העורך Editor

I think the central fact of the Berland Scandal is almost no one emerges unscathed (i.e., righteous).

Without naming names, read this short work (next reworked into this) to see what I mean. Many, many rabbis and others knew what was happening, but they closed their eyes, allowed themselves to be intimidated into silence (or even being photographed with him!), gave ridiculous excuses (such as: “This is an internal Breslov affair” (?!), p. 15 here), and the like.

They themselves admit to knowing the facts for decades (even less justifiable than all the cases of rabbinic ignorance, such as Elior Chen), see here p. 32. Some excused him by just calling him “crazy”, see the last pages of this. Is every Rasha, then, literally crazy?!

The halachos regarding hiding a Torah scholar’s sins were clearly irrelevant from the very beginning because this was no one-time fall. He was spreading Sabbateanism for decades, destroying families in boatloads via divorce and debt, displaying wanton promiscuity, ordering extra-judicial murders, speaking real-life heresy, and so on. Some rabbis knew all that. And then did nothing, except a comment or two to a confidant, not even a whispering campaign. The only thing that pushed them to finally, finally speak out was the outrage of Chushim-ben-Dan-type youngsters.

Now, certain great rabbis still counsel silence… This may have happened with Shabtai Tzvi and the rabbis of Jerusalem, too! Gershom Scholem’s biography (Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, passim) logically hypothesizes their relative silence (not sending copies of their early excommunication pronouncements abroad) greatly enabled Shabtai Tzvi’s movement. Their logic, too, was presumably to refrain from “giving him life” by extra publicity. Yet people assume הואיל והוו יתבי רבנן ולא מחו ביה ש”מ… As Shlomo Hamelech says, don’t be too smart.

Update: I deleted the example of Shalom Arush, who variously pretends he supports or opposes Berland yemach shemo based on who he is speaking with at the time, the snake.

Reprinted with permission.

Excerpts from a great article on the Myrtle Rising blog:

At a base hosting 300 servicepeople, one girl was in charge of Culture & Recreation.

She sat in her office all the livelong day watching movies and texting on her cell phone while dressed in official IDF uniform.

Only once, during the 6 months my son was there, did she fulfill her duty: She showed them an American movie.

Yet in Israeli society and according to some of the more befuddled leaders, this is considered military service and she is commended for upholding her “share of the burden.”

…

Another IDF serviceman sat in his office all day in some kind of human resources position. Apparently, if one of servicepeople had a problem with something, they could turn to him.

How often do you think a group of only 300 people who went home every week or two needed his services?

Right. Hardly ever.

… there is something in the IDF called shavua-shavua (week-week).

​This means that for 1 week, you are on an army base, then the next week you work at a pizza parlor or waiting tables in a restaurant, then the next week you are on base again, then the week after that, you’re back to pizza and waiting tables.

And this continues until you are officially discharged from the IDF.

Now, why would the IDF institute something like shavua-shavua?

​Because there are way too many people for certain jobs.

…

Years ago, a young woman told me of her IDF service, which consisted of her & 4 other girls gazing at the same radar screen on the off-chance that they might spot something suspicious. (Occasionally they did, but it was almost always a false alarm.)

​She was embittered about it because it had been clear to her that while you might need 2 radar-gazers, you certainly do not need 5 per screen.

​And so she spent her service doing this useless busy-work while subjected to standard military discipline if she didn’t do her useless busy-work according to protocol. (Plus, I think there was also lots of coffee-bringing involved.)

See the rest here.

We have written about the IDF”s poorly-hidden Hidden Unemployment problem in this definitive article.

Simple. He instructed “Fera Zera” to counsel vulnerable young women (against halacha)…

The facts, as recorded and admitted by “rabbis” Eliezer Berland and Ofer Erez (his apologist) yemach shemam themselves:

The original video was since removed, but here is a substitute:

From YouTube, here.

Note: For more on Eliezer Berland, search for this and this.