What is happening to the Torah world? Woe is me! Just when I though things cannot get worse, they do.
I do not understand it. I know the reasons that were quoted but they do not still my anger. Nor do they do anything to enhance my Kavod HaTroah. Just to be clear, I still respect the Gadlus of the Rav Elyashiv. He is a Gadol. There should be no doubt about that in anyone’s mind. But questions abound.
The latest “psak” from these quarters once again leaves me in a near state of Shock …and a heart full of tears. Why?! Why are they doing this? How can the Jewish people be asked to live like this? According to an article in Ha’aretz:
“A committee of rabbis formulating the education policy in the ultra-Orthodox community has prohibited women's continuing education programs and severely restricted other study courses, thus blocking the advancement and development of Charedi women's careers.”
What in heaven’s name are these Rabbanim doing?! I cannot help but compare these actions to those of the book burning days of the dark ages. Not because anyone is burning a book in this case. But because these kinds of edicts are reminiscent of a society that is so devoid of reality, they will burn “truth” if it contradicts their interpretation of religious doctrine. This is what happened in the dark ages. A succession of Popes issued orders forbidding the study of nature and even supporting the killing of those who did.
Although no one is ordering anyone to be killed in a physical sense, I think in a spiritual sense that is what is happening. Instead of raising the bar of our holiness, we are lowering it. We are being asked to purposely remain ignorant. There is no Kedusha in that.
How can anyone look at this new edict and not see what is happening? We are descending rapidly into a state of such severe religious strictures… it rivals that of the Taliban. Maybe these Rabbanim want our women to be good” stay-at-home” mothers and not career women. That’s a noble goal. But they can’t only be good mothers. They need to work to support their families. Their Kollel husbands do not provide for their physical sustenance. They are forbidden from doing so. Someone has to “bring home the bacon”. It is almost as if the Taliban society was the prototype lifestyle for these rabbis.
What’s bothering these Rabbanim? From the article:
…teachers enrolling in "all kinds of other education programs without any supervision of rabbis on every detail".
…without close supervision and determining the content, "all manner of heresy can creep into those programs."
…psychological subjects in the teaching programs. Freud and Western psychology had always been a red rag to them.
This one really gets me:
“Yated Neeman's women's supplement, Bayit Neeman, blasted the trend of bringing in lecturers from the "Sephardi faction"
Sephardi Mesorah is now Assur to study?! Good grief!
I’m sorry this is not leadership. It is no more justified that the ban on Rabbi Slifkin’s book or Rabbi Kaminetsky. But at least those bans did not directly hurt their very own community.
Let’s look at the entire picture, shall we? Book bans… Bans on national airlines... Tznius Patrols... Treating all secular education as though it were at best worthless and at worst Apikursus... Forbidding men to from any kind of decent secular education…. Forbidding men to get proper training for work… and now women forbidden to be educated.
What is revealing in this article is that “At first, the (women's education) revolution was approved by the rabbis, headed by haredi leader Rabbi Yehuda Leib Steinman. But Steinman revoked his approval when the conservative groups expressed outrage at this development.”
Rav Steinman is an elderly Gadol. But conservative groups pressured him into rescinding his approval. This sounds all too familiar. Askanim… Rav Elyashiv… book bans…?
Who the heck is running the show?!
