‘Not just a Syrian problem; we are all scapegoats’
By David Bibi
Issue of August 7, 2009 / 17 Av 5769
The way the Jewish papers and blogs wrote about the recent arrests in New Jersey requires some comment. One expects misstatements and exaggerations from the international media, but do the Jewish papers need to follow suit? Rumor had become perceived fact, as so often happens. What happened to dan lekaf sechut — giving the benefit of the doubt — and innocent until proven guilty?
Rabbi Noah Weinberg zt”l tells of what he calls “A Jewish consciousness story.”
A gregarious son partying each night brags to his father that he can count 100 true friends. The father congratulates his son, noting that in all his life, he has only achieved half a friend. The father suggests a test. “Take a goat, slaughter it, put it into a sack, get some blood on you and in the middle of the night go to your friends,” the father says. “Tell them you got into a fight with a guy at the bar, one thing led to another and you killed him. Beg them to help.”
As so the son goes to each of those friends and all slam the door in his face. Dejected, he returns to his father and asks what the father’s half friend would do. His father tells him to go and see.
In the middle of the night, still holding the sack and covered in blood, the son knocks at his father’s friend’s home. He tells the same story. And the half-friend hesitates, saying, “Although I shouldn’t do this, you’re Chaim’s son, and I’ll help you.”
They take the sack and bury it together.
The boy returns to his father in shock.
The story continues and the father explains that a true friend would never even hesitate.
The Torah states, you should love your friend as yourself, I am G-d. If you truly fulfill this, G-d promises then He is the third partner in your friendship.
What is a true friendship? Do you have a true friend? Do you have half a friend? Do you have someone in your life who would risk his freedom, his honor, his money if your son came to him?
A Jewish consciousness story!
Three Sephardic rabbis are accused of succumbing to compassion. Was there personal gain for any of them? I highly doubt it.
Did they succumb to a young man who was ostracized by others? Did they succumb to a young man who came to them again and again pleading that his children had no food on the table? Did they succumb to the suffering son of a trusted scholar? They did. They fulfilled the verse, Ve’ahavta LeReacha Kamocha, even though they were duped, and my sense of judging favorably tells me that Hashem is with them.
Was it wrong to be complicit in a potential federal felony? Undoubtedly it was. Does it mean we need to examine ways of helping? Certainly, and we need to reexamine much in the way we live.
The shocking news is the traitor among us. One begs to imagine the FBI threatened and cajoled, but to set up the 87 year old chief rabbi, to set up a relative, to set up the holy man who shared the dais with his own father for 30 years is unconscionable.
French Jews burned Maimonides’ book and a short time later the Talmud was burned in France.
We have a problem and its beyond the scope of this article and well above my pay scale to solve it. But the problem is not a Syrian problem, not a Sephardic problem, not even an Orthodox problem. It’s a Jewish problem. Let’s come together to solve it. Let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt and lets avoid pointing out scapegoats, because in the eyes of the world, we’re all the scapegoats.
Rabbi David Bibi leads the Sephardic Congregation of Long Beach. He can be reached at DavidBibi@gmail.com.
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If a friend comes to my door dripping blood and asks me to bury the body a. He’s no friend of mine and b. I’d call the police.
What kind of nonsense are you pushing? The people accused of these crimes aren’t idiots or children. They knew damn well that what they were doing was illegal. They don’t live in Jew-hating czarist Russia where Jews had no choice but to game the system in order to survive. They live in a free county where the rule of law applies to everyone.
The courts will decide their fate on earth. God will deal with their souls. Your attempt to white-wash the entire matter is pathetic.
[...] by accident) shows the damage of such insulation. I read the saddest example of that today here. We are warped and I am so sad. But perhaps there is some redemption, because in the same [...]
I am so sorry that my article was so misunderstood. I am completely at fault. Here’s why!
The article in the Jewish Star was simply a very edited version taking my column in the weekly newsletter I have been writing for 15 years which is distributed to almost 20,000 people. The original was 4000 words and cutting it to 900 or so was probably the first mistake. I guess I could use lessons from Reader’s Digest.
The second was going against my own advice to avoid stating in public things that might be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Only this week I cautioned others following a terrible article in the Asbury Park press and after hearing a press conference by former mayor Koch on this very matter.
My intent in releasing the edited letter to the Jewish Star was to argue against the paper’s headline the previous week.
As I wrote this past Friday, it “was to state that the problem is not a Syrian problem, not a Sephardic problem, not even an Orthodox problem. It’s a Jewish problem. Lets come together to solve it, lets give each other the benefit of the doubt and lets avoid pointing out scapegoats, because in the eyes of the world, we’re all the scapegoats.”
But for those who accuse me of condoning murder – and you were not the only one – I am saddened by my own lack of foresight.
And again I wrote on Friday, “I realize if even a few people misconstrue and write about it, then a hundred times that number may think the same but not write.”
With regard to the story of a friend and half a friend, obviously the story is not my own, although I liked the Goodfella’s line.
Again I quote myself, “It is a story told to all our children and one used by our Rabbis for a thousand years to define a friend. It was meant to convey the lessons we grow up with not to condone murder chas veshalom. Ask your Rabbi why it’s told. Ask Aish HaTorah why Rabbi Weinberg uses it to define friendship in his series on the 48 ways to wisdom, tape #11.”
In hindsight I agree. It was probably the wrong story to use.
And concluded my column Friday with the following:
“Was it wrong to break the law? Absolutely!
Do I condone the behavior? No, I do not.
Should thing have been done differently? Yes.
Do we live in a country where we are required to follow the law? We do and we should be thankful for that.
The original unedited version of my article ended as follows. This may help to better understand where I was going with it.
“Have we gotten too comfortable here? Have we as scripture states become so fat that we’ve forgotten? Have we forgotten who we are, where we come from, and what it’s all about? Do we bear responsibility for our children leaving the path and turning against us whether as playwrights, authors, con men, or going so far as to set people up? It doesn’t happen in a vacuum my friends. We’re doing something wrong. Hashem tries to tell us. At first gently but eventually with a smack when we are not paying attention. When Rabbis are implicated and it is a son of a Rabbi who implicates, the fault must lie with all of us.
What’s the solution? Who am I to say? But let me close with one final story – another my Rabbi often told me and a lesson he preached. Its a famous story told about the Chafetz Chaim zs”l.
When he was a young boy he wanted to change the whole world. He tried, but became frustrated. So, he revised his goal. He was only going to change his country, Poland. He soon saw that this was also a bit too ambitious, so he decided to just change his little town of Radin. Alas, this also proved to be too much, so he decided to change just the Bet Midrash where he prayed and learned. He soon realized that the only person he was capable of changing was himself. (Rabbi Abittan would also say, before you preach take care of yourself, let your inside match your exterior.)
So, the Chafetz Chaim got to work. As we all know, he succeeded in becoming one of the greatest sadikim in the history of our Nation. People began gravitating toward him and his Bet Midrash soon filled with people eager to learn from him. In time, his name spread through Radin. The small town became a Torah center by virtue of the great saddik who lived there Sure enough, the Jewish population of Poland began heeding the words of this saddik and Gadol HaDor. He wrote many sefarim (books). His masterpiece of halacha (Jewish Law), the Mishna Berura is used by poskim (halachic authorities) worldwide. His works, “Chafetz Chaim” and “Shmirat HaLoshon” have revived the all-but-forgotten mitzvah of proper speech. It has become a cornerstone of serving Hashem. His multitude of sefarim cover all aspects of Jewish life, and anyone who wants information or inspiration on practically all aspects of Torah need only turn to him. Yes, Rav Yisrael Meir succeeded. He changed the whole world.
We can do it. We can change the way things are. We can change our country, our city, our town, our community and our families. Where do we begin? With ourselves. We must examine our values and sense of honor. We must look at the justifications we make, the blind eye we turn aside and the way we live and act.
Each of us must build himself up to the point where he can truly say he has fulfilled the verse to become a light on the nations. When the world turns to us and says, “I want to be like you”, then we have succeeded.
David
Dear David:
Who am I writing to? The impertinent man who wrote the article in the Jewish Star whose message I found to be so repulsive and morally repugnant, or the gracious individual who wrote an e-mail whose primary message is the astute observance that our first and foremost responsibility is to change ourselves which if done correctly will ultimately beneficially impact on others.
I am truly at a loss.
Your explanation of the material redaction of the original article notwithstanding, it is simply inexcusable to allow an article like that to be transmitted to the world at large whereby a reader can, and with good cause, interpret it as implicitly excusing the conduct of the Rabbis arrested. Assuming that was not your intent, I certainly do not have to tell you that words have meanings and we have to be extra careful, especially in these times, of that which we disseminate in public.
I agree with you that “it’s a Jewish problem” but I disagree wherein you write that “let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt.” Sorry but these men were supposed to be our moral and religious leaders and they are subject to a far higher standard. Whatever our obligation is in terms of dan lekaf sechut (and the obligation is undoubtedly present), they have a halachically imposed more stringent obligation of holding themselves out above any and all suspicion. Now I do not know what you do for a living, but I have experience in criminal law and unless those tapes were doctored (which they were not), these Rabbis have a lot of explaining to do. To the extent that some bragged these were slow years and in years past they used to do 7-8 million in laundering, more then explaining is going to be needed.
I similarly take issue with your statement that “in the eyes of the world, we’re all scapegoats.” Here you have the classic “the goyim are out to get us” argument and it simply is wide of the mark and seeks to deflect the ills that plague us. The truth is that we are indeed all scapegoats. Like you said in your article, we are all responsible for allowing this culture where, as one true Hacham put it, “we got rid of Hoshen Mishpat and pretend to be Hassidei Elyon.” We are the ones who appointed these leaders knowing they wouldn’t say boo in the face of the many improprieties we all commit. The world rightly looks down upon us because we are oh so quick to give us the yclept “chosen people” but ever so slow to ultimately live up to that name. No my friend, the answer does not lie with Gentile hate but with Jewish self-deception.
As for the pretext for your use of the story that my Rabbi would probably know and Aish HaTorah uses, this too falls flat. In the first instance, my Rabbi knows it and thankfully rejected it for the same reasons expressed in my letter. As for Aish HaTorah, I don’t care who uses it, I rely on content – not by authorship. As the great eagle Rambam said in Shemonah Peraqim, “Shema HaEmet, Me She’mar.” That being said, if it is authorship you are so concerned with, you should know that the story actually stems from an Islamic source.
In regards to your point that the media has jumped on the fact that some of those arrested were Sephardic and have thus erroneously labeled this as a Sephardic problem, you are both right and wrong. Yes, there certainly exists some glee and racism by some who perversely see this as an inherent and innate flaw in the Sephardic character. In the same vein however, when the community is so pervaded with a mindset of “shuufee hada” and is intent on flaunting its material success (however dubiously earned) the attention brought upon it is, yet again, self afflicted.
Lastly, your penultimate paragraph states that “when the world turns to us and says ‘I want to be like you’ then we have succeeded.” Who can speak of success now when we have failed so miserably? Who can talk of the world wanting to be like us when we are the laughingstock of even the rabble? This is why these events so pain me and others who hold the Torah so dear. Specifically because ours is a religion and set of laws whereby the nations of the world are supposed to exclaim “what other nation is as wise and prudent as this (Devarim 4:6)” but our laws are now looked upon with disgrace, our people are deflated, and our leaders corrupted. The hillul Hashem is beyond words and for that I am angry with anyone who so dares to even insinuates that all is well and what was committed can be overlooked. We need a major overhaul and thankfully he who you were so ready to hang (CW), I look upon as an unsung hero for exposing the silent disease that is slowly, but ever surely, destroying us.
Respectfully,
Nativ