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.
