Who is Rabbi Y. Reisman? And why does he matter?
Quoting English Wikipedia, abbreviated:
Yisroel Reisman (ישראל הלוי רייזמן) is an American rabbi and posek of Orthodox and Haredi Judaism who resides in Brooklyn, New York. Reisman is one of the roshei yeshiva (deans) at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, where he received semicha. He is the rabbi of the summer camp network run by Agudath Israel of America. Reisman is the author of several books on halacha and Tanach.
With a CV like that, I’ll bet some would call him a “Great”.
The name of the class is “Hashkafa Q and A With YU Semicha Talmidim“. (So, these are the next incoming crop!) The original question was how to teach about Tefillah (hard to hear exactly). The rabbi answers that it’s challenging, and he himself finds it hard to focus his mind.
He then segues into destroying the holiness of the Jewish people (“Yeshivish” untranslated. Ellipses are to capture cadence and pauses, and DO NOT mean deletions), and I transcribe (approx. minutes 43-46):
… [When] Rav Pam was alive, he used to ask me what’s the Navi shiur about this week. Very often. Once on Thursday: “What’s it about this week?” I told him: Shmiras Einayim. I was up to David and Bas Sheva. Chazal say: “Lo chata David ela be’einav”. So, I wanted to klerr, if Shmiras Einayim is an issur by itself, or it’s just shema it’ll come to other things. I had a whole shiur prepared. So, Rav Pam says, don’t talk about that. I said: What should I talk about? So, you can’t talk to a rabbim about Shmiras Einayim. Some people find it very challenging; it’s a big nisayon for them. Some people, they find it easy; it’s not a nisayon. Whatever you say, you’re gonna mess it up with some people: Make it sound terrible, so the fellow for whom it’s a big nisayon is gonna have chalishus hada’as. He’s gonna… You make it sound not so terrible, so we’re inviting the people for whom it’s easy…. He said, you can’t talk about Shmiras Einayim berabbim. That’s what he told me. And since then, there are books that have come out.
I remember they sent a case of books about Shmiras Einayim to Camp Agudah, so I told the person in charge to take it to the garbage dumpster. Straight to the garbage dumpster. He said, “You’re not allowed to throw it out”. I said, I’m not throwing it out, the garbage men will get rid of it. [Laughter by the audience.] It’s the worst thing for teenagers; terrible. I have eighth-grade rebbeim who talk about Shmiras Einayim, and they kill boys. They really kill them. Boys are [in] a big nisayon, and they talk about going to Gehenom for Zera Levatala. Some people find it very hard. Zera Levatala is a big challenge for a lot of people. You know, some people don’t find it a nisayon at all. And you tell a person that if he’s oveir on these things, he’s going straight to Gehenom. He has no choice… You kill people. There are certain things that are just not shaveh lechol nefesh…
End quote.
And then the speaker goes on to explain how kavana in davening can be taught piecemeal, etc. And yet he strangely doesn’t apply the same logic to personal holiness! He also implies this cannot even be taught privately in a serious way (as if the rebbes have time for each student, ha!). Nor does he differentiate between those who haven’t sinned and those who have. He doesn’t even make the common (though overstated) distinction between students deeply involved in learning and others. Do his ilk and students even speak out before the yetzer arrives, or do they callously allow youngsters to stumble up until they seemingly have “no choice”?! The books are in the garbage, after all.
The educator doesn’t even grasp that a lack of Shmiras Einayim and/or Hotza’as Zera Levatala, too, has caused Jews to go off the rails. (Even for goyim. Ted Bundy blamed viewing obscenity on his own path to evil.) Also, a young person’s own soul often tells him he is bad and shameful for doing these things, without any conditioning (see Kinsey, Carnes, Grubbs, et al.), so it’s not the rabbi alone driving the poor kids crazy. Aderabba, if he speaks the whole truth, a real rabbi can help them climb out of the suicidal pit (go here), and help them avoid it in the first place by promoting avoidance in advance, and Teshuva and tikunim afterward!
As far as I know, even Rabbi Reisman’s Beis Medrash officially accepts Tana Devei Eliyahu (chap. 18) as authoritative:
פעם אחת הייתי מהלך בתוך הגולה שבבבל ונכנסתי לעיר גדולה של ישראל ואין שם גוים כלל ומצאתי שם מלמד תינוקות אחד וישבו לפניו מאתים נערים שרובן בני שמונה עשרה שנה ובני עשרים שנה ולשנה האחרת חזרתי לשם ומצאתי את התלמידים ואין רבם ביניהם אלא בן אחד בלבד שהוא היה בן בן בנו שבשביל מעשיהם המקולקלים של אותן נערים מת רבן ומתה אשתו ומת בנו ומתו כל הנערים שרובן בני שמונה עשרה ובני עשרים ולא נשתיירו רק הקטנים והייתי בוכה ומתאנח עליהם עד שבא אלי מלאך מן השמים ואמר לי מפני מה אתה בוכה ומתאנח אמרתי לו וכי לא אבכה ואתאנח על אלו שבאו לידי מקרא ומשנה ועכשיו הלכו להם והיו כלא היו ואמר לי לא יפה עשית שאתה בוכה ומתאבל ומתאנח עליהם אמרתי לו מפני מה ואמר לי שהן היו עושין דברים מכוערים ודברים שאינן ראויין ומקולקלין בעצמם והיו מוציאין שכבת זרע חנם והן לא היו יודעין בעצמן שהמיתה משגתן.
Claude’s translation:
Once, I was traveling in the Babylonian exile and entered a large Jewish city with no non-Jews at all. There I found one teacher with 200 students sitting before him, most of them 18 and 20 years old. The following year, I returned and found the students, but their teacher was not among them – only one young child remained, his great-grandson. Because of the corrupt deeds of those young men, their teacher died, his wife died, his son died, and all the students who were mostly 18 and 20 years old died – only the small children remained. I wept and mourned for them until an angel came to me from heaven and said: “Why do you weep and mourn?” I said: “Should I not weep and mourn for those who had achieved Scripture and Mishnah, and now they are gone as if they never were?” He said: “You did not do well to weep and mourn for them.” I asked: “Why?” He said: “They were doing ugly and inappropriate things, corrupting themselves and wasting seed in vain, and they did not know that death was pursuing them.”
And this is a master pedagogue?!
Listen to the full original class here for yourself (or just minutes 43-46)…
The rabbi denies Bechira Chofshis, Free Will (by saying: “No choice”). (Even if Hashem can testify Yehuda in fact had no free will at Maaseh Tamar, or the like, that is certainly not for Yehuda himself to say, chas vechalila.) This person is fully kofer in the Torah, which says explicit mitzvos are all “shaveh lechol nefesh” [By the way, I wonder if he permits smoking on Yom Tov], like Iyov (Bava Basra 16a):
אמר רבא, בקש איוב לפטור את כל העולם כולו מן הדין אמר לפניו רבונו של עולם בראת שור פרסותיו סדוקות בראת חמור פרסותיו קלוטות בראת גן עדן בראת גיהנם בראת צדיקים בראת רשעים מי מעכב על ידך.
ומאי אהדרו ליה חבריה [דאיוב], אף אתה תפר יראה ותגרע שיחה לפני אל ברא הקדוש ברוך הוא יצר הרע ברא לו תורה תבלין.
As Chazal say explicitly, e.g., “אוי לי מיצרי אוי לי מיוצרי”; neither option means rest! Sin “kills” no less, even in this world. Do I even need to note that?! And what about teaching against Gezel (רובן בגזל ומיעוטן בעריות)?
Yes, the solution ought to be “Torah tavlin”. Except that Jews go to a Torah shiur, and then the speaker himself tells them that keeping the Torah is too hard! This rabbi is not alone by any means. Many, many “rabbis” today are actually missionaries, for lack of a better word (as explained all over this site). Indeed, the real reason to move to Eretz Yisrael (as supported by R’ Reisman himself, as well) is to escape “rabbis” like this, and the communities that vet for them and/or corrupt them. We have the same problem, but for better or worse, it’s far more subtle here at the higher levels.
(And if he wants to use the actual halachic category of “Onnes”, that has many new implications. Don’t go there.)
Also, I wonder: Does this so-called American “posek” really think the instruction from Rabbi Avraham Pam at all supports not teaching about Shmiras Einayim, period?!
Bottom line: Shlep Bilam and his students straight to the garbage dumpster!
Note: Google informs me Rabbi Reisman himself does have shiurim online regarding personal holiness, presumably for adults (for example, here). Didn’t check them out. But again, he’s just a sample; unfortunately, there are plenty of others.