אבל מקדש שני שהיו עוסקין בתורה ובמצות וגמילות חסדים מפני מה חרב מפני שהיתה בו שנאת חנם ללמדך ששקולה שנאת חנם כנגד שלש עבירות ע"ז גלוי עריות ושפיכות דמים רשעים היו אלא שתלו בטחונם בהקב"ה אתאן למקדש ראשון דכתיב (מיכה ג) ראשיה בשוחד ישפוטו וכהניה במחיר יורו ונביאיה בכסף יקסומו ועל ה' ישענו לאמר הלא ה' בקרבנו לא תבוא עלינו רעה לפיכך הביא עליהן הקב"ה ג' גזרות כנגד ג' עבירות שבידם שנאמר (מיכה ג) לכן בגללכם ציון שדה תחרש וירושלים עיין תהיה והר הבית לבמות יער ובמקדש ראשון לא הוה ביה שנאת חנם
Why was the First Temple destroyed? Because of three evils in it: idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed . . . But why was the Second Temple destroyed, seeing that during the time it stood people occupied themselves with Torah, with observance of precepts, and with the practice of charity? Because during the time it stood, hatred without rightful cause prevailed. This is to teach you that hatred without rightful cause is deemed as grave as all the three sins of idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed together.
~Yoma 9b
~
I watched this clip of what is going on in Beit Shemesh. It made me cry.
I thought: Is it not obvious that this is Sinat Chinam in action? And then I thought: Of course not. Everyone thinks they have a reason for why they can and should hate others. They think their reason is the Torah. Imagine! According to them, the Torah says they should spit on seven-year-old girls, and that this is not Sinat Chinam. In fact, according to one person in the video, they are the victims- they are the ones who others hate baselessly.
Sinat Chinam destroyed our second Temple.
Who is to say whether it will destroy our State? If you truly believe the State of Israel is Reishit Tzmichat Geulateinu, then you know that it is God-given. What God gives, He can take away. He enabled the Babylonians to destroy our Beit HaMikdash and he can enable others to do away with the State.
And so it makes me sad when someone in that video calls out that no rules apply to them, only Torah and mitzvot. It's when people forget that Torah calls upon them to fulfill the Mitzvot Ben Adam L'Chaveiro that Sinat Chinam is able to insidiously enter our lives.
10 comments:
The state is not Reishit Tzmichat Geulateinu, what is happening now sort of proves that. These sort of things would not be happening in the times of our geulah. However, that is all irrelevant. What is taking place in Israel is a disgrace. There is no excuse. It is high time the police stop being tolerant with these idiots and treat them the way law breakers deserve to be treated.
Two statements caught my attention in the video:
1. A non-chareidi(and yet an observant Jewesss) saying that the chareidi are building an "Iran ktana" in Bet-Shemesh.
2. A secular man stating to the chareidi man that he built the city in the 50's, and that "wherever the chareidim go, they make it worse for the Jews, and for the Bible".
Although blanket statements are not appropriate in most cases, in this particular case, however, both statements are true and valid.
Jewish fundamentalism is not the solution for creating a religious state "whether one likes it or not".
You know what I would do? I would strip these Bet-Shemesh chareidim who spit on little girls and women of all their government subsidized privileges (including apartments, of course) and force them to get a job for a change. These more frumer than thou Jews simply have it too good and that's at the root of the problem.
Great post!! Keep them coming!
Anonymous 6:18 - your judgment call is myopic. The whole "reishit tzmichat ge'ulateinu" is an acknowledgement that the state is only possibly the hint of the beginning of redemption.
Remember, Ezra's return to Israel from Persia took place with only a handful of Jews, many of whom were intermarried.
G-d works in strange ways. The drama of the Jewish people is complicated and not bound to any individual's expectations of what it should look like.
That said, this is one of those cases where Jews are responsible for making their own history, and this horrific situation of abuse and gender segregation must stop.
i agree with you . the sinat chinam that is going on is horrible and it frightens me.it is such a chilul hashem. this is why the second bais hamikdash was destroyed.
when I lived in Meah Shearim for a year, one Friday night there were tourists walking through, and a resident starts yelling at them, and they had no clue what he was saying. I though to myself: this is why the Beis Hamikdash isn't rebuilt. Instead of being friendly and being mashpia in a positive way - we do things this way because we feel it prevents x, y or z, they yell at others who are not like them and say we don't want you, etc. (and look like lunatics while doing so).
Very sad but unfortunately not surprising.
Yes, darn those chareidim and their awful sinat chinam. I hate people like that.
Not that I disagree with your disgust with their actions, but sinat chinam has never existed in the first person. No one has ever decried "our sinat chinam" or G-d forbid "my sinat chinam", which makes it a lot trickier to solve.
Internal struggles between various religious and political factions did, quite literally, destroy the second temple, but I think that Israel has a while to go before that point, if only because we are slightly better organized. At the moment, I think that our religious extremists are still a small enough minority with enough qualms about actual violence that they are more a social problem than an existential one.
" no rules apply to them, only Torah and mitzvot"
I don't think that the Torah permits harassing and spitting on 8 year old girls.
i hate to say this, but the mother of the child spread far more hatred then the spitter.
so you tell me, which one is the more misguided fool?
as you so enjoy crying, here you go.
http://www.kikarhashabat.co.il/%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%93-%D7%A6%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A8-%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%AA%D7%A7%D7%A3-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A8.html
What is interesting to me is that Modern Orthodox Jews want some Jews (homosexual ones, for example) to live stringently by the letter of the law and yet they feel oppressed when others, more stringent than they, assert that they are outside the law.
There is nothing in traditional Judaism to suggest that an 8 year old girl or at least her father should not be held responsible for failure to be sufficiently modest.
In a democracy without a constitution, without a separation of religion and State, those with the most children make the rules. It will not be the world of the Rav.
Modern Orthodoxy commitment to Torah values is not possible without secular law to shield you from the true implications of that commitment. If you were truly forced to live by Torah values -- under a Hareidi government, for example -- you would be the first to fight for secularism.
The question to ask yourself is not whether women should be able to lead Kabbalat Shabbat or study Talmud.
The question to ask yourself is whether you are willing to live in a country where women must follow the law but where they cannot appear sign a legal document, sit on a jury (what jury?), defend themselves directly or serve as judges. In fact, women will not even be able to study the laws that define their lives.
In that society, this girl would not have been insulted -- she would have been *flogged*. That is what the Torah, which you believe must not change, allows.
If you are not willing to live by that Torah -- to see a woman or a girl flogged for modesty violations -- why do you demand that others live by that Torah?
You are not willing to live in a State where violations of modesty, violations of shabbat, violations of beard length, violations of prayer times are punished by prison terms, fines, or flogging and yet you claim that Torah values must override Western values.
I don't see what the problem is with this Hareidi behavior from a *strictly* halachic point of view. Tell the 8 year old girl that she can study at home, like her ancestors did until the 19th century. Why does she need to walk to school anyway and risk having men see her on the street? Isn't modesty (a Torah value) more important than female literacy (a Western value)?
If this is not what G-d wants, than you are open to the idea that modernity and Torah values are in dialogue with each other. And if that is the case, you are on very weak ground when you claim that you have the right mix and someone else does not, simply because the leniencies you need are more widely supported within your community.
As you see the Reform, the Haredim see you. They see you in exactly this way -- as people who are pretending to be religious, as people who pretend to care, as people who pretend to pay attention to Jewish tradition -- but who are not really Jews. They see you as people who are outside Jewish law and therefore, your norms and your ideas and your values do not deserve their attention or respect.
You think you are loyal to Torah but according to them, you are a bunch of minim and you should be treated as such.
Remember that the next time people on your blog use Reform Jews as a example of people who are beyond the pale, beyond caring about, the dumping ground for Jews who should be kicked out of Orthodoxy. You and those you love will end up there too, if Torah values were imposed without any mitigation.
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