Last week former Sepahrdi Chief Rabbi, Rav Mordechai Eliahu made an astonishing statement. He said that the Reform Movement was the sin that caused God to bring about the rise of Nazi Germany.
I wish I could say that I am surprised by such remarks. But I have heard remarks like that many times before. And every time I do, it turns my stomach. Every time a rabbinic figure of any stature explains why the holocaust happened it makes me wonder about such individuals. How do they know? Obviously they don’t. They are just speculating.
I’m sorry. With all due respect to Rav Eliahu, statements like this serve no purpose except to exacerbate an already tenuous relationship with our fellow Jews. Statements like this raise more questions than they answer. To speculate about why God did… or does… what he does seems at best naïve and at worst irresponsible and unnecessarily divisive.
We cannot know in our time what God’s reasons are. He does not communicate with us that way anymore. The best we can do is guess and doing so is at the risk of not only being wrong but at the risk of demeaning the memory of those who perished in the gas chambers of Europe and at the risk of offending all the survivors and their family members, Frum or not.
And the same thing is true whether we make claims about why the holocaust happened or any other event, past or present.
Yesterday on Areivim someone posted that he had read about a similar rabbinic statement in a Yated Ne’eman article. The article addressed the current Shiddach rises. In assessing the reasons, a Rosh HaYeshiva speculates that the cause of the Shiddach crisis is exposure to modern technology. I don’t know who the “Rav Rosenblum” of the article is. But it is obvious to me that he is expressing a Hashkafa, not a reason. The poster on Areivim excerpted the following from the Yated:
Rav Rosenblum continued, "Shidduchim, the subsequent marriage and raising a family is a monumental responsibility. When Hashem, in His kindness, grants a couple a child, he grants them a pikadon that they have an obligation to watch and preserve with every means available to them. Today, too many parents are abdicating that responsibility. In their naiveté at best and negligence at worst, they fail to understand what it means to grow up in today's technology-saturated age when all of the base abominations are available almost instantly.
"There are parents who still today leave children, their teenage boys or girls, at home unsupervised with a computer. In minutes, technology savvy children can get to places that the well-meaning parents would not have dreamed in their worst nightmares.
"Even gadgets as benign as cell phones, Ipods or any other nifty small little manifestations of technological wizardy can be the cause of a child going down to sheol tachtis.....The Rosh Yeshiva went on to say, "If we cannot watch and preserve the pikadon with which Hashem has entrusted us, could it perhaps be that this is what is making it so much harder for us to establish families?"
Once again a mere speculation. One that obviously fits nicely with his Hashkafa.
Here too, I ask, “How does he know?” What gives him the wisdom to speculate that this is the reason our young people are having a difficult time with Shiduchim? How much does he really know about the benefits of the technology versus the detriments which I concede are considerable? Which Mesechta talks about it?
Did it ever occur to him that it might just not be the reason at all? That his agenda may be coloring his view? Blaming the Shiddach crisis on our utilization of technological advances makes about as much sense as blaming it on global warming.
I would suggest another more logical reason. It is the untenable circumstance of instilling unrealistic expectations in Bnei and Bnos Torah. Young women are indoctrinated to seek young men who will dedicate their lives to full time learning. The indoctrination begins in high school or even sooner and is continued at a more intense level in seminary. That is the ideal taught to young women by their teachers, both male and female. And this is what is sought by them in Shiducim.
Young women will often adjust their lives accordingly and seek professions that will produce incomes enabling them to support full the full time learning of the young men they seek for Shiduchim. Occupational or physical therapy seems to be a favorite career choice as it is a relatively high paying job.
The problem is that there aren’t enough young men of this caliber to go around. The “better ones” often look for financial support from prospective parents. And many parents simply cannot afford to pay out those kinds of “salary” demands to their future sons in law. Certainly if they have several daughters to worry about. Especailly if they are close in age.
The result is that the wealthier the family, the more likely a Shidach will be made. True, that isn’t the only factor. But it is a big one that probably contributes to the problem a lot more than using an i-pod or cell phone does. Add to that the focus of so many young men on how thin a potential Shiddach is and you end up with an awful lot of good people who are having trouble getting married.
I know several young women who fit the description of this type indoctrination. They are in their late twenties and older and they cannot seem to find the Shiddach they have been indoctrinated to look for. And I also know young men who are fine Bnei Torah but realizing their limitations have opted to work instead of learning full time. They are Koveiah Itim… many hours in some cases and still have a hard time finding the Shiddach they have been indoctrinated to look for. Because those very women want only those young men who learn full time and don’t work.
So there you have it. A lot of singles who are wonderful human beings with exemplary Midos who could be having families and rasing children in the best tradition of Torah Judaism… complaining that there is no one to marry.
Technology indeed!
