Tefilin dates and kiruv

 

Understanding the Marc Gafni Story

 https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/understanding-the-marc-gafni-story-part-ii

In 2004, The Jewish Week ran a damning exposé on Gafni, which included Mr. Gafni’s admission of the incidents with the ninth-grader, as well as the news that Shlomo Riskin had rescinded his rabbinic ordination. The article quoted Gafni saying he now took precautions against future missteps: “‘I don’t work with kids,’” Gafni said, “‘I don’t counsel men or women, and I don’t meet alone with women.’”

Kiruv at lincoln square - gafni

 https://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/mordecai_gafni.htm

 Judy told her story to Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. He chose to believe Winiarz.

Judy told one of her counselors in JPSY, Susan.

Susan brought Judy to Rabbi Blau who put out the word that Winiarz was dangerous.

I'm told by anti-Winiarz sources that an informal Beit Din was convenened in New York about Marc and Judy. That Winiarz was told to quit his job and move from New York to some unsuspecting community and make a new life (that was how these things were handled until recently).

Marc: "This New York Beit Din story is a complete fabrication. The Judy encounter should've been dealt with and healed immediately. I kept running JPSY for a couple of years [after the Judy controversy]."

Rabbi Yosef Blau's wife Rivkah worked for R. Shlomo Riskin in the 1970s and early 1980s (she ran his girls' high school). She frequently found it distressing and burned out twice. She and her husband appeared to have a tense relationship with R. Riskin (though they've all since buried the hatchet, and R. Blau has a son who works for R. Riskin).

Marc Winiarz was R. Riskin's poster boy.

R. Riskin was trying to raise money to show that he could produce a new generation of rabbis. The first (and only in the United States?) guy R. Riskin ordained was Winiarz.

Yeshiva University's backbenchers were furious at R. Riskin for starting his own Hebrew high school (Ohr Torah). R. Riskin was talking about starting his own ordination program up the road from YU. R. Riskin was taking funding that used to go to YU. The guy who funded Ohr Torah was Max Stern of Stern College (the women's branch of YU) fame.

Rabbi Blau and Marc Winiarz had a confrontation in 1985 in a hallway on the third or fourth floor of YU.

According to sources, the confrontation went like this:

Marc. "Rabbi Blau, what are you doing? Are you crazy? Why haven't you come to talk to me to heal this thing? You're spreading stories that are not true."

Rabbi Blau says: "I'm going to get you."

Marc responds: "Why don't you first take care of problems in your own home before you start throwing stones at other people?"

I hear that Rabbi Blau then threw a punch at Marc and said, "I'll bring you down."

On Oct. 12, 2004, R. Blau told me: "At one point, Mordechai came into my office and told me he'd get my wife. I was stern with him. He was threatening."

In July 2008, I ask Marc about all this. He replies: "This was a long time ago. I wish the Blaus well. I no longer live in their world. Perhaps one day in the future we will all be able to sit down like human beings and heal this."

In early 1986, Winiarz finished his term at JPSY.

Marc: "I ended JPSY for a simple reason. A lot of people who do youth work does it between 18 and 26 and then you burn out."

Luke: "Weren't you exiled to Boca? Wasn't there a Beit Din convened?"

Marc: "It never happened."

Luke: "So you went to Boca voluntarily?"

Marc: "Of course.

"It's a natural transition. I went to Rabbi Kenny Hain, who was head of communal services at YU. I was ready to take a pulpit. He suggested Boca Raton."

The rabbi in Boca Raton before Winiarz was Mark Dratch, Rabbi Norman Lamm's son-in-law.

The congregation (Boca Raton Community Synagogue) had about 20 families. They'd been brutal to R. Dratch. One guy was particularly vicious -- attorney Steve Marcus who was murdered in a gay bar ten years later.

Rabbi Lamm came down to help his son-in-law. When he got up to speak, four people turned their chairs to face the wall.

Nobody wanted to take the pulpit that R. Lamm had ostracized.

Winiarz moved to Boca Raton around 1986. He did a great job in outreach. He was charismatic. The size of the congregation tripled.

Marc ruffled feathers. Before the high holidays, he took out full page ads in the local Jewish newspaper that said, 'Are you bored with impersonal and monotonous services? Come join Rabbi Marc.'

"The other rabbis in town were furious with me," says Marc, "because they felt I was describing their congregation, which of course I was."

Insiders and outsiders in the Torah world

From comments I wrote on Avodah in 1999

 I think a rather inaccurate and naive black and white picture is being presented of the nature of information transfer in the Orthodox world. There are those who feel that if we only have Artscroll biographies - then future talmidei chachomim will inevitably repeat the errors of their predecessors. This is contrasted with the narrow minded rosy view of the right wing that halacha requires focusing only on the positive and perhaps even lying c.v.. I once asked one of my sons who was learning at Ponevitch about this issue. He replied, "the rosy stories are presented for the masses. The fact is that anyone who is going somewhere in the Torah world has full access to the stories - but it is kept as Torah Shebaal Peh. It is simply a question of to'eles. For someone who is an outsider and is not immersed in learning - the raw stories are harmful because they will be misunderstood. For the insiders - those who come in contact with the big people - the stories are understood in context." Thus for those historians (and baalei batim) who rely primarily on written material - there is a great disparity of what is learned compared to one who has close relationships to gedolei Torah - who pass down information concerning these issues. It is rather naive to think that someone who has studied world history, Jewish history and American History and regularly reads the New York Times, Jewish Press as well as participating in internet discussion is more sophisticated in understanding the dynamics of Torah and Torah politics than the elite who devote their lives to study at the main yeshivos whether it is Lakewood or Yeshiva University. This filtering of information relates to the problem of the letters published by the Tora UMaddah Journal. Aside from the halachic question of publishing these letters is the question of what information Rav Weinberg wanted publicized. There is no question that the harsh condemnations stated in the letters are stated nowhere else in his large numbers of published letters and tshuvos. Did he not publish them elsewhere because he simply felt that they would not be properly understood in written form or did he conceal them because he was legitimately afraid that he would be condemned for these views? Did he strongly exaggerate his views to Prof. Atlas as a way of empathizing with his correspondent's views or were these in fact his actual personal views that he expressed to anyone he felt he could trust? The bottom line is that the publication of the letters severely damaged his reputation in the Orthodox world where he has been acknowledged as one of the major talmidei chachomim of the 20th century. If the views are accurate then he and his halachic opinions will be discounted or ignored - if they are not accurate then his name has simply been besmirched. So what was gained? Did someone think that there would be a movement of talmidei chachomim to legitimize the harsh statements found in the letters? Did someone fantasize that Rav Weinbergs standing is so absolute that it would influence and bend the whole world in his direction?! 

I am sorry for the upset that my last posting caused but it *is* an accurate statement of the Litvak point of view. (I believe that there is a totally different dynamic in the chassidic world.) Let me mention two solid sources expressing the elitist litvak view. The first is Rav Dessler's famous essay (vol 3 page 355) stating that there should be only two options - full time learning or a low status job. The second is Rav Moshe's (Igros Moshes Y.D. IV 36.15 page 233) adamant refusal to give a baal habayis the status of a ben Torah. Thus in the litvische yeshiva world - those who are not major league talmidei chachomim or on their way to being such are outsiders and deliberately so. This puts tremendous pressure on people to learn - swim or sink. But even someone learning full time in kollel - but not regarded as going somewhere is also an outsider. In contrast I was told (by one of the Bostoner Rebbe's sons) that in the chassidic world being a chasid is itself adequate status. "As long as you cling to the Rebbe it compensates for the fact that you are not a tzadik or talmid chachom". He further stated that the chasid is more likely to learn in a gentlemanly way while the litvak's concern is to defeat his opponent - the result being that the litvak takes his learning much more seriously and personally. [I am aware that there are chasidim who learn like litvaks - but as a generalization it seems to be true] Bottom line. There are insiders and outsiders in the Torah world. (Something which I had thought was obvious to all.) The insiders have access to information which not available to the outsiders. This is related also to the issue of midgets and giants.

Hanukkah gelt

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah_gelt

 Rabbi A. P. Bloch has written that

"The tradition of giving money (Chanukah gelt) to children is of long standing. The custom had its origin in the 17th-century practice of Polish Jewry to give money to their small children for distribution to their teachers. In time, as children demanded their due, money was also given to children to keep for themselves. Teenage boys soon came in for their share. According to Magen Avraham (18th century), it was the custom for poor yeshiva students to visit homes of Jewish benefactors who dispensed Chanukah money (Orach Chaim 670). The rabbis approved of the custom of giving money on Chanukah because it publicized the story of the miracle of the oil."^[1]