It is Never Enough

Sometimes I am deeply annoyed of being too much focused on noticing negative facts and declarations in the community and feeling so much sorry for not sharing the joy and the beauty and the uniqueness of the Torah learning.

Regardless how much I practice it nowadays in my daily life, the good things are always in my heart and are hopefully a source of light for those around me, but at the same time I cannot ignore the enormity of some declarations and intentions. It is not only about a negative focus, but an outrageous feeling to see how a beautiful lesson is perverted for political or power-related reasons. Unfortunatelly, power and politics are also a way of getting influence and support in the Torah world and it seems that some of them are clearly using it without thinking twice about the consequences or if it is really in conformity with the very generous spirit of the Torah learning.

This specific news caught my attention and rose a bit under the usual limit my anger (anger might be justly likened to avodah zarah - idol worshipping - but...): At the launch of the electoral campaign of the United Torah Judaism, Rabbi Aviezer Filtz, head of the Yeshivat Toshia in Tifrah made the following shocking remark, approaching the issue of separate-gender riding on public buses: 

'Start to organize, to ride separately', he urged his listeners, then explained that the principle is so fundamental that even the Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust held to the policy. 'Even the Nazis, may their names be erased, understood that there has to be separate housing for women and men, and here (in Israel), it's forbidden!'. 

Ribono shel olam...how a proeminent rabbi can utter such an outrageous nonsense! The fact that although illegal within the state, in the private buses to Bet Shemesh, among others, do sent women to the back of the bus and Gd forbid to stay near a 'pious' bochur or rabbi in the front rows. Sometimes, there is a 'gentlmen's agreement' to simply avoid as a eoman sitting near a religous men in the public buses. Not talking about the Haredi publications where not only the faces of women are blurred, but also their names not mentioned - for the so-called 'modesty' reasons. Or that in some communities on the occasion of the high holidays women are walking on separate walks than women. That the haredi school are totally gender-separated...That the usual haredi children books do have only men characters, as their mothers and wives and educators are only looking and doing their works from up in the shamayim (skies).

None of those current 'minhagim' - traditions -, were practiced by the more pious and Torah-educated generation of Jews that were sent to death by the Nazis - imakh shemo (may their name be erased) - mentioned so wrongly here. How lost shall your minds be to make such a comparison - although among Haredi such comparisons between those murderers and the state of Israel is way too often, especially in public statements or various electoral contexts? 

Why they accept to stay in such a state where they don't pay taxes, don't defend as they avoid going to the Army and still want to control and expect from it to turn it into a state where the principles of the holy Torah are perverted. After all, why shall a rabbi make politics after all? 

True is that everything is going crazily wrong those elections and it seems that the evils of non-sense, hate and craziness are out in the wild, but nothing saddened me more today that reading such an outrageous remark for people that should fiercely fear Gd and think more than twice before uttering words - especially such words and terrible comparisons. 

What's next?