our idol worship

 

The yeshiva world has become predominately authoritarian. You see it halacha books, the majority of which consist of a list of dueling poskim. The reasons for the psakim are rarely offered. Rather, Rav Moshe said yes, Rav Henkin said no, Rav Shlomo Zalman said in certain cases. Why? The book doesn’t say. Of course, this leaves you confused because which perfect person are you supposed to follow when they all disagree. Ah, ask your rav. You see, authoritarianism.

 

A yeshiva guy told me once that it is a higher deed to do something because your rav told you than your thinking of it yourself. You see, authoritarianism.

 

You see it in the obsession with cavod ha-rav. The favorite word of nearly every Yeshivist rabbi I know is respect. You have to show respect. You are not showing respect. He has no respect. You are not respecting the yeshiva. Your tone is not respectful. You are a chutzpah. I will not deal with a chutzpah. Over and over again, respect, respect, respect. Yet, when you reflect on the conversations, usually there was no real disrespect involved but rather asking the question why, asking a question the rabbi didn’t have an answer to, suggesting the posek or gadol he claims to know doesn’t have all relevant information, is contradicted by another one or – gulp – was wrong. Then there’s the horror on their faces when not spoken to in the third person.

 

And nothing makes them angrier than a failure to show sufficient respect. There’s one Rosh Yeshiva I deal with who gets angry about one thing and one thing only and that’s when rabbis are not showered in adulation. I have never heard him complain about failure to do mitzvos – about deficiency in tznius, dishonesty, or chesed. Never once. But if you are such a terrible person as to not refer to every rabbi with a parade of honorifics -- oiy vey. Middle-management rabbis have to be called gaon just because they have some kind of position such as rabbi of a small shul or even more significantly a teaching position in a yeshiva. The person in question isn’t a gaon, but you have to call him gaon. Isn’t this chanifus, isn’t it sheker? We don’t care about those things. But cavod harav. Ah, that’s what matters.

 

And when it comes to people that have come to be called gadol, if only because they were appointed to the moetzes of Agudah, ah then you have to go all out. I once referred to one of them by his first and last name, but I didn’t say rav first. That was a terrible sin worthy of a talking to. Also I have to refer to him as Rosh Yeshiva in front of his staff.

 

You see it in the schools. Girls must not only stand for the teacher but speak to her in the third person even when this teacher is 22 years old and the girl is 15.

 

Let’s unpack all this. First the halacha book. You might wonder, if I am going to ask a rav, then why do I need the book? I suspect that the book was written for three purposes. The first is for the author to build his name by writing a book. The second is to relish in the names of the poskim he is referencing. It’s a religious gesture that mimics how people used to talk about God. And the third reason is to confuse you. Yeshivists love to confuse people.  This leaves the masses vulnerable and needing of the rabbi. Nearly every talk from any yeshivist rabbi contains extreme statements, terrifying and hysterical threats, illogical thoughts, and a barrage of ideas couched in posukim or Gemara terminology that need careful explanation but are not given that careful explanation. The goal is to confuse. This is a trait of cults.

 

What about obedience to a rav being the higher deed? Doesn’t that contradict the relentless criticism of Chasidim for blind obedience of their Rebbe? Doesn’t that contradict the whole notion of Torah being the highest deed and not just Torah but Oral Torah in particular. And as we have been told a zillion times, Oral Torah requires understanding. You can’t just recite words. So how is obeying some guy the higher deed?

 

And what about the obsession with cavod harav? That’s about authoritarianism, not respect. Everybody knows that respect is important in life. Even the Mafia harps on it. What cult leaders always do is play on your idealism. So here, they take the notion of respect, and build a whole religion on it.

 

But it’s a one-way street. Tell me, do the yeshivist rabbis you know treat you with respect? I can hardly think of an exchange with any of them that isn’t riddled with condescension, impatience, and scorn and doesn’t end without  some kind of smack or putdown.

 

And aren’t these the same people who disparage every rabbi who doesn’t fit into their schema, rabbis like Rav Soloveitchik, Rav Kook, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Shmuel Auerbach, and many others. I’d say that nobody led the way toward disgrace of rabbanim like Eleazar Menachem Man Shach. He stood up in a tennis stadium before thousands and ranted about others, all to be heard in recordings that have been heard by 10s of thousands.  For some reason, he’s allowed to do that.

 

It's ironic that outreach groups like Meor promise Judaism “on their terms” meaning the terms of the innocent non-religious Jew who doesn’t realize that he is being drawn into a system whose defining characteristic is authoritarianism.

 

So how did this happen, this authoritarianism? It’s kind of goyish, no? Well it happens to us the same way it happens to the goyim – idol worship. The yeshivists have made the whole religion be about Gemara study. They pushed God and mitzvos out of the picture. Gemara is an idol, so the studiers of Gemara (actually on an aspect of small parts of it) are the idolatrous priests. No longer are there humans with souls. They are slaves to the authorities. Idol worship and slavery go together because they deny God and the soul.