Op Ed: 10th of Teves Report Card

 בס"ד

9 Teves, 5785/ January 9, '25 (ver. 3)

A shorter, less specific version of this appears in this week's MonseyMevaser.com, page 10.

Serving as a Shlucha DeRabbanan ("Rabbinic Designee") for many years, via involvement in a broad spectrum of issues foundational to both Torah values and the needs of the Jewish community, I'd like to share some thoughts pertaining to Asarah BeTeves, the fast of the Tenth of Teves, this year (thoughts relevant to the types of work I've had the opportunity to do).

The saintly Chassam Sofer (Drashos for Adar 7th, printed in Toras Moshe) identifies the magnitude of this fast day, marking the onset of the siege against Yerushalayim by Nevuchadnetzar, as the day each year on which the Heavenly Court adjudicates whether we will merit the rebuilding of the Bais HaMikdash in that very year.

It's for this reason that if, theoretically, the Tenth of Teves would ever be able to fall out on a Shabbos (it cannot), we'd actually fast on Shabbos (the view of the Avudraham, dissenting from Rashi). The Chassam Sofer explains that inasmuch as fasting on this particular fast day is primarily preventative - namely, aimed at Teshuva (repentance) - in order to avoid a virtual "re-enactment" of the Destruction, the Churban HaBayis that year - we'd be allowed - and required - to fast (akin to fasting on Shabbos for a Ta'anis Chalom, which is similarly pre-emptive in nature).

Accordingly, given all that's at stake on Asarah BeTeves, we would greatly benefit from preparing something akin to a communal Cheshbon HaNefesh, a "report-card," identifying needed improvements on the pivotal concerns that Chazal (our Sages) specify as impediments to the Final Redemption. Perhaps this communal report-card need not be completed by the Tenth of Teves. However, we clearly ought to immediately commit to working on it going forward, if we're at all serious about meriting the Redemption.

Those who may be reluctant to invest much effort out of a sense of frustration with the broader tzibbur ought to bear in mind what Rav Yeshaya HaCohen ZT"L writes (at the end of his commentary published in his reprint of the Tonnah De'Vei Eliyahu: ) - namely, that if an individual ensures that the Redemption is not being impeded on his own account, then - even if the Jewish People does not merit the much-awaited communal Redemption - he may individually merit his own personal redemption.

For the benefit of the esteemed Tzibbur, we present a brief, non-comprehensive selection of issues that require communal attention, not necessarily in order. Even if individuals are clean of an aveirah (sin) on their own, nevertheless, in the Vidui, we can all accurately proclaim "Ti'avnu" ("we have sinned via abominations") et.al. - due to our numerous shortfalls in addressing communal failures in these areas, such as allowing or enabling legalization and/or institutionalization of these very severe sins to occur, or continue (see the Akaidas Yitzchak, Parshas VaYeira, 20, regarding Sodom).

° Firstly, Tanach and Tefillah (liturgy) are replete with references to the all-inclusive, overarching imperative of advancing Kiddush HaShem (Sanctification of the Divine Name), and the role of Kovod Shomayim in bringing the Final Redemption. It follows that the more we distance ourselves from those imperatives, the graver risk we run of delaying the Redemption or/and failing to merit seeing it.

° Chazal exhort us that the first Bais HaMikdash was destroyed due to (1) Avoda Zorah (loosely translated as "foreign Service," aka "idolatry"), (2) Gil'uy Arayos (aka immorality), and (3) She'fichus Do'mim (bloodshed). Unfortunately, we have much work to do in uprooting these dangers, and opposing the many influential people in our midst who are enabling or advancing these cardinal sins (see further, below).

° The Second Mikdash was destroyed in wake of Sin'as Chinam and Lashon HaRah (baseless antipathy and improper denigratory speech), which, as the world-renowned Bais HaLevi  explains (in Parshas Bo, toward end, p. 133 (5756 ed.)), led the people away from the Sages, end thereby facilitated their succumbing to kefirah, heretical ideas. The latter - heretical shitos - he notes, were actually the direct cause of the Churban.

° The SMA"G (Sefer Mitzvos Gadol) describes Gezel Akum (theft from non-Jews) as another impediment to the Redemption (see Asin 74 (Hashovas Avaidah); cf. Lo-Saaseh 2; B'er Hagolah on Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 348).

Perhaps an allusion to that can be found in this week's Parsha, VaYechi, in the aliyah of Shishi (corresponding to the sixth day of the week, Friday, on which Asara Be'Teves falls this year). Shishi  begins with a reference to the right of the Kohanim to Kod'shei HaMikdash (Rashi 48:27, end). It then continues - in unusual detail - describing the purchase of the Me'aras HaMachpeilah burial site by Avrohom Avinu. The latter elaboration may allude to the directive to Klal Yisroel at the End of Days (perhaps alluded to via the final moments of Yaakov Avinu) to remain particularly vigilant in avoiding even the mere perception of financial impropriety vis-à-vis non-Jews.*

{* One simple example is boarding a bus without paying his fair share.}

° The Sefer Yerai'yim (Issur Kishuf) identifies the or presence of the Mechashef (sorcerer) in our midst as "the impediment" to the Final Redemption, citing the Mishna in Sotah 48a, referring to Znus and Keshafim.  Sorcerers are known to routinely commit and/or promote several of the aforementioned sins, among others.  This holds true whatever position one takes on the effectiveness/power of the prohibited acts of Kishuf.

Recent years have seen a multi-front infiltration of a panapoly of far-Eastern/ New-Age ideas, practices, and attitudes into our communities - in and beyond the Health arena - under the guise of being natural, safe, and purportedly "compatible" with Torah Law and Thought. Many of these infiltrations involve Avoda Zorah or Kefirah (heresy) in some manner. Some also have raised objections pertaining to Kishuf/ Kosaim concerns, independent of whatever position one takes on the contemporary efficacy of Kishuf. We've addressed these issues extensively, fielding Shailos internationally for over twenty years (email Tomim1679@gmail.com for free information). This entire arena needs far more attention and care than is being provided, in great measure due to lack of accurate guidance and information.

° As Chazal emphasize at the end of Gemara Makkos (24a), the core mission of Jews in our age is to focus on fortifying ourselves in "Emunah" (loosely translated as unwavering, unequivocal conviction in the immutable truth of Yiddishkeit, as transmitted by our Sages from Har Sinai; see Bais HaLevi, Bo, ibid., p. 134).*

(* Perhaps this too is especially alluded to this year by the response of Yosef (50:19-20) - highlighting his epic Emunah and Bitachon - being at the very end of Shishi (again, corresponding to Friday.)

~~~

As we presented on our weekly Levin-At-Eleven radio broadcast (WSNR620AM) last Thursday night, simply recognizing where we need improvement on these matters is a big step forward. Such honest introspection directs us away from a prevailing self-adulatory obliviousness to our shortfalls, which itself endangers us. As Rabbeinu Yeruchum Levovitz ZT"L explains (in Sefer Da'as Torah, Parshas Mishpatim), by accepting Mishpot - meaning, by truly acknowledging the Divine Judgment we actually deserve - we can avert the need to actually endure that Mishpot (Divine Retribution).

~~~

There are a multitude of practical applications of the above observations, all of which provide valuable growth opportunities - demanding our compliance.

A few specific areas of potential improvement, primarily for here in the U.S.,  include the following, again, not necessarily in order:

° 1) Bloodshed: 

A. Assisted Suicide:

Jews must mobilize against attempts to legalize, legitimize, or otherwise advance Assisted Suicide/"Euthanasia" - which seriously threatens numerous localities, including NY State (e.g. https://www.timesunion.com/capitol/article/advocates-renew-push-legalize-physician-assisted-20018640.php).

This is all the more incumbent on us in the wake of our overall communal silence over the inexcusable, undemocratic removal of all opposition to Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia from the Republican Party Platform several months ago at the GOP convention in Milwaukee, WI, perpetrated by Trump and his faux-Conservative devotees, who've apparently swapped devotion to ideals for persona veneration.

ימינם ימין שקר (תהילים קמד)

B. Abortion-at-Whim:

Abortion is described by the Holy Zohar as an impediment to the Redemption. Actively opposing abortion-at-whim would have the opposite effect. So let's ask ourselves what we can do to act on this.

Observations similar to those made above regarding Assisted Suicide can be made in regard to abortion-on-demand.  We cannot rely on help from the Republican Party, as a whole.  The previously wide-ranging GOP opposition to abortion-on-demand was undemocratically decimated by Trump's delegates in the 2024 Platform ( https://catholicism.org/pro-life-positions-discarded-from-the-2024-republican-platform.html).

See: 

2016 GOP Platform (not changed in 2020) - https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/media/documents/DRAFT_12_FINAL%5B1%5D-ben_1468872234.pdf

2024 GOP Platform - https://prod-static.gop.com/media/RNC2024-Platform.pdf

Here's a a very brief FRC document comparing the two -- not the best of documents, but still useful -- https://downloads.frcaction.org/EF/EF24G03.pdf

Here's the 2024 GOP platform as originally publicized by Trump - https://rncplatform.donaldjtrump.com/ .

° The over-celebrated US Supreme Court "Dobbs" decision to send the abortion battle back to the states did exactly that. Thereby, the justices released a predictable torrent of advocacy for abortion-at-whim around the US, and beyond. And it seems that overall the tide is not turning in favor of life.

We as Jews need to be in the forefront of advocacy against the current abortion-on-demand cult, especially in light of how much ongoing, public Chillul HaShem and distortion of Torah is regular perpetrated by those who agitate for flippant abortionism - and often do so in the name of Judaism -- be they shrill teleprompters from the leftist National Council Of Jewish (sic) Women(?), or morally-compromised lobbyists representing ostensibly Orthodox financial interests.

~~~

Eretz Yisroel:

In Israel, where perhaps over two million Jewish babies have been killed - not by Arab or Islamic terrorists - but by Israeli abortion perpetrators, there are monumental challenges to overcome. Perhaps the most durable, effective off-ramp of this ongoing kitrug would be to secure leftwing support to end the female military draft, and thereby reduce the abortion-on-demand that is common in the Army.  That's a positive policy shift that, if promulgated, may likely endure, regardless of regime change. See also https://daattorah.blogspot.com/2019/10/making-racism-great-again.html.

Of course, some will argue that the Israeli Army needs every body, including women. The truth is that what they "need" the women for has little to do with military readiness or effectiveness, but has much to do with promoting an anti-Torah, exploitive agenda, more congruent with human-trafficking than fighting wars.

In their unrelenting efforts to illustrate precisely how the sign of an idiot is indeed repetition of the same acts - while expecting different results - most Israeli policymakers refuse to realize that whatever shortfalls in manpower they suffer are assiduously self-inflicted.  The absence of the babies they've been mercilessly aborting for decades are now being felt, measure for measure. Idiots indeed... 

תיסרך רעתך...

Furthermore, if the Israeli Idiot Class would only have allowed all of those traditional girls from Aidot HaMizrach to get married young, rather than draft them into the Army as Mizron Tzahali (as the female recruits are known in internal IDF parlance) -- they would have a significantly larger population by now. It is their own wickedness burying them. Nevertheless, these intrepids persist in their refusal to learn, even in the midst of a seemingly never-ending war.  

Instead, they're occupying their time by scapegoating Chareidim who refuse to send their 18-year-old boys to sacrifice their souls on the altar of a generally co-ed, LGBTQ-compatible, secularizing, girl-drafting military -- one that would put the Hellenists of old to shame.

So, what's our excuse for not calling them out on that?

° 2) Avoda Zorah:

For one pervasive example, see above, regarding the infiltration of New-Age/ far-Eastern influences. For some specific contemporary concerns, see:

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2020/08/bsd-insights-from-parshas-shoftim-on-of.html

https://daattorah.blogspot.com/2020/07/is-energy-healing-form-of-avodah-zarah.html

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-shitah-of-chi-is-foundational-god.html

In the context of Avoda Zorah, we also need to address Minnus/ Epikorsus, heresy. Heresy was mentioned previously, in context of the cause of the destruction of the Second Bais HaMikdash. At that time, those forms of heresy took on a somewhat different form. The forms of heresy we face today within Orthodox communities vary widely. One common set of heresies that we've been countering for about 25 years are those associated with far-eastern religion, e.g. Taoism (one of the main religious systems in China). These heretical influences have been cropping up in our neighborhoods as toxic runoff from the New-Age movement, via their frum-looking apostles, e.g. Rephoel Szmerla, who's writings (past and future) have been banned by over a dozen Rabbonim (in 5777), and, more recently, Mrs. Chany Felberbaum, who propagandizes Orthodox women (in cooperation with Szmerla-disciple Mrs. Rochel Alpert), operating under the influence of the New-Ager Christian Mickelsen, to name just a few.

It's important to bear in mind the description of Minnus of Rav Shamshon Rephoel Hirsch (printed in Collected Writings, Vol. 6, e.g., p. 278, para.1), namely the violation - by Jews - of Torah Law and Truth in principle (beShitah). There, Rav Hirsch ZY"A proceeds to demonstrate that we need distance ourselves from such Jews even more than from gentile idolaters, citing the Gemaras Avoda Zorah 27b and Shabbos 116a.

° 3) Immorality:

This broad topic requires far more space than we have here, especially pertaining to the "LGBTQ" agenda. For one example, see  http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2020/12/10th-of-teves-alert-making-lgbt.html.

° A major element of the challenge we face is to rescue the Torah-observant public from the harmful influence of the terrible messaging many are imbibing from faux-frum agenda-proponents - representing themselves as news reporters.

One recent, particularly outrageous example impossible to overlook is this headline on YWN - fawning over Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana. MK Ohana is flagrant about his purport "marriage" to another similarly deviant man - along with two adopted children (!). And this is what YWN posted, for the consumption of his clueless Orthodox Jewish readers:

"HISTORIC: Knesset Holds First-Ever Chanukah Hadlakah in Plenum" 

https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/liveblogs/live-blog/2347452/historic-knesset-holds-first-ever-chanukah-hadlakah-in-plenum.html

For background on the Hellenistic Menorah-arsonist Amir Ohana, facts conveniently omitted by YWN:

https://www.jewishaz.com/us_worldnews/israel/how-likuds-first-openly-gay-mk-came-out-of-the-political-closet/article_c6f908ea-b4ab-11e5-b3dd-33f1aaead981.html

Worse, in the video YWN posted, Ohana comes across to the average uniformed viewer as heroic - by virtue of defying a leftist female MK protesting his unprecedented lighting of the Menorah in the Knesset. The Greeks, against whom the Chashmonayim waged a miraculous war, were avid proponents of homosexual depravity. Over 2,100 years later, YWN figured out a way to exploit Chanukah to advance desensitization of the Torah public to the worst form of such Sodomism, namely "sodomatrimony" (see Talmud Chullin 92a). By trafficking in an acutely slanted news presentation, YWN helps enable Ohana fulfill his role of garnering a degree of tolerance - and even respect - in certain Orthodox quarters.

Thus, YWN enables the public exploitation of Chanukah - and for the most abominable purposes - to promote and even celebrate a flagrant same-sex-"marriage" perpetrator, and same-sex-adoption perpetrator.

This type of whitewashing of flagrant Sodomists by ostensibly Orthodox media is precisely why the Jewish People are in such straits (pardon the pun). The Orthodox Jewish public is, overall, simply mal-informed and misdirected by misleading influencers. This scenario is described in high relief in Sefer Yechezkel 34 (encapsulated in 34:2). And we are at fault for tolerating this ongoing degradation of the Tzibbur by this cast of charlatans. What should be rebranded as Yesvekes* Woke News - and their LGBTQ-enabling collaborative - could not accomplish such "feats" without our enabling thereof.

* See Reb Elchonon Wasserman, Kovetz He'oros on Yevamos, Aggadah, 10:5 - and his categorization thereof. The Yesvekes were virulently anti-Torah communist persecutors of observant Jews, despite - or perhaps because of - their biologically Jewish extraction.

~~~ ~~~

Making Americans Gay All-Over...

Going forward into the upcoming US Administration, it's vital we dispel some dangerous misconceptions pertaining to who our allies are - and are not - in regard to foundational moral battles.

° Contrary to popular misconception, Trump & Co. gutted all opposition to the homosexualist agenda from the GOP platform, at the Convention in Milwaukee. Prior to that strike against the remnants of the moral fiber of the Republican Party, Trump had been an open advocate of much of the LGBTQ agenda, as highlighted by his brazen pre-Primary celebration of Biden signing Federal same-sex "marriage" legislation in December 2022:

"... Trump led the crowd in formal cheers, advocating to joyous revelry that “we are fighting for the gay community, and we are fighting and fighting hard.” ( http://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/16/celebration-same-sex-marriage-mar-a-lago-00074441 ).

 ° This, while Trump and his enablers have been ostentatiously grandstanding against some of the extremes of transgender wickedness - threats which we confront in part due to Trump's own compromises on all of the other aspects of the LGBTQ agenda that led directly into the trans-lunacy extremes we're seeing now.

° Trump has already appointed at least three openly LGBT- types to serve in his Second (or Third??) Coming, most recently Ms. Tammy Bruce, an open lesbian, pro-abortion former head of NOW -- for a prominent position at the State Department.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5066883-trump-taps-ex-fox-news-contributor-to-join-his-state-department/ 

https://www.c-span.org/program/in-depth/tammy-bruce/171740#!

This follows Trump's appointment of flagrant Sodomism-devotees Scott Besent and Ric Grennell, to Treasury (!) and for "Special Missions," respectively.

There is hope, however, as long as some keep up the fight (e.g. https://link.massresistance.org/click/M_Sn80D2wN8D.U1a7cT36YBVb.6c-I2QDDP-F/CbFYSw4e/3s/www.massresistance.org/docs/gen5/25a/State-Obergefell-resolutions/index.html).  As Rav Shamshon Rephoel Hirsch ZT"L (d. 1888, Germany) writes, the Truth never lost due to its opposition. The only time that Truth loses beyond recall is when its' advocates fail to properly articulate it and fight for it (Collected Writings, Vol.6, p. 104).

~~~

ימינם ימין שקר (תהילים קמד)

For more information on the GOP Platform saga, and Trump's ongoing undermining of morality, one may want to see the most recent Catholic Action League statement, at the top of their site:

http://catholicactionleague.org/ *

{* no individual links to the news releases on that site}.

Two more relevant statements appear  on Catholicism.org:

https://catholicism.org/pro-life-waterloo-moral-revolution-in-the-republican-party.html

https://catholicism.org/pro-life-positions-discarded-from-the-2024-republican-platform.html

As Torah-devotees, we must lead, not follow. Unfortunately, we can "count" on numerous influential, Trump-devoted Christian advocacy organizations -- to exchange their core moral values for a seat at the Trump-table -- almost as much as we can expect Trump to continue to escalate his efforts to transform the morally-degraded Republican Party base into an Omain-Chorus for his Trump-centric, homosexualist-friendly, abortionism-compatible vision for the remnants of the Republican Party... to Make Americans Ga'avadik Again.

We must realize that we cannot possibly afford to rely on the ostensibly conservative media - or even to the profamily establishment - for either active leadership, operational guidance, or accurate perspectives...

עם לבדד ישכון (דברים לב:יב)

When we fully acknowledge this reality, we'll be on our way to forging a productive path forward. Even if we succeed only in getting the Truth to those who seek it, we'll have accomplished a monumental task.

~~~ ~~~

Eretz Yisroel:

As far as LGBT in Israel goes, that's an additional discussion. Suffice it here to say that we don't want to this LGBTQ wickedness transplanted from America to Israel: