OUT OF ORDER
By Ze'ev Chafets
Real Torah Judaism
The Jerusalem Post,
International Edition, p. 18
January 25, 1996.
When I was but a blushing bar mitzvah boy in Pontiac, Michigan, I asked
a kindly Reform rabbi about the meaning of Judaism. He was a modest man,
and he replied by quoting Hillel: "Do not do unto others what you don't
want done to you. The rest is commentary."
This sounded good to me. Fifteen years after the Holocaust I wasn't about
to swallow any stories about an all-powerful God. The way i figured it,
if there was a God, He didn't like Jews any better than anyone else. And
if there wasn't, it certainly didn't make any sense to give up cheeseburgers.
No, the Hillel Principle was just the sort of Judaism I could get behind.
It wasn't until I moved to Jerusalem in 1967 that I became exposed to The
Commentary. Jerusalem then, as now, was awash in holymen -- Talmudic scholars
renowned for their genius, kabbalists and hasidic rebbes who knew God's
deepest secrets, rabbinical heroes who, with a shofar and a rifle, were
recreating the days of Joshua. Surrounded by such high-powered sanctity
and wisdom I was of course awed. My do-unto-others Judaism seemed hopelessly
basic and insufficient.
And so I tried to learn. I studied Talmudic at the Hebrew University and
at a Jerusalem yeshivah (I withhold the name to protect the innocent), I
spent holidays and Shabbat weekends in religious kibbutzim and hasidic shtiebels.
I was positive that I would discover from the authentic Orthodox rabbis
the meaning of Real Torah Judaism.
I stuck to this belief for a long time. When Rabbi Meir Kahane began preaching
that Arabs are dogs and the penalty for a Muslim man marrying a Jewish woman
should be death, I said to myself: This guy is an extremist fringe rabbi
from Brooklyn. He doesn't speak for Real Torah Judaism.
Then along came Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, Shas cabinet minister. He said a schoolbus
full of kids was hit by a train because God was angry that the movie theater
in their town was open on Friday nights. I said to myself: He may be a rabbi,
but he's not a major rabbi, he's a politician. He is not speaking for Real
Torah Judaism.
Next came the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He allowed his followers to declare him
The Messiah. I said to myself: He's old and senile, he doesn't know what
his disciples are doing. They are not speaking for Real Torah Judaism.
After that came Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri, the world's greatest kabbalist. He
put a hex on a Jerusalem office building that blocked his view. I said to
myself: The man's a mystic. He's not representative of Real Torah Judaism.
Next, former chief rabbi Shlomo Goren put out a death warrant on Yasser
Arafat. I said to myself: He's so old he doesn't know what he's saying.
Surely he doesn't speak for Real Torah Judaism.
Rabbi Dov Lior, the head of a Kiryat Arba yeshivah, declared IT KOSHER TO
KILL GENTILE WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN WARTIME. I said to myself: He lives in
Kiryat Arba. He doesn't speak in the name of Real Torah Judaism.
Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitch, dean of another major yeshivah, advocated scattering
land mines to prevent Israeli soldiers from carrying out orders in the West
Bank. I said to myself: He's just a geek from Canada. Obviously he doesn't
speak for Real Torah Judaism.
Then 20,000 yeshivah boys gathered to stone and threaten Israeli archaeologists.
One of their leaders, Rabbi David Batzri, proclaimed that God had sent an
earthquake to punish the scientists. I said to myself: These are just primitive
fools blowing off steam. They don't speak for Real Torah Judaism.
Next, Rabbi Moshe Maya arose in the Knesset and said that the halakhic penalty
for homosexuality is death. He proved it, too, by citing the relevant text.
But I said to myself: You can prove anything using the Bible. Rabbi Maya
certainly doesn't represent Real Torah Judaism.
Then, just the other day, a dispute broke out between two of Israel's former
chief rabbis. Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, universally considered one of the great
Torah scholars of the age, was quoted as ruling that the faithful should
refuse transfusions from gentiles and nonobservant Jews because they [we]
have dangerously treif blood which might cause all manner of un-Jewish behavior.
His colleague, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, took issue with this learned opinion.
According to him, Jewish blood is inherently pure and therefore incapable
of defiling Jewish recipients. When I heard this, I said to myself -- well,
what could I say? Here are two of the world's leading rabbinical authorities,
neither fringe nor fanatic, at the peak of their intellectual and spiritual
powers. And they have a clear answer to the question that has plagued me
since my bar mitzvah-boy days. Real Torah Judaism is found neither in good
deeds nor in humble faith. It certainly has nothing to do with something
so simplistic as the golden rule. No, Real Torah Judaism is a scientifically
based doctrine of racial purity. Jews have one, superior, kind of blood,
the rest of humanity has another.
No wonder the rabbi back in Pontiac quoted Hillel. He was probably ashamed
to tell the truth.
