Weiji - An Old & New World View for a Community in Crisis

Communities in crisis face many challenges, leaving doubts for their future viability. Those with unsustainable economic structures deal with endemic poverty and unemployment. Crime, abuse, and violence are evident, even if in arguably smaller proportion to other communities, and there is a fundamental disconnect from the broader society. Conversely, a community that is a growing, close knit, respected, well organized unit becomes known for its righteous charity, its education and outreach, its support to the sick, as well as its piety, devotion, and obedience.

The truthful conundrum is that in both Israel and North America both descriptions illustrate – with varying degrees of justification - Chareidi (ultra-orthodox) Jewish communities. In 2012, following the vagaries of the financial crisis and the realities of disruptive social change, Chareidi communities are in a social, ethical, and existential flux they have never before experienced. In Israel, for example, though they make up about 10% of the population (700,000), almost 60% of Chareidim live below the poverty line, and according to a study from Haifa University (Soffer, Bystrov, November 2010), 30% of births among Jewish Israelis are to Chareidi families. The way in which their leadership and adherents respond now to the numerous challenges they face will determine how their future will look.

At a time when many of today’s societal challenges - including economic woes, job loss, and marital breakdown - combined for the first time with increasingly accessible media, are intersecting with the stress points inherent in any insular community, practical guidance has often given way to blanket prohibitions. The internet, most smart phones, vacations, sports and even separate-seating concerts by religious performers have all come under rabbinical ban in recent years. In a fascinating development, many Chareidim have begun to turn to forums and blogs to discuss the crises faced by the community in ways they could never before contemplate, because without the anonymity of the internet, their questions would lead to their shunning in the community. For individuals raised and living within a sheltered lifestyle, this is a very real concern. As one recent commenter on the Yeshivaworld.com website wrote, about an Israeli Rabbi who dared to suggest that many of those in Yeshivas should look for work: “When he attacks Torah learning, he removes himself from Klal Yisroel.” Unsurprisingly, it is this very accessibility that has, in recent months, become the epicenter of the crisis.

There is no question that many leaders within the Chareidi community see “the internet” as something that “attacks Torah learning.” Perhaps more critically than that, they see it as a direct, growing, and menacing challenge to the authority of rabbinic leadership – a leadership of intellectual and religious dynasties (both familial and collegial) that has served their communities with guidance and devotion for two thousand years. 

The recent “Internet Asifa” held at Citifield in Queens, New York, in May 2012 was heralded as a demonstration of unity in the face of the “threat”. Over 40,000 Chareidi participants listened to leaders from the US, Canada, and Israel deliver what has been described by a number of attendees as a frankly mixed message, with some Rabbis demanding filtering and getting rid of smart phones, and others condemning any internet use at all in the home, on pain of excluding children from communal Yeshivas.   

What, though, is the threat? Is it access to addictive sites, like gambling or pornography? Is it anonymous internet dating? Social media? Perhaps it more than anything else about power, and the capacity of bloggers and anonymous commenters to publicly doubt or question the authority of the community’s leadership, or, sometimes, their lack of leadership. Indeed, no less a spokesperson than Rabbi Paysach Krohn spoke to a reporter at the Asifa decrying this aspect of the use of the internet as his biggest concern, and his belief that anonymous critics of Torah authorities should be put in cherem (excommunicated). 

Such daring as is demonstrated daily on numerous websites and blogs is a relatively new phenomenon. Members of the Chassidic or Lithuanian (otherwise known as Yeshivish) ultra-Orthodox communities will tell you that they turn to the Mesorah – the inherited wisdom transmitted through an unbroken line of Rabbis reaching back to Sinai - for guidance in trying times. Yet in the last 30 years, with the passing of Torah leaders such as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Eliezer Shach and the Satmar Rebbe, among others, the community lost many of its most respected guides. Some current leaders have been described as increasingly more remote from the everyday realities their adherents face. Some consider the advanced age of many leaders to be part of the challenge. Others cite intermediaries, known as “askonim” with their own agendas, who control access and information to the leaders, as the problem. As one puzzled commenter on the Vosizneias.com news site wrote, “We were all taught to revere our Rabbonim. However, lately I believe many ehrlicher (good, proper) Yidden are scratching their heads at some of the public pronouncements.” 

The growing disdain for blind obedience would seem to be a radical new trend, but it has antecedents in the work of early Chassidic Rebbes, such as Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (1787-1859), who cautioned his fellow Jews that “God does not want yes-men” in an explanation of a passage in Deuteronomy (Sefer Devarim). 

The internet allows for another surprising paradigm shift unheard of in the past. Chareidi men are engaging with women in theological, halachic, and practical discussions. One poster, a Chareidi woman from New York in Yeshivaworld.com’s Coffee Room discussion forums, gently chided the mostly male writers who she interacts with almost daily “Everyone has their reasons and everyone is judged by Hashem. No one else should be doing the judging.”

Chareidim have also become involved in social issues they may not have even contemplated in the past. In early 2010, a Jewish man named Martin Grossman was executed in Florida for the murder of wildlife officer Peggy Park in 1984. Many Chareidi leaders called for public action to avert the death penalty, but some, like this poster on Yeshivaworld.com, asked if the concern was about the death penalty or the fact that the condemned man was a Jew. “Imagine if it was a irreligious Muslim that killed a Jewish cop, then sat for 26 years and became a ‘born again Muslim’ felt bad for what he did and all that good stuff, will we say the same thing??”

Discussions range across the spectrum of interest on dozens of websites. Of particular debate have been socio-economic issues, with more and more Chareidi individuals questioning the concept of Torah learning exclusive of work, and criticizing the sense of entitlement they perceive among some kollel yungerleit (young scholars). Some cite the words of Maimonides (Rambam) in the Laws of Torah Study declaring the folly of assuming the community should shoulder the responsibility of supporting individuals who learn but do not work. Many others, particularly in the Chassidic communities, have been able to build a happy medium allowing them to support their families while setting aside time for learning. In fact, Haaretz’s The Marker recently reported that the number of Chareidi men in professional training programs had risen exponentially to 6,500, and the number of Chareidi men with jobs had risen 8% in eight years.

Another heated topic of online conversation in Chareidi circles revolves around military service in the IDF in Israel, and the Chareidi community’s historic exemptions from service. In Israel, a lack of army service closes doors to many jobs, so even when many Chareidi men wish to join the workforce, they have been handicapped. Creative solutions have helped, and an IDF unit meeting the needs of the community was formed. The Netzach Yehuda Nachal Chareidi battalion in the IDF has grown from platoon to battalion size in its nearly 10 year history, and it continues to draw Chareidi men who are not suited for the kollel lifestyle. A 2007 study conducted by the Netzach Yehuda Foundation found that 90% of its veterans were employed, compared with only 40% of males among the broader Israeli Chareidi community, as reported by the Van Leer Institute. Nonetheless, the recent unity deal completed by the Netanyahu government with the Kadima party has as its centrepiece the replacement of the Tal law, which has, until now, perpetuated the system of exemptions. The Chareidi community is facing a huge challenge, as the political will to revamp the system has finally been supported by large enough Knesset support to make the leverage that the Religious parties such as Degel HaTorah have had a thing of the past.

Sometimes, the cost of speaking publicly about social ills in Chareidi society can be high. One intellectual, a resident of the Chareidi community in Stamford Hill, UK, wrote about his progressive loss of faith – in both God and his community’s leadership, in the face of corruption, abuse and intolerance. His blog, called The Shaigetz - Doing it Maai Vey, exposed these and other issues for all to see and read – and comment on, a unique experience for some readers. By the time he stopped posting regularly in March, 2008, the site had received over 500,000 page views. He felt forced to quit, though, when his anonymity was threatened, and admitted he still wanted his family to be a part of a community he no longer respected.

“The Shaigetz” left a legacy in his last post, four points he feels that the Chareidi world have only begun to address.

1.      According to the anonymous blogger, materialism has changed the Chareidi world – as it has changed all of western society - and many within it have forgotten the concept of self sacrifice.

2.      To survive and prosper, he feels that Chareidim must make themselves demonstrably useful to society at large, as groups such as ZAKA, Yad Sarah and many others have done.

3.      The Shaigetz is convinced that there is a vacuum of leadership in the Chareidi community. Torah Sages may not address real, practical issues in part because they are not getting or do not have all of the information from their support apparatus they need to impart wisdom. They seem to have become even more insular, distant and reactionary at a time when their followers are searching for critical answers.

4.      He feels that there can be no hiding from the realities of abuse in Chareidi communities. (While Shaigetz focuses on children, the same holds true for emotional, physical, financial, and other abuses which exist in Chareidi communities as they do anywhere else). 

There is no doubt that these and other issues have rocked the foundations of Chareidi communities across the globe. Many in these communities will do as they have done in the past, continuing to build up the many positive elements in their communities, while studiously ignoring the growing problems. Others have taken to the tools of modernity and have begun to address the problems they face in new ways. Still others have left the fold, trying to find fulfillment and community in a secular world they are ill equipped to engage and whose values seem alien. 

Yet despite the undeniable challenges, these communities still serve as a beacon of kindness and righteousness in many respects. For example, despite the broad brush of disdain with which ex-Chareidi author Deborah Feldman painted the Satmar Hasidic community, especially its apparent relegation of women to a subservient, compliant and submissive role, Satmar women have for many years organized and run an incredible network of volunteers who deliver thousands of Kosher meals to patients in New York area hospitals every day. Travelers around the world will describe instant, unquestioning help and kindness, from providing a hot meal to finding a local doctor, dispensed with a smile by local Chabad emissaries.  And who can forget the scenes of ten years ago in Israel, where Chareidi ZAKA volunteers provided the final, unrequitable kindness of bringing the victims of terror attacks, Jews and Arabs alike, to a full and respectful burial? 

The truth is that this growing and fundamentally good element of Jewish society will continue to be the backbone of perpetuating Torah and its values to an increasingly troubled world. The internet, like any mode of communication, presents its users, Chareidi and non Chareidi alike, with the same challenges of discretion, honesty, and morality that we faced in everyday life before it existed. With truth and self reflection like that increasingly demonstrated within online communities, healing, strengthening, and a new approach to new and old problems can and may begin.  Why, you may have wondered, did I title this article with a Chinese word? It may bear suggesting that the Chareidi community recognize the old adage that the Chinese word for crisis, weiji, is made up of two characters, one meaning “danger” and the other often meaning “opportunity”. As they fit together, one shouldn’t be missed because of fear of the other.