Just when I thought things might be improving just a little in the Charedi world a bomb drops. And I get a huge door slammed in my face.
Rav Aharon Leib Steinman was interviewed during his recent whirlwind trip to give encouragement to Jewish communities in France. Rav Steinman and the Gerrer Rebbe have apparently taken it upon themselves to go to many Jewish communities in the world for just that purpose. Last year it was the US and Canada. Considering that he is 93 years old, that is quite an undertaking. But apparently age is no barrier when it comes to promoting a life of Torah. On a separate visit to Chicago a couple of years ago, Rav Rav Steinman drew over-flow crowds at his one appearance. It had an almost rock star like quality to it. Everyone just wanted to meet him or get a glimpse of him. The only thing missing was the autograph session. Did Chicago get the intended Chizuk from that? I wonder about that. Considering what he views to be the correct path for all Jews, I’m not so sure that what he actually preaches is what I think all of us should practice.
Rav Steinman for those who may not remember was the one Gadol in Israel who seemed open to changing the current status quo of the Charedi world in Israel. He is no Centrist, and certainly is not an adherent of Torah U-Mada. I would never expect him to be. But he did seem to be more moderate his views with respect to those who cannot make it in learning. He seemed to be open to Charedim getting job training in various fields. While he was opposed to opening up full fledged Charedi/Parnassah type schools for them, at least he allowed for the exception. He was also supportive of the Tal bill which went into law. The Tal Bill allowed young Bnei Torah to leave the walls of the Beis HaMedrash, get basic training in the army and go out into the workforce and earn a decent living. This was quite a radical departure for a Gadol in that world.
I’m not sure what happened to change things, but, as reported here, when asked questions about these issues his response was shocking and quite the opposite of moderate:
About the education of children, he said that it was absolutely forbidden to teach them secular subjects, declaring: "Everything must be merely Torah." In his previous trips to America and France, he also said that education for women must be kept to "the minimum of the minimum."
Moderate? I don’t think so. All one may learn is Torah?! Secular subjects are forbidden?!
Can this be the moderate we are pinning our hopes on? Is there anyone who really believes that secular subjects are forbidden to learn? If this is moderation, than there is no hope. Poverty will increase and there is no out. Without any secular education, there can be no realistic chance for finding a reasonable job, if and when the time comes for an Avreich to do so. Add to that the fact that ‘women’s education must be the barest minimum’, and I don’t see how things will not go from bad to worse… exponentially so with every generation. Sure there are… and will be some who will buck the trend and get the training and then get decent jobs. Some will indeed drink the ‘poison’ of learning a trade, as Rav Steinman characterizes it. But the vast majority seems doomed to a life of dire poverty relying on a lifetime of welfare just for basic needs.
This attitude makes me wonder what Rav Steinman’s response would have been to a letter writer in the Yated, which reads in part:
I'm one of your famous "kids at risk" and I'm writing to the Yated because I think that the community at large, with all its efforts, is still guilty of the one thing that we are always told not to do: Judging people by their looks and only by their looks. I am sick and tired of walking into a frum grocery and because my hair is over two inches long and my yarmulke is made out of leather, people avoid me. When I offer to help a mother with a few kids outside carry her groceries to her car, I get scurried away from as though I will somehow share some of my horrible looks with her children. After all, I'm not the ideal looking kid, because I don't have a white shirt and black pants.
I recently walked into an extremely frum yeshiva to speak to a former rebbi of mine and I was asked by the rosh yeshiva to go home and dress like a mentch. All I wanted to do was talk to my rebbi, but because I was not dressed to the yeshiva standard, I was asked to leave.
I've been told to leave shuls in all the frum areas because I don't look or dress correctly.Friends of mine, who are also "kids at risk," have had similar experiences. We're thrown out of yeshivos and banned from communities. But that does not bother us as much as not being treated civilly when we are trying to do something good. I beg of you, readers, to try and be more compassionate and then maybe, with a little more acceptance of people's differences, there will be peace.
I know what Rabbi Yakov Horowitz’s response would have been. But would Rav Steinman have had the same response as the Rosh Yeshiva described in the Yated letter?
In light of the following, I wonder. When Rav Steinman was asked about ‘men who had left the yeshivas and cannot find themselves either here or there…would it be possible to set up a yeshiva for them where they would also learn a trade… his repsonse was, ‘You are saying that since he is already not good, then we should send him to learn a trade? That is merely adding poison to poison. A trade is poison.’
I would rather believe that Rav Steinman would have great compassion as I’m sure a Gadol of his stature would. But wouldn’t it be better if that compassion weren’t needed in the first place… on such a large scale?
I am disappointed. Even more so than about the fact that he thinks Modern Orthodox Rabbis are uprooting the religion.
