While I am a bit late in posting this… as other bloggers have already done so, I want to add my own high praise to Rabbi Chaim Malinowitz for writing the wonderful letter he did to the New York Times. For those who don’t remember, Rabbi Malinowiz is one of my heroes. He is one of the general editors or the ArtScroll Shas Bavli, and the Rav of the Shul in Ramat Bet Shemesh where Rabbi Natan Slifkin Davens. And he has stood up for him many times to great opposition. He has the courage of his convictions and never flinches from what he sees as his duty to act upon them. And now once again has shown his mettle.
Last Friday I reported and commented about an article in the Times that cast a very negative light upon Charedim. Among other things there was alsothe following: A Rabbi in Ramat Bet Shemesh B told a restaurant owner that a picture of the Statue of Liberty was an inappropriate symbol for Orthodox Jews. The Statue of Liberty represented Freedom. And that is the antithesis to Torah which is not about Freedom but obligations… the obligation of Torah and Mitzvos. This was an 'embarrassing and absurd' statement.
Here is Rabbi Malinowitz’s letter to the editor poignantly explaining the significance to him of the Statue of Liberty:
As the rabbi of a fast-growing synagogue in Ramat Beit Shemesh, I find the cited rabbi’s remark concerning the Statue of Liberty at the end of your article embarrassing and absurd (although I am not sorry that Lady Liberty fails to adorn a pizza store). As thousands upon thousands of Jewish immigrants to the U.S. can testify (including my father, of blessed memory, who entered the U.S. in 1948 after Hitler’s horrors), the Statue Of Liberty was, and remains, a symbol of selfless protection and freedom from tyranny, persecution, and vicious anti-Semitism. Immigrants would become teary-eyed when visiting it. If the good rabbi would bother to learn about its inscription (“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore…”) he would know that the freedom which it represents is not the freedom of hedonism and self-indulgence, but the freedom of choice, a primary and fundamental value in Judaism, and one for which the United States of America deserves the world’s, and particularly Judaism’s, boundless gratitude.
Update: There is a move among the good people of Ramat Bet Shemesh A to try and end the violence that is plaguing their community and along with that there is a petition drive. For those interested in participating see here or here.
