Psychopathology of cults

Haaretz

Mati Lieblich will never forget the day she realized that a man who had been coming to her house for half a year and taking an active part in the study group she started was considered a dangerous guru.

At first she couldn't sleep at night. "He knew where I lived," she says about the sense of terror that overtook her. "He knew my son, he sat in my living room and learned from me."

She consulted with colleagues who warned her, and advised her to stop the relationship with the controversial man. But Lieblich saw an opportunity to try to understand the spiritual-psychological processes that create mentors who enslave their students' souls.

As a psychologist who had studied for her master's degree at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco - in the Eastern-Western psychology track, which combines the modern Western approach with the Eastern-spiritual approach - it was a professional challenge. The study group that met at her home was meant for therapists.

"They were all adults, with a lot of experience," she says. "An older man sat with us, who used to come with a young woman who wrote things down for him. He didn't introduce himself as a teacher, and at that point I didn't know that she was his student. She existed and was non-existent. She never spoke."

The group met once a week for almost a year.

"Slowly but surely, he began to tell us that he was a teacher," she says. "He began to reveal horrifying stories. He said that someone in his group had a problem of great anger, and he had advised him to initiate a traffic accident and then get out of the car and shout at the man with whose car he had collided on purpose. And I sat and listened, and all the warning signs were already flashing."

At that point, Lieblich turned to a friend who is an expert in the field, and asked about the man. "My friend reacted sharply. It turns out that he's one of the dangerous gurus operating here in Israel. And this was the first time I had to deal with the question of 'What do I do with this phenomenon?' I understood that this was a man who imposed thought control on his group, prevented people from getting into contact with their families, prevented them from sleeping, shook them up in front of the group and undermined everything they did. He moves them around among jobs, tells them to leave temporary jobs and transfers them from one job to another, and they don't settle down anywhere. And this man was sitting in my living room? Learning from me?" [...]

Another crappy Obama nomination

Michelle Malkin reports

I was going to ask whether Barack Obama’s vetters had taken a vacation.

But that would presume that they ever actually showed up for work.

The latest nightmare Obama nomination? Charles Freeman, the White House pick “to serve as chairman of the group that prepares the U.S. intelligence community’s most sensitive assessments, according to three congressional aides.” He’s got a rather, um, colorful history of Israel-bashing, America-bashing views and glaring conflicts of interests due to his Saudi and Chinese ties. Yet, the White House has only now decided to vet his record.

Hello?

Seriously?

Criticism of the pick is coming from all sides — Left and Right.

Frank Gaffney sums up this latest botch in four words: Garbage in, garbage out.

Epigram of this administration.

Obama's cynical use of banking crisis

The Sleight of Hand Behind Obama's Agenda

By Charles Krauthammer

Forget the pork. Forget the waste. Forget the 8,570 earmarks in a bill supported by a president who poses as the scourge of earmarks. Forget the "2 trillion dollars in savings" that "we have already identified," $1.6 trillion of which President Obama's budget director later admits is the "savings" of not continuing the surge in Iraq until 2019 -- 11 years after George Bush ended it, and eight years after even Bush would have had us out of Iraq completely.

Forget all of this. This is run-of-the-mill budget trickery. True, Obama's tricks come festooned with strings of zeros tacked onto the end. But that's a matter of scale, not principle.

All presidents do that. But few undertake the kind of brazen deception at the heart of Obama's radically transformative economic plan, a rhetorical sleight of hand so smoothly offered that few noticed.

The logic of Obama's address to Congress went like this:

"Our economy did not fall into decline overnight," he averred. Indeed, it all began before the housing crisis. What did we do wrong? We are paying for past sins in three principal areas: energy, health care and education -- importing too much oil and not finding new sources of energy (as in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf?), not reforming health care, and tolerating too many bad schools.

The "day of reckoning" has arrived. And because "it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament," Obama has come to redeem us with his far-seeing program of universal, heavily nationalized health care; a cap-and-trade tax on energy; and a major federalization of education with universal access to college as the goal.

Amazing. As an explanation of our current economic difficulties, this is total fantasy. As a cure for rapidly growing joblessness, a massive destruction of wealth, a deepening worldwide recession, this is perhaps the greatest non sequitur ever foisted upon the American people.

At the very center of our economic near-depression is a credit bubble, a housing collapse and a systemic failure of the banking industry. One can come up with a host of causes: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pushed by Washington (and greed) into improvident loans, corrupted bond-ratings agencies, insufficient regulation of new and exotic debt instruments, the easy money policy of Alan Greenspan's Fed, irresponsible bankers pushing (and then unloading in packaged loan instruments) highly dubious mortgages, greedy house-flippers, deceitful home buyers.

The list is long. But the list of causes of the collapse of the financial system does not include the absence of universal health care, let alone of computerized medical records. Nor the absence of an industry-killing cap-and-trade carbon levy. Nor the lack of college graduates. Indeed, one could perversely make the case that, if anything, the proliferation of overeducated, Gucci-wearing, smart-ass MBAs inventing ever more sophisticated and opaque mathematical models and debt instruments helped get us into this credit catastrophe.

And yet with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing-in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.

What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."[...]

Abuse - Action not talk is needed

Jewish Week

by David Framowitz
Special To The Jewish Week

When I arrived at the Boro Park Y last Sunday for Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind’s morning of chizuk (strength) for survivors of sexual abuse, I really didn’t know what to expect. But my first reaction upon hearing about the event was that victims don’t need a day of prayer; we are not the sick ones. What we do need is for the community leadership to publicly acknowledge that there is a problem and to direct the victims of abuse and their families to the police. It is only by doing this that we can protect our children and obtain justice.

But my curiosity got the better of me and I went. After all, since I came forward three years ago with my story charging abuse at the hands of Yehuda Kolko, numerous other victims of child sexual abuse have come forward to tell theirs — some of them most recently to Dov Hikind. Hikind began speaking about the issue on his radio show last summer and, to his self-confessed horror, the broadcasts prompted a flood of calls and visits to his office by victims. This ultimately led him to form a task force to address the problem he says is of epidemic proportions. I wanted to hear what he had to say.

I listened as speaker after speaker said nice things about Hikind’s role in bringing this issue to the forefront, and also about the need to protect our children. One rabbi even gave specifics, claiming that one of the solutions to this problem lies in our making sure that all classroom doors have unblocked windows and that no student is ever alone with a teacher.

All fine and good. But not one speaker actually uttered the words “sexual abuse.” And, even more amazing and disturbing, particularly considering Hikind’s claims that he has collected information about thousands of cases of sexual abuse, there was no mention of the imperative to report suspected molesters to the police. Instead, there was talk of balancing Jewish law and civil law and the need to work with rabbis in order to address the problem.

I am no scholar. But even I know that Jewish law dictates that it is incumbent upon anyone with knowledge of the existence of an abuser to report the abuser to the police. This is not my opinion. This is undisputed halacha as recently publicized in the written opinion of the most revered fervently Orthodox rabbinic leader alive today, Harav Elyashiv. [...]

A Letter by Shua Finkelstein a"h

Baruch Pelta sent me the following:

[When I went to yeshiva, I was in the same shiur as one Shua Finkelstein. Shua was recently niftar -- if I understand correctly, he died in his sleep. The truth is that I barely knew Shua, but I understand that he wrote the following letter which was posted on the Facebook group established in his memory. He wanted it to be publicized and perhaps it can stand as some small tribute towards his own concern for his community]

There is thing called child molestation that we have all heard of we all know it happens in different places we all know maybe priests or that creepy uncle. Let me tell you a little about this thing and first hand what it can do to a kid. A frum child is molested he knows nothing about tummah and kedusha all he knows is that he was violated that his body is a toy thats what gets engraved into his brain not that he is a person worthy of respect but that he is an object a tool. This kid grows up he knows nothing of sex all he knows is that he is dirty and that his rabbis say sex is bad he doesn't understand he thinks he is bad any mussar shmooz he hears it directly at him and this innocent kid begins to believe of himself as a bad person.Nobody likes being bad he will look for a place with no expectations of him a place were he can be free to fit in a world where everybody is bad....Chances are he will either convince himself this is the normal and pass it in to another innocent child or he will resort to rebelling to prove to himself he is as bad as he thinks he is......Often he will find drugs to take him away to give him an escape from his horrible reality....That being said...Did you ever notice a support our troops symbol on the back of somebody's car? do you know what that represents? that means that thousands of miles there are people no different then yourself fighting a war and that we support them that gives them the morals they need to keep doing what they must do in order to protect us.I dont expect to see "save our kids" on the back of all of our cars but is it too much to ask that each and everyone of us do our part???I will not mention names but there was one play group accused cased closed and dealt with. thats a start but that should send a chill down your spine theses are kids we are talking about.... there is another play group that is still open after over 5 cases have been brought against it!!!!! do you love your kids???? theses are the same kids that some vaad in lakewood will put in ad in the paper to protect from cellphone texting or god forbid a concert but did you see an ad saying Guard your kids!!!!?DO research!!!!! If your in doubt dont send them there! A play group that has had 5 allegations against it is still open????? Of course its there parnasah we are so worried about... Maybe i should fill you in on some facts there is a jewish rehab whose name i will not mention that deals with kids whose lives are in danger i spoke to the intake administrator there about the cliental from Lakewood and i was told 99.% of all kids from lakewood Yes lakewood our holy town who doesn't allow text messaging were molested in this town!!!!! and that is what led to there addiction! now some facts of this rehab which has a high success rate 50% dont stay clean and out of all the jewish kids there that leave and relapse there is an average of 3 jewish souls that die a year!!! Murdered by you and me and all of us unwilling to take a stand against these people in our community the rabbis are scared to do anything? its political?? how dare they say that?? this is life and death we are killing kids over here we are condemning them to a life of misery of lonely depression and god forbid of passing on this horrible sickness.IT IS YOUR DUTY as a Jew, As a Human to find these people in our community and no longer let them live among us!!!! 'Oy le rosha Oy le schayno' I think over here we are all the reshoim if we sit back and do nothing!! and if you dare say you are worried that people in play groups will lose there jobs there is some math you may want to do. a rehab a 6 month program to give a molested kid a chance $5,000 per months totals $30,000 now this place on average has 20 kids per six months thats $60,000 do you want me to count in the average fee of therapy $150-per hour????? or maybe you want the numbers i got from the local funeral homes?????? WAKE UP!!!!!! Ask yourself honestly is it that you are truly concerned about this just isn't your place or do you just not know what to do? I think trying to be worried about innocent money just went the window....This cannot be hidden any more!!!!! you know something speak up!!! have you been thru this??? share your story, help create support groups Help publicize this letter share your story.... If you are an offender seek help it can be done your amends will not be easy but it can be done.You can make one fatal mistake and that is to try and hide and think you will get passed by come out help fix the wrong before you will no longer have that chance EVER. If we all get together as a town to help weed this community it can be done with minimal damage. Anybody innocent who may receive slight setbacks because of this consider it your part in saving a life. ASHRECHA--

Homosexualtiy and Amalek

Rashi (Devarim 25:18): How Amalek met you by the way – this is a language of chance or accident. However another interpretation is that it is a language of impurity caused by seminal discharge. Meaning that it was a result of being impure through homosexual relations.

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[1] רש"י (דברים כה:יח): אשר קרך בדרך - לשון מקרה. דבר אחר לשון קרי וטומאה, שהיה מטמאן במשכב זכור.

Homosexuality - Obvious why it is prohibited

Igros Moshe (Y.D. 3:115): When the manuscript was sent to me I saw in it another matter. The wicked had intended to weaken the prohibition of homosexuality. First of all by raising the question as to why the Torah prohibited it. This itself is a great evil and it weakens the prohibitions to the wicked with this disgusting lust. In fact it is one of the greatest abominations that even the nations of the world know that it is an incomparable abomination. Therefore there is no need for any rationale to explain why it is an abomination that the whole world despises. The world already holds that the transgressors of this sin are disgusting and are not members of civilization at all. So when a reason is sought for this prohibition, this removes the obscenity from it. It removes the embarrassment, shame and disgrace and completely downplays the seriousness of this issue. Furthermore the answer - given in this manuscript to this question - is that the prohibition is in order to ensure that men will marry women and fulfill the obligation to have children. This further diminishes and weakens the prohibition. It is equivalent to saying that there is in this issue no sexual prohibitons at all but that the reason is just to ensure observance of the positive command to reproduce - which is not viewed as important by the world. These views are prohibited to publish. just as if they were outright heresy, since they represent a view which is contrary to the view of the Torah….

Civil Marriage in Israel?

Recipients and Publicity forwarded YNet

Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger says Rabbinate to convene Thursday to discuss controversial issue, but pledges it will not permit mixed marriages

PARIS – The Chief Rabbinate's Council will convene on Thursday to discuss the subject of civil marriage, Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger said on Wednesday. This will be the first time that the Rabbinate will discuss halachic solutions for non-religious marriage.

However, Metzger stressed that the rabbis will only exchange views and are not expected to make a decision on the matter. He spoke during the annual conference of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE) in Paris.

In his speech Metzger referred to the issue that has become one of the hot topics in the recent election campaign, and commented on the rabbis' involvement in the matter. "This has been deliberated by the great sages of Israel, and I know that both Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi Elyashiv have addressed it. But they haven't given their permission to anything."

The chief rabbi promised that in nay case, the council will not support mixed marriages, and said: "They (the Yisrael Beiteinu party) want a Jew and a non-Jew to be allowed to marry, and this will certainly not be permitted by anyone. It's inconceivable to have mixed marriages approved by a rabbi in Israel. We will do everything in order to keep the spirit of Israel holy.

"If God forbid we will do something against the Halacha or without the consent of the great sages of Israel – we will be dividing the nation," he added.

Rabbi Lau: Jews plagues by mixed marriages

On Monday, at the opening of the convention, Tel Aviv Rabbi Yisrael Lau harshly criticized Avigdor Lieberman's civil marriage drive and said that mix marriages were "the terrible catastrophe that is plaguing the people of Israel in the world today." [...]

Nullifying marriage with homosexual husband

Igros Moshe (E.H. 4:113): Concerning the present matter [where the wife has discovered that her husband has had homosexual relations], since we find that this is considered a major defect the marriage is a mistake also for the wife as I have explained in Igros Moshe (E.H. 1:79 and 1:180).. It is also reasonable that the fact that the husband is involved in homosexual relations - which are the worse possible abomination and most disgusting thing - it is a disgrace to the whole family.   And surely it is extremely degrading to his wife that her husband prefers this disgusting intercourse rather than intercourse with his wife.   Thus it is definitely a mistaken marriage. It is clear to us that no woman would be willing to marry such a disgusting, repulsive and debased man as this. Consequently if immediately after she was informed about this she left him - that if it is impossible for her to receive a divorce from him - that she should be permitted to remarry because of having a mistaken marriage. However if it is possible to obtain a divorce, it is necessary to try with all that is possible in order to obtain a kosher get. On the other hand, if he is not fully immersed in homosexuality - but only occasionally because of the influence of his lust -   perhaps this should not be considered to be a mistaken marriage. So even though he is a complete rasha (wicked) - even for the sake of a single incident – there are those who mistakenly imagine that this is called a mistaken marriage. However if he is fully immersed in homosexuality - in that he gets more pleasure from homosexual intercourse than from relations with women – it is definitely a mistaken marriage. All of this is if she left him immediately when she found out. But if she remains with him even after being notified, then it is difficult to nullify the marriage. If his behavior is the result of foolishness, since this is something which is unnatural it is definitely a defect. Since it is from foolishness it is likely that there are other manifestations of foolishness. However in essence it is from wickedness and is repulsive - which also makes it a mistaken marriage

Fatal lust for prohibited relations

Regarding the issue of a person who has a fatal lust for prohibited relations. The following are relevant to the issue.

Sanhedrin (75a): Rab Judah said in Rab's name: A man once conceived a passion for a certain woman,3 and his heart was consumed by his burning desire [his life being endangered thereby]. When the doctors were consulted, they said, ‘His only cure is that she shall submit.’ Thereupon the Sages said: ‘Let him die rather than that she should yield.’ Then [said the doctors]; ‘let her stand nude before him;’ [they answered] ‘sooner let him die’. ‘Then’, said the doctors, ‘let her converse with him from behind a fence’. ‘Let him die,’ the Sages replied ‘rather than she should converse with him from behind a fence.’ Now R. Jacob b. Idi and R. Samuel b. Nahmani dispute therein. One said that she was a married woman; the other that she was unmarried. Now, this is intelligible on the view, that she was a married woman, but on the latter, that she was unmarried, why such severity? — R. Papa said: Because of the disgrace to her family. R. Aha the son of R. Ika said: That the daughters of Israel may not be immorally dissolute. Then why not marry her? — Marriage would not assuage his passion, even as R. Isaac said: Since the destruction of the Temple, sexual pleasure has been taken [from those who practise it lawfully] and given to sinners, as it is written. Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.4

Rambam(Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 5:9): A man who lusts after a particular woman and is dying because of this lust and the doctors say that there is no other cure except for him to have intercourse with her – it is better to let him die even if she is unmarried. Even to speak with her when she is behind a fence is not something we tell him to do. He should die rather than speak to her from behind a fence. Jewish girls should not be freely available because this will lead to a licentious attitude to sex

רמב"ם (הלכות יסודי התורה ה:ט):מי שנתן עיניו באשה וחלה ונטה למות ואמרו הרופאים אין לו רפואה עד שתבעל לו, ימות ואל תבעל לו אפילו היתה פנויה, ואפילו לדבר עמה מאחורי הגדר אין מורין לו בכך וימות ולא יורו לדבר עמה מאחורי הגדר שלא יהו בנות ישראל הפקר ויבואו בדברים אלו לפרוץ בעריות.

Abuse - Mikvas are dangerous places

Just a reminder that mikvas are places that children need protection from molesters. This is a problem in all religious communities.

Mekubal just forward this:

Crown Heights.info reports

CROWN HEIGHTS [CHI] — At 4:12pm, Friday, Erev Shabbos, a child called the Shomrim hotline asking for help. The child stated that he was just molested at the Empire Shtibel Mikvah and the perpetrator was still in the Mikvah.

Numerous Shomrim members arrived on the scene within seconds. After speaking to the child, they requested for Police to further investigate. The members had the suspect, a 23 year old Israeli, wait for Police.

The child told the Police what happened and the officers, then walked suspect to precinct, for further questioning by detectives.

After being interrogated at the precinct the suspect was formally arrested on charges pertaining to his crimes.

Homosexuality - Unnatural relationship

Maharal(Be’er HaGola 6:2):…Concerning homosexuality, G‑d gave man normal sexual relations with a woman and this person has it with a male. There is no greater sin and negation of the perfection of man than this.

Rambam(Commentary to Sanhedrin 7:4): All those with whom sexual relations is prohibited, it is prohibited to be secluded with them – except with another male or an animal. That is because Jews are not suspected of homosexuality or bestiality. The reason for this is because the people are pure and they have no desire or lust for these two behaviors - which are outside the realm of nature.

Abuse - Mother in Chen case agrees to plea

JPost writes

A mother of eight from Jerusalem who is on trial for severely abusing her children signed a plea bargain on Sunday according to which she would turn state witness in return for only five years in prison.

The 38-year-old American-born woman, who was arrested and indicted last year in one of the worst child abuse cases ever uncovered in Israel's history, has remained in detention since her arrest.

The alleged ringleader in the abuse case, "Rabbi" Elior Chen, who fled the country after news of the case broke, is fighting an Israeli extradition request in a Brazilian court. According to the agreement announced on Sunday, the mother's testimony would likely provide incriminating facts which would help Israel solidify its extradition case.

In January, the extradition case took an unexpected turn when Brazil asked Israel for clarifications about its judicial authority in the West Bank settlement where the suspect lives.[...]

EJF - marriage to Ohr Somayach /RaP's comments

Recipients and Publicity comment to "EJF - Trojan horse proselytizing":

Horizons & Ohr Somayach in Phoenix, Arizona, get together for a party and the town joins in.

For the first time in a long time an infomercial obviously coming from Rabbi Tropper's sources does NOT mention the name "EJF" at all, altho there is an obvious hint to it, EJF is not mentioned explicitly, what's up?

And once again, since knowledge of the split between the Rabbi Tropper & Dr. Tom Kaplan duo from their former partner Guma Aguiar was blown wide open, the name Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation is not mentioned (Guma still controls it), why is that?

Tom Kaplan himself is also keeping a low profile as his name hardly comes up publicly in association with Rabbi Tropper as it often did in the past when Kaplan-sponsored programs by both Horizons and EJF were written up. Why?

There are still a number of things to consider when reading the following:

What has brought about this new "marriage of convenience" bteween two bitter foes? since from the time Ohr Somayach and Rabbi Schiller let Rabbi Tropper go about 30 years ago, Tropper has never pulled his punches about his differences with Ohr Somyach and its relatively more moderate approach versus his steam-rollering of new recruits to become eovernight farbrente yeshivishe people, "more holy than the pope" [lehavdil] as the saying goes.

[see comments section of EJF - Trojan horse proselytizing] for rest