Channukah Ends on A Sad Note

Channukah ends on a sad note! 12/17/2012 0 Comments   Channukah Ends on A Sad Note ***Oy the poor mother ***What does a mother do when she is frightened of her own child? ***For some, the brain fog is so dense that 5-6-year-old  children,  appear to be threatening monsters ***There is only one thing to do. Light the human Candle every day. As Channukah draws to a close, America is mourning the senseless death of 20 children killed in their school in Newtown Connecticut. The Principal and several teachers also lost their lives as they tried to protect the children from a maniac who came to the elementary school armed with a semi-automatic rifle. Nancy Lanza the mother of the shooter had a secret. Her son Adam, was insane and was capable of killing innocent young children. Ms. Lanza may not have known how deeply disturbed Adam was, but surely she knew that she was personally at risk. What does a mother do when she is frightened of her own child? Does a mother ever really believe that her child is capable of killing her or others? Are the mental health services available to us able to cope with a homicidal and suicidal adult. How does a parent introduce that conversation to a mental health worker? It is a serious allegation to make against our own child? Put yourself in that mother's place. What would you have done? It is the custom of those who pray on Channukah to light the menorah and pray during the day as the lights burn. The lights burn to remind us that every day the light of God surrounds us and guides us as we exercise our thoughts and make our way through the day. For some the light of God is present, however, the spirit is obscured by a brain fog that descends and distorts our thoughts and our vision. For some, the brain fog is so dense that 5-6-year-old  children,  appear to be threatening monsters that must be destroyed. The sounds of the police coming toward Adam drove him to take his  life. How deep is the pain, how immensely sad the confusion. Adam took the gun and shot himself fatally in the head. Did he know that what he was doing was wrong? There is only one thing to do. Light the human Candle every day. The laws of Channukah prohibit us from using the light of the candle to read or work by and that is because the light is to serve, we must use our light to serve. Serve God, serve mankind, serve humanity. Serve, we must serve and there is plenty for us to do.

Opened Minded Lubavitch or Selfish & Self Serving?

There is growing intolerance in the Jewish community. The Orthodox community has become subdivided into small groups that support themselves. They talk about tolerance, but their behavior speaks intolerance. They pretend to be open-minded, but they are anything but open-minded.

Permit me to prove my point. The Lubavitcher in our community, they run nursery schools and camps programs to attract both the unaffiliated and those who are not religious. They open their homes for Shabbat to welcome people and invite them to experience the Shabbat spirit. They will never criticize the more liberal branches of Judaism, but they also avoid contact when they are not in control. They eat up huge resources of the Jewish community and give nothing.

I would venture that an examination of the Jewish federations records would show that the Lubavitcher gives zero to the Jewish community but are well supported by the Federation. They are hired by the Orthodox Jewish community to work as chaplains, they are hired to work as teachers and facilitators in the Jewish community but have you ever known the Lubavitcher to hire anyone other than Lubavitch. I am not speaking about non-Orthodox being hired, that I would understand; I'm speaking about Orthodox. The Lubavitch will not hire Orthodox people to work for Lubavitch. You can find non-Lubavitch teachers in the nursery schools, but you will not find any Orthodox teachers or non-Orthodox teachers working in their elementary schools, their high schools or their organizations.

Recently, Barbie and I were at a friend's wedding and many of the Lubavitcher members of our community were there. Both of us have had been ill, and many of the members of the community are aware. A woman came up to us, a member of the Lubavitcher community, as a way of assuring us she said, " now that the Mashiach has come, may you be blessed with a Refuah Shelaymah." Her husband is a Mashgiach in the community. He was standing near and quickly began to laugh and make fun as a way of weakening the impact of her statement. Let me ask you, do you think she was kidding? If you don't think, she was kidding, can you eat the food cooked under the supervision of her husband? Are they Jews? Or do they fall in the same catagory Jews for Jesus?

These are difficult questions but we need to confront them, and we need to address the isolation. I have picked the Lubavitcher, but it is true for lots of members of the Orthodox movement. The Kollim in our country provides education to adults and children alike without asking for any support. It would appear on the outside, that they are saintly but a closer look will show that they are hugely expensive to the Jewish community sucking untold amounts of money for their support and driving the spirit of the Jewish community to the right. The Orthodox community has lost its sense of moderation, and we can blame the Kollim. The Kollim are an extension of the yeshiva movement. The yeshiva movement and the Orthodox community were more tolerant of the non-Orthodox community before the evolution of the  Kollim. The Kollim and their Yungeliet act as a watchdogs, condemning any member of the Orthodox community who do anything that might be considered liberal. The Rabbis of the Orthodox movement are afraid of them and are reluctant to criticize them in any way.

We need to think about where we are spending our money, and we need to think about the impact of these institutions on the Jewish community. We must remember that we are 3% of the world's population. We must remember that the state of Israel, which provides us with a safe haven for Jews all over the world is only as big as the state of New Jersey. We need to work to unite ourselves not to divide our community. It must be our mission to unite the Jewish community without preconditions, and those who obfuscate the mission should be pressured to study, know and join the mission. Judaism is not just a religion; it is a brotherhood and sisterhood and a motherhood and fatherhood. Let's leave it to the mothers and fathers to provide Jewish identity for their children. Let the community identify with the mission of Achainu bayis Yisroel We need to be able to sit with every Jew at every table.

Those of you who know me know that I am a follower of Hassidic rabbi. He is my guide, and my friend, and my teacher, and I look to him for counsel, advice, affection, but he is human and I have watched his community change because of the pressures of the outside influence of the Orthodox environment.

We have lost our mission, and with it we have become misguided and confused about the role of mitzvah and its relationship to principles.  Mitzvah and observance is a path to understanding Judaism and the principles taught to its adherents. 

Is one's  rebbe the principal and Judaism  the source of life's principles or is the Rebbe the principle and Judaism a principal around which we rally? Here is the  source of modern day  orthodox confusion.