Your pain is apparent. My sympathies for the disillusionment and sadness you feel. The ways of the Torah are pleasant and when you encounter the decidedly unpleasant it’s almost always not Torah. Shame it took such a horrible shock and betrayal.May you know true simchas hachayim when you regain your equilibrium
I know we see religion differently but I admire that you stayed in the system and are trying to fix it from the inside. I hope for the sake of so many children growing up in that world that you have some modicum of success in making it a better place for them
OK this is my second comment here but I've just got to ask:
You say Lag Baomer reminds you that you can't escape. You can't embrace the Meron nor the Litvak, learning-torah-only side of the Chareidi, Yeshivish world.
Obviously this begs the question of why you don't consider the dati leumi /MO lifestyle?
I know they're far from perfect as well, maybe too engaged with the secular world for your tastes. Maybe too obsessed with the state or the army.
But weighing the pros and cons seems like a really appealing option to consider.
Their torah learning is impressive. Hesder yeshivas allow students to immerse themselves in torah while also allowing for a balance based on the students needs. Kids can learn gemara all day and then play sports or chess without guilt.
They serve in the army. They become the country’s top doctors, lawyers, engineers while still keeping torah and mitzvot.
Their lifestyles are also pretty healthy. They consume significantly less drugs and alcohol than secular people their age. They smoke much less cigarettes than Charedim.
My older brother has 7 wonderful kids, he works in hi-tech and spends as much time as possible learning torah. He’s what I’d consider Hardal. He never watches secular movies and certainly doesn’t have a TV. But he served in the army as do his older children.
Why don’t you consider that world as a possible escape?
I live something quite like that in the USA in Lakewood. That lifestyle doesn't really exist here. The Modox life here exposes their kids to way too much. Search for my article "why I am raising my kids Chareidi".
The bigger issue with that lifestyle is in Israel at least, you end up with some quasi genocidal beliefs. But all things considered if I lived in Israel I'd probably pick it.
OK gone over both parts now. No reason for you to care about my thoughts, I imagine you might already be sick of discussing this but I feel like responding. Feel free to ignore or not.
I definitely understand you better and got the answer to my question.
First of all, I think you and I have a very interesting parallel. You're very skeptical about many aspects of the Charedi world, but still raise your kids there to reap the benefits that come with them.
I no longer believe in the dati leumi dogma I was raised in (I am basically an atheist), but I'm choosing to raise my kids in the dati leumi world for similar reasons as I really do enjoy reaping the benefits of that educational system.
I also see you acknowledge there's a difference between Israel and the US. I think it's likely you'd fit in with the Chardal community in Israel that is similarly sheltered from the internet, social media etc.
The Yeshivish community in the US might even be more similar to them as they both work normal jobs.
My experience doesn't match yours. My kids don't have phones or ipads. We strictly limit TV etc. Of course this is very varied and not so easy to completely shelter them. And yes they might watch YouTube at a friends house against my wishes. But the sdom veamora that you describe seems an extreme exaggeration. Specifically more relevant to the worst kids and worst parents.
I think a big factor is the upper class parents are learning from the mistakes of the past, reading Jonathan Haidt etc.
To me it all boils down to pros and cons. And the Charedi cons (especially in Israel) are just piling up.
Thank you for writing this with such honesty. The parts describing your experience in Meron were heartbreaking to read, and I think anyone with a heart can understand why such a traumatic event would shake a person so deeply. Being physically close to something like that changes people.
At the same time, I think the tragedy exposed something that already existed beneath the surface for you long before Meron itself. The line that stood out to me most was: “Chanoch lana’ar al pi darko.” I don’t think that is a cute vort either. And I believe many people quietly suffer when individuality is treated as rebellion instead of part of how Hashem created them.
As a BT, I say this from a somewhat different perspective because I have seen both sides. And I know the outside world does not contain the fulfillment people imagine it does. But I have also seen very real problems inside the frum world, especially when people begin elevating human beings to a level that belongs to Hashem alone.
That does not mean (chas v'sholem!) that rabbonim are not deserving of respect. This is not to minimize the gravity of the Jewish mesorah or the kedusha of true Torah knowledge. These are the foundations of who we are. But even the deepest scholarship must still be carried by human beings, and when we mistake the carrier for the message, we commit a grave error. Rabbonim are, after all, still human beings, not infallible forces of nature. The Torah itself seems deeply aware of the danger this can create. There is a reason Moshe Rabbeinu’s burial place was hidden. If even Moshe could become the object of unhealthy fixation, then certainly every later generation must be careful not to confuse reverence with something closer to dependency or absolutism.
I also think it is important to separate Hashem from human systems. Human communities can fail. Leaders can make mistakes. Cultures can become unhealthy or unbalanced. None of that disproves Hashem. The institution is merely a container; it is not the contents. On the contrary, the very fact that we feel the deep, gnawing dissonance when we witness corruption is itself a witness to the truth. We wouldn't know the system was "sick" if we didn't have an innate, internal compass, a neshomah, that recognizes the distance between human behavior and the Divine standard. That ache for authenticity is actually the most compelling proof there is.
And while I understand the anger in your piece, I personally do not view tragedy as evidence against emunah. On the contrary, real emunah is what remains when every human certainty has been stripped away. We only truly encounter Hashem when we stop looking for Him in the safety of our systems and start looking for Him in the wreckage of our own expectations.
Terrible things happen in this world, including to good and holy people. Yiddishkeit has never promised otherwise. The danger comes when people place absolute certainty in systems, institutions, or segulos instead of in Hashem Himself.
I also think your criticism of one-size-fits-all chinuch deserves serious reflection. "Al pi darko" means "his way", not the way of the institution. Every child is a unique manifestation of Hashem’s will in this world, with a path of avodas Hashem that is theirs alone. When a system insists on a single mold, it isn't just failing to educate; it is failing to honor the specific, intentional design that Hashem placed in that child. And that is a mistake we actually cannot afford to make.
What I appreciated most is that despite the pain you clearly feel, you didn’t collapse into nihilism. You chose to build rather than burn. That isn't just meaningful, it’s the only way forward.
One more thing: I don't think Emunah proper believes against bad things happening. What I am referring to is the false belief that 'rashbi protects' or 'tachshav tov' so we don't need to take precautions. Emunah is real. The Emuna sales course is false
I once told my father that when America was still a “midbar” we needed the fire of Reb Ahron to ignite the Neshamos of American Jews. But at this point in history, that fire is just burning everyone up and out.
I generally appreciate your writing but I have to say I love the raw honesty and how that frames your views a whole lot more than the cute angles you usually take (aside from your use of Calvin & Hobbs, which is always genius). This is deep and real and true and powerfully and very effectively written. I expect it to remain for me, at least, perhaps your most memorable and important posts.
Good on you for speaking up. Thank you. I hope future commenters have the sense to understand the nuance in your words and to hear what you're saying and not what they want to hear.
The analogy doesn't hold up. The ramp involved two men and intentional homicide. No comparison, whatever, to Meron. The סנדל המסומר is better, but still weak. And the fatal flaw remains: the same type of person urging rabbinic intervention here, is also the same guy who complains when rabbis get involved with (eg) concerts.
This is frankly ridiculous. Its the same critique. The rabbanim waste their time with concerts and smash burgers while ignoring real dangers. Furthermore, I have been supportive on this blog multiple times of rabbanic bans on the internet and ai. I think they are essential and important.
And here no ban is necessary, just a push for renovations.
Another Gadol created for the purpose of criticism.
Which Rabbanim wasted their time with smashburgers? A couple of small fry Rabbis, who said very little about it.
They may be Rabbanim, and I know one to be a choshuve person. But the idea that his time was better served dealing with Meron is ludicrous. He is a local rabbi of the thirty people that daven by him, no more and no less.
I think if the rabbinic intervention focused on סכנת נפשות instead of nitpicking a slippery slope to a slippery slope to a slippery slope to possibly mixed dancing which is itself only Halachically noteworthy as a slippery slope to פריצות and עריות, then he’d be all for it. I know I would.
I don’t understand how the fact that the death was intentional vs. negligence makes a difference.
The problem, as Dr. Leiman noted many years ago, is that people just don't know enough.
Bechoros 40a. An animal with questionable shechitah. R. Akiva permits, RY ben Nuri forbids. אמר לו ר"ע לריב"נ, עד מתי אתה מכלה ממונם של ישראל? אמר לו ריב"נ לר"ע, עד מתי אתה מאכיל ישראל נבילות?
Don't you get it? What is important and what is trivial? What is more important, physical welfare or spiritual welfare? It's been debated for thousands of years. Having a tainah on Judaism because one little guy in 2026 thinks X is more important than Y is like an ant in the colony complaining its too crowded. Think bigger!
I see this approach all over the place, and frankly it’s a cultural flaw we have in Judaism: we devolve an issue to abstractions far too quickly.
If RY Ben Nuri could prove that the net loss to the Jewish consumer was .1% of their gross income, R Akiva would have been forced to concede. And if R. Akiva could prove that the risk of נבלות was only increased by .1%, RY Ben Nuri would have been forced to concede.
And that’s exactly the claim: that the relevant leadership is at a minimum blind to the actual risk. The “risk” to spiritual welfare from concerts is less than a .1% increase in the consumption of נבלות - frankly it’s probably the opposite of a risk, because if you give people zero outlets for entertainment they will burn out and have a defunct spiritual life. And that’s if they stay OnTD. Note that no one is making a claim against Judaism or against RY ben Nuri. The claim is against their modern equivalents who hide behind the abstraction of “we prioritize spiritual welfare over physical welfare” instead of dealing with serious threats to physical welfare more urgently than negligible non-threats to spiritual welfare.
Well done. I think this is one of your more important essays. I'd have maybe preferred a bit more restraint around the word "murder" but I wasn't at Meron. . . .
One thing I might add, kind of an adjacent idea. Education of the young is not easy. The feeling you're describing of being trapped learning without true motivation doesn't just describe litvish yeshivas. It describes, I'd be willing to bet, the feelings of 50% or more of high school and college students, who also frequently feel they are being forced to learn what is of little value to them. It's not just a yeshiva thing. It's an education thing.
What is the solution? One that no one will follow. 50% of young people, religious or not, should probably apprentice themselves to a profession starting around age 14. Maybe 75%. Education lishma is really for a relatively small minority, whether that's studying gemara or Moby Dick.
True and valid. One difference is that the public schools don't claim divine writ for their system and require one to live it their whole lives. I think that is significant
The Yeshivish community makes the claim that they have the best system, essentially the same system since har sinai. Except, they are not really secluded and are guilty of almost all the mistakes of the local goyim. I'm not surprised that both communities invest in learning poor-value-return.
Nobody makes the claim that Yeshivos are a system from Har Sinai. But the facts are that Yeshivos have been extremely successful in recent years in transmitting their goals and values, and in inspiring the next generation to continue upon the path they were taught. There is no other educational system in the Jewish world today that even comes close to replicating that success.
EVERY system thinks they're the best, and if they don't, they shouldn't be in that system to begin with. The yeshivah community, like the chassidim before them, has thrived precisely bc of the esprit d'corps among its community.
If you add up computer science, engineering, education, nursing, and business, that’s 42.5% of undergrads. We’re already close to 50% among college attendees!
Do you mean 50% are apprenticeships? Possibly, though maybe 30 to 40% of their courses are Gen Ed requirements with no direct application other than making them "good citizens" and the like.
So on the one hand yes - it’s certainly not a very efficient apprenticeship process. A lot of feather bedding for the humanities departments.
On the other hand, it’s worth asking why it persists. Google at one point made a big todo about dropping its college degree requirement for job applicants. And in my experience, the answer is clear: you don’t want the guy next to you to be boring to talk to. You want to feel good about yourself surrounded by educated interesting people, as opposed to glorified digital plumbers. And you want the guy next to you to be someone you can hang out with at work, rather than someone who only knows glorified digital plumbing and is otherwise not insightful. You can think of the gened requirements as the intellectual equivalent of hazing that unions do to their junior members to socialize them.
I actually now a guy without a college degree working at Google, and he is a fascinating guy. Yeshiva educated but builds bee hives in his back yard and makes grandfather clocks out of 3d printers. . . great to talk to. And, TBH, I've had some great talk with my plumber, not sure if he took Gen Ed. Gen Ed exists because we still believe in the Humanities, which was, basically, a replacement for religion.
Wow. Very heavy piece. I think you raise very good points.
I would just point out that this problem is prevalent really in every community. Some in the Modern Orthodox world make an idol out of going to college. There are boys in that world who are not allowed to go to full-time Yeshivah after their year in Israel, even if they want to, which is at least as bad as the reverse phenomenon in the Yeshivish world.
The Dati Leumi world makes an molech out of military service, which sacrifices many more young boys than Meron has or ever will.
And in the non-Jewish world as well, people make an idol out of college, out of atheism, out of specific branches of Christianity etc. Many families are torn apart because of political beliefs or religious differences. I think unfortunately this is a problem in human nature, though perhaps in some ways, it has especially bad manifestations in the yeshivish world.
Fighting Israel's enemies is something positive and worth dying for. Especially for those who hold its' an absolute חיוב. How dare you compare that to those dying due to negligence and a false sense of בטחון?
We need people to be serving in the U.S. army also, even for the safety of the Jews in America. This doesn't mean that the Modern Orthodox world should brainwash all their boys to be karbanos for America. What's the difference?
No need for jews in the US army. There's no draft there and the US is not under attack. Furthermore, there's no need for Jews to live in the US, nor fight its foreign wars. America is foreign country while Israel is our home. The fact that you don't see a difference is quite disturbing to be honest.
"The Dati Leumi world makes an molech out of military service, which sacrifices many more young boys than Meron has or ever will."
You don't think there's a difference because with Meron they died in an accident. But if Israel didn't have an army, many, many more jews would be killed?
And if you say we don't need to have a state at all you also need to calculate all the torah learning supported and financed by Israeli taxpayer money.
Are you maybe saying the boys dying in Israel's wars should be secular instead of religious because they count less? Should only non-jewish people join the army? Should armies be abolished so nobody dies in wars?
I would like to see the mandatory draft abolished entirely, to be honest. I do not believe this would mean the end of the State. I think we are just so used to the status quo, that is hard to imagine anything different.
However, leaving that aside, I think daas yochid wrote an excellent post on this a while back.
There has to be an army, but that doesn't mean that the dati leumi rabbonim have to brainwash their talmidim into volunteering only for the most dangerous roles. There are plenty of ways to help the State without risking your life in combat.
This is not about religious boys counting more. Chas veshalom to present such a framing. My point is exactly the opposite: every life matters, which is why it is irresponsible for any community to be brainwashing their constituents that they all have to risk their lives for the State. There will always be people volunteering for those roles, but it is irresponsible for the leader of any community to be pressuring their constituents to volunteer for roles which will likely bring them back in a body bag.
I think a good example of this would be the American military. Imagine if the modern Orthodox world decided that patriotism for America is the biggest mitzvah, and that all of Modern Orthodox boys have a duty to volunteer for combat. Imagine if because of this, over 70 percent of Modern Orthodox boys were serving in combat in places like Iraq and Afghanstan. And this led to thousands and thousands of karbanos from the Modern Orthodox community. Now imagine that because of all the losses they were suffering, the Modern Orthodox world tried pressuring the yeshivish world that they should being the same thing.
To me, this is exactly the situation in the dati leumi world, right now. I don't see any real difference.
Powerful and thought provoking, it reflects deep feelings that needed to be expressed. I can’t question your source but the anecdote about Rav Dovid Soloveitchik is inconsistent with all that that I have been told about Rav Chaim and Brisk. Granted that my exposure was primarily decades of connection with the Rov and his brother Rav Aharon Soloceitchik but Rav Chaim was unusually concerned about any risk of פיקוח נפש and his American descendants were not proponents of praying at קברי צדיקים. If the story is true it illustrates a loss of rationalism.
I will say that given that I (a Soloveichik) personally am not a big fan of being machmir for all shitas (a known Brisker thing) it doesn't surprise me that people on the other side of the family could also not be the same as there ancestors. Each person is there own thing who ought to do as they see fit, instead of follow there ancestors 100%.
You are missing context. R Dovid hated Zionists. He had extreme OCD over them. Diagnosable. Thus, he refused to allow renovations. He Pooh poohed the real sakana over a fake imagined sakana. And the talmud who is also an insane brisker went with it.
R Shmuel Rabinowitz who was part of the mekomos hakedoshim of the govt went to R Dovid to change his mind. R Dovid pooh poohed that r Shimon will protect
You are missing context. R Dovid hated Zionists. He had extreme OCD over them. Diagnosable. Thus, he refused to allow renovations. He Pooh poohed the real sakana over a fake imagined sakana. And the talmud who is also an insane brisker went with it.
R Shmuel Rabinowitz who was part of the mekomos hakedoshim of the govt went to R Dovid to change his mind. R Dovid pooh poohed that r Shimon will protect and not to give it to the Zionists to renovate.
But calling his fear 'fake' misses the larger picture.
Meron has not been in the hands of the Charedim since time immemorial. The Zionists once had control over it. And it was not like the Kosel. It was a place of many issurim and issues.
Now, personally, as a Litvak, I wouldn't care if the whole thing was shut down. Revivalist meetings and mass raves are not healthy for a society. Dance at a chassuna, siyum, on Simchas Torah, or any other occasion. But not in this way.
My grandfather was דוב פרלא, he was in charge of the mekomos hakedoshim in the 60's. (He was Chareidi with close ties to Rav Kook). My mother tells me already then he was trying to fix Meron's safety issues but was stymied by bureaucracy.
This doesn't excuse modern negligence, but you're right when you say it's not exclusive to current leadership.
No it still makes no sense and is not believable. Unlike you I actually knew him. That isn't the way he talked or thought about danger OR the zchyos of Tzadikim protecting..
I doubt the veracity of the R’ Dovid story, and if it happened, it would have been someone taking advantage and putting words in the mouth of a 99 year old. The timing is suspect. R’ Dovid was niftar in January 2021 and wasn’t well in the months leading up to that. The Meron tragedy happened in April 2021, 3 months after he died. When was this alleged meeting and what condition was R’ Dovid in at the time, if it ever happened.
This happened quite a few years before. And I heard it from a trustworthy eyewitness who was with R Shmuel Rabinowitz at the time, who went to R Dovid to try to get his approval for renovations. It was necessary because his close talmud is one of the five on the vaad hachamisha.
Ok, so he was ~95. I’d still give R’ Dovid the pass on this one and place the blame on a society that went to an elderly, perhaps brilliant, talmudist over an engineer and architect.
I have to assume that had R’ Dovid actually understood the danger he would have answered differently based on his Brisker tendency
R Dovid gets no pass. He had insane OCD over zionists, and that caused him to be skeptical here, which is the real story. And of course, I blame his talmud - and R Dovid for raising him as such.
Your pain is apparent. My sympathies for the disillusionment and sadness you feel. The ways of the Torah are pleasant and when you encounter the decidedly unpleasant it’s almost always not Torah. Shame it took such a horrible shock and betrayal.May you know true simchas hachayim when you regain your equilibrium
Fire brother.
I don’t think the Rashbi or the Besht wanted this either.
Maybe it’s because I just watched Dune with my son, but I sense a revolution is coming. Things are moving slowly beneath the sand… and when it erupts…
Many don’t have words to express their pain. Thank you for giving us words.
Despite it's resemblance to a rant, this post really hits home.
I actually used rant in a first draft. Switched it to lament.
It hits home because it's true.
This is so powerful. Wow!
I know we see religion differently but I admire that you stayed in the system and are trying to fix it from the inside. I hope for the sake of so many children growing up in that world that you have some modicum of success in making it a better place for them
OK this is my second comment here but I've just got to ask:
You say Lag Baomer reminds you that you can't escape. You can't embrace the Meron nor the Litvak, learning-torah-only side of the Chareidi, Yeshivish world.
Obviously this begs the question of why you don't consider the dati leumi /MO lifestyle?
I know they're far from perfect as well, maybe too engaged with the secular world for your tastes. Maybe too obsessed with the state or the army.
But weighing the pros and cons seems like a really appealing option to consider.
Their torah learning is impressive. Hesder yeshivas allow students to immerse themselves in torah while also allowing for a balance based on the students needs. Kids can learn gemara all day and then play sports or chess without guilt.
They serve in the army. They become the country’s top doctors, lawyers, engineers while still keeping torah and mitzvot.
Their lifestyles are also pretty healthy. They consume significantly less drugs and alcohol than secular people their age. They smoke much less cigarettes than Charedim.
My older brother has 7 wonderful kids, he works in hi-tech and spends as much time as possible learning torah. He’s what I’d consider Hardal. He never watches secular movies and certainly doesn’t have a TV. But he served in the army as do his older children.
Why don’t you consider that world as a possible escape?
I live something quite like that in the USA in Lakewood. That lifestyle doesn't really exist here. The Modox life here exposes their kids to way too much. Search for my article "why I am raising my kids Chareidi".
The bigger issue with that lifestyle is in Israel at least, you end up with some quasi genocidal beliefs. But all things considered if I lived in Israel I'd probably pick it.
He has written an article on this topic.
oh thanks. I'll look it up but happy for a link or title.
https://daastorah.substack.com/p/why-am-i-raising-my-kids-chareidi?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=33pit
There's also a part two.
OK gone over both parts now. No reason for you to care about my thoughts, I imagine you might already be sick of discussing this but I feel like responding. Feel free to ignore or not.
I definitely understand you better and got the answer to my question.
First of all, I think you and I have a very interesting parallel. You're very skeptical about many aspects of the Charedi world, but still raise your kids there to reap the benefits that come with them.
I no longer believe in the dati leumi dogma I was raised in (I am basically an atheist), but I'm choosing to raise my kids in the dati leumi world for similar reasons as I really do enjoy reaping the benefits of that educational system.
I also see you acknowledge there's a difference between Israel and the US. I think it's likely you'd fit in with the Chardal community in Israel that is similarly sheltered from the internet, social media etc.
The Yeshivish community in the US might even be more similar to them as they both work normal jobs.
My experience doesn't match yours. My kids don't have phones or ipads. We strictly limit TV etc. Of course this is very varied and not so easy to completely shelter them. And yes they might watch YouTube at a friends house against my wishes. But the sdom veamora that you describe seems an extreme exaggeration. Specifically more relevant to the worst kids and worst parents.
I think a big factor is the upper class parents are learning from the mistakes of the past, reading Jonathan Haidt etc.
To me it all boils down to pros and cons. And the Charedi cons (especially in Israel) are just piling up.
Appreciate your posts and perspective!
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for writing this with such honesty. The parts describing your experience in Meron were heartbreaking to read, and I think anyone with a heart can understand why such a traumatic event would shake a person so deeply. Being physically close to something like that changes people.
At the same time, I think the tragedy exposed something that already existed beneath the surface for you long before Meron itself. The line that stood out to me most was: “Chanoch lana’ar al pi darko.” I don’t think that is a cute vort either. And I believe many people quietly suffer when individuality is treated as rebellion instead of part of how Hashem created them.
As a BT, I say this from a somewhat different perspective because I have seen both sides. And I know the outside world does not contain the fulfillment people imagine it does. But I have also seen very real problems inside the frum world, especially when people begin elevating human beings to a level that belongs to Hashem alone.
That does not mean (chas v'sholem!) that rabbonim are not deserving of respect. This is not to minimize the gravity of the Jewish mesorah or the kedusha of true Torah knowledge. These are the foundations of who we are. But even the deepest scholarship must still be carried by human beings, and when we mistake the carrier for the message, we commit a grave error. Rabbonim are, after all, still human beings, not infallible forces of nature. The Torah itself seems deeply aware of the danger this can create. There is a reason Moshe Rabbeinu’s burial place was hidden. If even Moshe could become the object of unhealthy fixation, then certainly every later generation must be careful not to confuse reverence with something closer to dependency or absolutism.
I also think it is important to separate Hashem from human systems. Human communities can fail. Leaders can make mistakes. Cultures can become unhealthy or unbalanced. None of that disproves Hashem. The institution is merely a container; it is not the contents. On the contrary, the very fact that we feel the deep, gnawing dissonance when we witness corruption is itself a witness to the truth. We wouldn't know the system was "sick" if we didn't have an innate, internal compass, a neshomah, that recognizes the distance between human behavior and the Divine standard. That ache for authenticity is actually the most compelling proof there is.
And while I understand the anger in your piece, I personally do not view tragedy as evidence against emunah. On the contrary, real emunah is what remains when every human certainty has been stripped away. We only truly encounter Hashem when we stop looking for Him in the safety of our systems and start looking for Him in the wreckage of our own expectations.
Terrible things happen in this world, including to good and holy people. Yiddishkeit has never promised otherwise. The danger comes when people place absolute certainty in systems, institutions, or segulos instead of in Hashem Himself.
I also think your criticism of one-size-fits-all chinuch deserves serious reflection. "Al pi darko" means "his way", not the way of the institution. Every child is a unique manifestation of Hashem’s will in this world, with a path of avodas Hashem that is theirs alone. When a system insists on a single mold, it isn't just failing to educate; it is failing to honor the specific, intentional design that Hashem placed in that child. And that is a mistake we actually cannot afford to make.
What I appreciated most is that despite the pain you clearly feel, you didn’t collapse into nihilism. You chose to build rather than burn. That isn't just meaningful, it’s the only way forward.
One more thing: I don't think Emunah proper believes against bad things happening. What I am referring to is the false belief that 'rashbi protects' or 'tachshav tov' so we don't need to take precautions. Emunah is real. The Emuna sales course is false
Sorry I misunderstood.
Thank you for your kind words.
Woah! Good piece.
I once told my father that when America was still a “midbar” we needed the fire of Reb Ahron to ignite the Neshamos of American Jews. But at this point in history, that fire is just burning everyone up and out.
Lag Sameach!
I generally appreciate your writing but I have to say I love the raw honesty and how that frames your views a whole lot more than the cute angles you usually take (aside from your use of Calvin & Hobbs, which is always genius). This is deep and real and true and powerfully and very effectively written. I expect it to remain for me, at least, perhaps your most memorable and important posts.
Thank you!!! 🙏
I’m crying… it’s just so, so sad. How long will we sleep? And Hashem?
I wish I could give you a hug right now, brother
Good on you for speaking up. Thank you. I hope future commenters have the sense to understand the nuance in your words and to hear what you're saying and not what they want to hear.
This is among your best posts if not the best. The comparison to running up the ramp is one I wish I’d thought of myself.
The analogy doesn't hold up. The ramp involved two men and intentional homicide. No comparison, whatever, to Meron. The סנדל המסומר is better, but still weak. And the fatal flaw remains: the same type of person urging rabbinic intervention here, is also the same guy who complains when rabbis get involved with (eg) concerts.
This is frankly ridiculous. Its the same critique. The rabbanim waste their time with concerts and smash burgers while ignoring real dangers. Furthermore, I have been supportive on this blog multiple times of rabbanic bans on the internet and ai. I think they are essential and important.
And here no ban is necessary, just a push for renovations.
Another Gadol created for the purpose of criticism.
Which Rabbanim wasted their time with smashburgers? A couple of small fry Rabbis, who said very little about it.
They may be Rabbanim, and I know one to be a choshuve person. But the idea that his time was better served dealing with Meron is ludicrous. He is a local rabbi of the thirty people that daven by him, no more and no less.
Fair enough. The rabbanim on smash burgers were local kehilla rebbanim. Poor example.
I think if the rabbinic intervention focused on סכנת נפשות instead of nitpicking a slippery slope to a slippery slope to a slippery slope to possibly mixed dancing which is itself only Halachically noteworthy as a slippery slope to פריצות and עריות, then he’d be all for it. I know I would.
I don’t understand how the fact that the death was intentional vs. negligence makes a difference.
The problem, as Dr. Leiman noted many years ago, is that people just don't know enough.
Bechoros 40a. An animal with questionable shechitah. R. Akiva permits, RY ben Nuri forbids. אמר לו ר"ע לריב"נ, עד מתי אתה מכלה ממונם של ישראל? אמר לו ריב"נ לר"ע, עד מתי אתה מאכיל ישראל נבילות?
Don't you get it? What is important and what is trivial? What is more important, physical welfare or spiritual welfare? It's been debated for thousands of years. Having a tainah on Judaism because one little guy in 2026 thinks X is more important than Y is like an ant in the colony complaining its too crowded. Think bigger!
The concert bans and the WZO bans are neither
I see this approach all over the place, and frankly it’s a cultural flaw we have in Judaism: we devolve an issue to abstractions far too quickly.
If RY Ben Nuri could prove that the net loss to the Jewish consumer was .1% of their gross income, R Akiva would have been forced to concede. And if R. Akiva could prove that the risk of נבלות was only increased by .1%, RY Ben Nuri would have been forced to concede.
And that’s exactly the claim: that the relevant leadership is at a minimum blind to the actual risk. The “risk” to spiritual welfare from concerts is less than a .1% increase in the consumption of נבלות - frankly it’s probably the opposite of a risk, because if you give people zero outlets for entertainment they will burn out and have a defunct spiritual life. And that’s if they stay OnTD. Note that no one is making a claim against Judaism or against RY ben Nuri. The claim is against their modern equivalents who hide behind the abstraction of “we prioritize spiritual welfare over physical welfare” instead of dealing with serious threats to physical welfare more urgently than negligible non-threats to spiritual welfare.
He has a טענה on one interpretation. Not all of Judaism
Amazing post.
The reason for both meron and the yeshiva system is
https://vitalistjudaism2.substack.com/p/the-new-religion-of-metaphysical?r=4fpiyu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Well done. I think this is one of your more important essays. I'd have maybe preferred a bit more restraint around the word "murder" but I wasn't at Meron. . . .
One thing I might add, kind of an adjacent idea. Education of the young is not easy. The feeling you're describing of being trapped learning without true motivation doesn't just describe litvish yeshivas. It describes, I'd be willing to bet, the feelings of 50% or more of high school and college students, who also frequently feel they are being forced to learn what is of little value to them. It's not just a yeshiva thing. It's an education thing.
What is the solution? One that no one will follow. 50% of young people, religious or not, should probably apprentice themselves to a profession starting around age 14. Maybe 75%. Education lishma is really for a relatively small minority, whether that's studying gemara or Moby Dick.
True and valid. One difference is that the public schools don't claim divine writ for their system and require one to live it their whole lives. I think that is significant
The Yeshivish community makes the claim that they have the best system, essentially the same system since har sinai. Except, they are not really secluded and are guilty of almost all the mistakes of the local goyim. I'm not surprised that both communities invest in learning poor-value-return.
Nobody makes the claim that Yeshivos are a system from Har Sinai. But the facts are that Yeshivos have been extremely successful in recent years in transmitting their goals and values, and in inspiring the next generation to continue upon the path they were taught. There is no other educational system in the Jewish world today that even comes close to replicating that success.
EVERY system thinks they're the best, and if they don't, they shouldn't be in that system to begin with. The yeshivah community, like the chassidim before them, has thrived precisely bc of the esprit d'corps among its community.
If you add up computer science, engineering, education, nursing, and business, that’s 42.5% of undergrads. We’re already close to 50% among college attendees!
Do you mean 50% are apprenticeships? Possibly, though maybe 30 to 40% of their courses are Gen Ed requirements with no direct application other than making them "good citizens" and the like.
So on the one hand yes - it’s certainly not a very efficient apprenticeship process. A lot of feather bedding for the humanities departments.
On the other hand, it’s worth asking why it persists. Google at one point made a big todo about dropping its college degree requirement for job applicants. And in my experience, the answer is clear: you don’t want the guy next to you to be boring to talk to. You want to feel good about yourself surrounded by educated interesting people, as opposed to glorified digital plumbers. And you want the guy next to you to be someone you can hang out with at work, rather than someone who only knows glorified digital plumbing and is otherwise not insightful. You can think of the gened requirements as the intellectual equivalent of hazing that unions do to their junior members to socialize them.
I actually now a guy without a college degree working at Google, and he is a fascinating guy. Yeshiva educated but builds bee hives in his back yard and makes grandfather clocks out of 3d printers. . . great to talk to. And, TBH, I've had some great talk with my plumber, not sure if he took Gen Ed. Gen Ed exists because we still believe in the Humanities, which was, basically, a replacement for religion.
Of course, I know plenty of similar people. And on the other hand, many of the people in my philosophy classes in college were insufferable bores.
Wow. Very heavy piece. I think you raise very good points.
I would just point out that this problem is prevalent really in every community. Some in the Modern Orthodox world make an idol out of going to college. There are boys in that world who are not allowed to go to full-time Yeshivah after their year in Israel, even if they want to, which is at least as bad as the reverse phenomenon in the Yeshivish world.
The Dati Leumi world makes an molech out of military service, which sacrifices many more young boys than Meron has or ever will.
And in the non-Jewish world as well, people make an idol out of college, out of atheism, out of specific branches of Christianity etc. Many families are torn apart because of political beliefs or religious differences. I think unfortunately this is a problem in human nature, though perhaps in some ways, it has especially bad manifestations in the yeshivish world.
Fighting Israel's enemies is something positive and worth dying for. Especially for those who hold its' an absolute חיוב. How dare you compare that to those dying due to negligence and a false sense of בטחון?
We need people to be serving in the U.S. army also, even for the safety of the Jews in America. This doesn't mean that the Modern Orthodox world should brainwash all their boys to be karbanos for America. What's the difference?
No need for jews in the US army. There's no draft there and the US is not under attack. Furthermore, there's no need for Jews to live in the US, nor fight its foreign wars. America is foreign country while Israel is our home. The fact that you don't see a difference is quite disturbing to be honest.
"The Dati Leumi world makes an molech out of military service, which sacrifices many more young boys than Meron has or ever will."
You don't think there's a difference because with Meron they died in an accident. But if Israel didn't have an army, many, many more jews would be killed?
And if you say we don't need to have a state at all you also need to calculate all the torah learning supported and financed by Israeli taxpayer money.
Are you maybe saying the boys dying in Israel's wars should be secular instead of religious because they count less? Should only non-jewish people join the army? Should armies be abolished so nobody dies in wars?
I would like to see the mandatory draft abolished entirely, to be honest. I do not believe this would mean the end of the State. I think we are just so used to the status quo, that is hard to imagine anything different.
However, leaving that aside, I think daas yochid wrote an excellent post on this a while back.
https://daastorah.substack.com/p/vs
There has to be an army, but that doesn't mean that the dati leumi rabbonim have to brainwash their talmidim into volunteering only for the most dangerous roles. There are plenty of ways to help the State without risking your life in combat.
This is not about religious boys counting more. Chas veshalom to present such a framing. My point is exactly the opposite: every life matters, which is why it is irresponsible for any community to be brainwashing their constituents that they all have to risk their lives for the State. There will always be people volunteering for those roles, but it is irresponsible for the leader of any community to be pressuring their constituents to volunteer for roles which will likely bring them back in a body bag.
I think a good example of this would be the American military. Imagine if the modern Orthodox world decided that patriotism for America is the biggest mitzvah, and that all of Modern Orthodox boys have a duty to volunteer for combat. Imagine if because of this, over 70 percent of Modern Orthodox boys were serving in combat in places like Iraq and Afghanstan. And this led to thousands and thousands of karbanos from the Modern Orthodox community. Now imagine that because of all the losses they were suffering, the Modern Orthodox world tried pressuring the yeshivish world that they should being the same thing.
To me, this is exactly the situation in the dati leumi world, right now. I don't see any real difference.
Feel free to link my post 🙏
Just did.
And unlike all these other "idol" comparisons, there is no hiding, no shying away, from the fact that being in the IDF is dangerous.
Exactly what I was thinking about that comparison. Absolutely embarrassing to compare the two.
Powerful and thought provoking, it reflects deep feelings that needed to be expressed. I can’t question your source but the anecdote about Rav Dovid Soloveitchik is inconsistent with all that that I have been told about Rav Chaim and Brisk. Granted that my exposure was primarily decades of connection with the Rov and his brother Rav Aharon Soloceitchik but Rav Chaim was unusually concerned about any risk of פיקוח נפש and his American descendants were not proponents of praying at קברי צדיקים. If the story is true it illustrates a loss of rationalism.
I will say that given that I (a Soloveichik) personally am not a big fan of being machmir for all shitas (a known Brisker thing) it doesn't surprise me that people on the other side of the family could also not be the same as there ancestors. Each person is there own thing who ought to do as they see fit, instead of follow there ancestors 100%.
You are missing context. R Dovid hated Zionists. He had extreme OCD over them. Diagnosable. Thus, he refused to allow renovations. He Pooh poohed the real sakana over a fake imagined sakana. And the talmud who is also an insane brisker went with it.
R Shmuel Rabinowitz who was part of the mekomos hakedoshim of the govt went to R Dovid to change his mind. R Dovid pooh poohed that r Shimon will protect
Makes sense now?
No.
You are missing context. R Dovid hated Zionists. He had extreme OCD over them. Diagnosable. Thus, he refused to allow renovations. He Pooh poohed the real sakana over a fake imagined sakana. And the talmud who is also an insane brisker went with it.
R Shmuel Rabinowitz who was part of the mekomos hakedoshim of the govt went to R Dovid to change his mind. R Dovid pooh poohed that r Shimon will protect and not to give it to the Zionists to renovate.
Makes sense now?
Reb Dovid was wrong here, no doubt about it.
But calling his fear 'fake' misses the larger picture.
Meron has not been in the hands of the Charedim since time immemorial. The Zionists once had control over it. And it was not like the Kosel. It was a place of many issurim and issues.
Now, personally, as a Litvak, I wouldn't care if the whole thing was shut down. Revivalist meetings and mass raves are not healthy for a society. Dance at a chassuna, siyum, on Simchas Torah, or any other occasion. But not in this way.
But Reb Dovid's fear was not fake.
My grandfather was דוב פרלא, he was in charge of the mekomos hakedoshim in the 60's. (He was Chareidi with close ties to Rav Kook). My mother tells me already then he was trying to fix Meron's safety issues but was stymied by bureaucracy.
This doesn't excuse modern negligence, but you're right when you say it's not exclusive to current leadership.
No it still makes no sense and is not believable. Unlike you I actually knew him. That isn't the way he talked or thought about danger OR the zchyos of Tzadikim protecting..
It is the way he thought about Zionists.
It seems like putting words into peoples mouths is a very short walk from putting thoughts into their heads....
a close friend of mine witnessed this with his own eyes. It is true.
I doubt the veracity of the R’ Dovid story, and if it happened, it would have been someone taking advantage and putting words in the mouth of a 99 year old. The timing is suspect. R’ Dovid was niftar in January 2021 and wasn’t well in the months leading up to that. The Meron tragedy happened in April 2021, 3 months after he died. When was this alleged meeting and what condition was R’ Dovid in at the time, if it ever happened.
This happened quite a few years before. And I heard it from a trustworthy eyewitness who was with R Shmuel Rabinowitz at the time, who went to R Dovid to try to get his approval for renovations. It was necessary because his close talmud is one of the five on the vaad hachamisha.
Ok, so he was ~95. I’d still give R’ Dovid the pass on this one and place the blame on a society that went to an elderly, perhaps brilliant, talmudist over an engineer and architect.
I have to assume that had R’ Dovid actually understood the danger he would have answered differently based on his Brisker tendency
R Dovid gets no pass. He had insane OCD over zionists, and that caused him to be skeptical here, which is the real story. And of course, I blame his talmud - and R Dovid for raising him as such.
Very gracious of you to give him a pass, one wonders if the victims would be as gracious.