unimportant, and certainly unneccesary for an understanding of troppers abuse of power and authority, which should be the main issue. in my view it's a real shame that titillating audio and video where finally necessary to take tropper down from his perch, when it should have been clear long ago that he is unfit to hold power over the weak- for instance, non-jewish women seeking to convert. and somehow, the fact that he's a theif has gotten lost in all the titillating stuff. i don't think g. aguiar has forgotten, though.

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  14. The connection between the 2 crimes committed by tropper is quite straightforward. It is the same attitude of doing what he wants that led him to do both things, if you know him even a bit you will know that he is like this, he thinks that he owns the world is unaccountable and controls it to. I know many religious people in Monsey who do not go into his 4 amos for the past 20 years or so since the original allegations of improper activites surfaces against him. This was under the DIRECT instruction of Rav Elya Svei Zatzal. For this story alone we can sa about Rav Elya Svei, Chaval al deavdin, the problem wouldn't have started ever if he would still be around.

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  15. Monsey Jew - I dont know why you say if Rav Elya was around it would be different. Rav Elya only recently died. I am sure it has not all happened only since Rav Elya died. As you say, Tropper has been like this for over 20 years

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  16. Rafi G.

    Rav Elya Zatzal died recently but was not in action for a few years prior to that. As long as RE was in action tropper never managed to do more than have a dozen boys learn in his "yeshiva".

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