Mistakes Abound

One of my Yemos Ha'Moshiach fantasies is that all incorrect information will disappear out of books.  All the stories told about various tzaddikim and gedolim will have only the correct names and the details will be accurate.  I assume there will be large swathes of empty white space in many books.

I am reminded of this because of a story I read in Torah Tavlin, a very nice series of books with divrei Torah and stories.  The story is one I knew previously and I know it as it is told accurately.  In this book however, the author has one main character dying instead of being away on a trip, and another character being the grandson when he was actually the son.  This is in addition to embellishing the story with a description that is probably not true and which is certainly not part of the original story.  The core point of the story remains though.

It sure does make me wonder about the other stories in the book! It's like when I read descriptions about Jewish life written by non-Jews or Jews who are not knowledgeable and I see inaccuracies and outright errors.  I would think they would have fact checkers who would verify things like Jewish law.  Makes me wonder about the accuracy of information I read on subjects that I'm not that familiar with.  It does not inspire confidence!

Original Source of Snakes for Healing

The picture is the "Star of Life," which is the emblem used on ambulances.  What does the symbol represent? A search online says the staff and the snake comes from one of the Greek gods, a god of healing.

Isn't it more likely that the symbol originates with this week's parsha of Chukas? The Jewish people complained, and snakes came and bit them and they died.  Moshe prayed on behalf of the people and Hashem told him to fashion a snake and put it on a pole and whoever was bitten was supposed to look at the snake on the pole.  Chazal say, "Does a snake cause death or life? However, when Yisrael looked heavenward and subjected their hearts to their Father in heaven, they would be healed, but if not, they would waste away."

And G-d Has the Last Laugh

 

Yesterday, before the MONSTER STORM hit, with the predictions of it being the WORST STORM EVER, I was skeptical.  We have been subjected to dire prognostications in the past.  The media has a field day with it.  They love ominously announcing: WINTER STORM WATCH and updating us every few minutes.

 

But how many times does it pan out? I haven't done a study on it, but in my life experience, on many occasions the prophecies of doom do not materialize.  I get the feeling that even those hyping the massive storms don't quite believe in their own hype, but they hope that it will come true so they will be proven right.

 

In this case, they claimed that the NYC area would get as much as two feet of snow.  What actually happened? 6.3 inches or 7.8 inches (depending on the news item and the wind) of snow fell in Central Park.

 

When Hashem unleashes a storm, whether rain or snow, He shows His might.  Likewise, when Hashem withholds rain.  The weather is one of the few areas in which man has no control.  It would have been difficult if we would have had the blizzard they were predicting, and I davened that it should be much less than they said it would be. 

 

I thought, true, Hashem shows His might in a blizzard, but if Hashem makes it much less than they predicted, this would also put Man in his place.  Man can't control the weather but he thinks (or pretends) that he can forecast what will take place.  It's not like the meteorologists make it clear that this is an educated assessment of the weather patterns and things can change (because they often do).  They present their forecast as fact, and their forecasts are given names like AccuWeather to make you think that you can rely on them for accuracy.

 

So when I got up this morning and looked out the window, I could see that it was nowhere near what they had said it would be, and I was amused.

 

see this post: here

The Yeshiva Myth

According to the "yeshiva world," the "Yeshiva Movement," as they call it, is attributed to the Gra because his talmid, R' Chaim of Volozhin (1749-1821) started a yeshiva. His yeshiva is considered the " Mother of All Yeshivos," as though yeshivos didn't exist before he started his own. This is untrue of course, as anybody who has read any historical accounts knows, and I'm not talking about the yeshivos in Sura and Pumbedisa in Gemara times or the yeshiva of Shem and Ayver ...

But this is part of the Litvish worldview, that they invented yeshivos and modern day learning, with the proper "derech," and all.

The Maharal (1520-1609) had a yeshiva.

Pinsk had a yeshiva. R' Shimon, a colleague of the renowned Maharshal (1510-1574), headed this yeshiva. After his passing, his son R' Refael succeeded him. When R' Moshe Yaffe became rav of Pinsk, he was also appointed head of the yeshiva."

There were yeshivos in Ostrohe, Brisk, Slutzk, Minsk, Vilna, Cracow, and Prague. [yes, I know some of these are Lithuanian towns. The point is they existed before the Volozhiner yeshiva.]

 

There were renowned yeshivos in Lublin in the time of the Maharsha (1555-1631) and the Maharam (1558-1616). The latter headed yeshivos in Lublin, Cracow, and Lvov, and had hundreds of talmidim.

The Maharshal (1510-1573) headed a great yeshiva in Lublin.

 

Likewise, later on, around the time of W.W. II, there were dozens of yeshivos in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania that had nothing to do with the Lithuanian yeshivos.

 

I found it very interesting that outside the yeshiva in Pressburg, the yeshiva of Pupa was the most organized and biggest yeshiva in all of Europe.

When the Nazis closed the yeshivos in Czechoslovakia, there was an overflow of boys on a waiting list for this yeshiva. In 1942 the yeshiva was already severely overcrowded; about 350 students were occupying rooms intended for 250. These were students 18 and older. (taken from an account of someone who learned there in 1942)

I grew up hearing about the Mir, Slobodka, Kelm, Baranovitch, and Radin but Pupa? Don't recall that it was even mentioned ...

I don't see how the structure and curriculum of the yeshiva of Volozhin, were unique. How did it differ from any of the yeshivos mentioned above? Why does it deserve the title "Mother of All Yeshivos?"

Is He Really Doing His Best?

Shais Taub found it necessary to write a lengthy (more than a page) explanation about his use of the phrase "he was doing his best" in a previous article.  It leaves me wondering what the point is in using a phrase that is so puzzling that it needs that much explaining. 

I remember coming across the phrase, "He is doing the best he can with the tools he has" in Miriam Adahan's writings years ago, and not liking it.  Why? Because it isn't true.  I assume that if I am not always doing the best I can, neither are other people.  After all, how often are we actually doing the best we can.  If someone offered us a million dollars to do better, wouldn't we do better? Quite likely!

Taub says, "When looking at a person's behavior, we have to take into account all sorts of factors ... the best that they were able to do at that moment, with the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacities they had at that time.  These factors include their experiences, their education, whether they had enough sleep last night, and so on."

He goes on to say that none of these factors are excuses and they don't absolve anyone of anything.  They just help explain the rationale behind someone's behavior.  He goes through all this explaining in order, he says, to help us see that the problem is with the other person, not us.  But then I don't accept this line either, "They were pathetically incapable of doing better." Sure they were! But for some reason, Taub wants to use these phrases which aren't true, while simultaneously saying, the person should have done something to become the kind of person that doesn't do those bad things.

I can see thinking through various factors to explain someone's unacceptable behavior; we do this when we are judging someone favorably.  But why not simply say: "Their behavior was unacceptable; They could have done better; It was hard for them because of bad habits/poor role models/difficult personality, etc.?"

How Does G-d Fit Into the Picture?

People tend to refer to something as "hashgacha pratis" (individual, specific supervision by Hashem) when it stands out, when in truth, every single thing is under Hashem's hashgacha pratis, not only amazing occurrences. 

Furthermore, people tend to refer to something as "hashgacha pratis" when it works out well, when it truth, everything that happens, whether it seems good or not, is under Hashem's hashgacha pratis. 

To give a common example, whether someone misses a flight and it crashes or someone doesn't miss a flight and it crashes, both are hashgacha pratis.

We need to establish these as the ground rules because otherwise, for one thing, we will have the wrong outlook.  For another thing, we can end up hearing heretical ideas presented as logic and be convinced that it's reasonable. 

I'm thinking about this because of a chapter in a book I'm reading which is about how human nature is such that we focus on those things that fit our premise and ignore the rest.  We like to see patterns and so we attribute meaning to certain events whether a pattern may be there or not. 

Where the chapter went wrong, from a Jewish perspective, is when the author made it clear that he doesn't think G-d is running the world.  It's not that he says so explicitly. What he says is our minds reject randomness.  But one minute, Judaism rejects randomness! And yet, even as believing Jews, we don't say on a clear day, "Wow, I was walking down the street and no tree limbs fell on me" or "I wasn't struck by lightening."  Why don't we say that? Because on a clear day, there is no reason to expect that those events will occur, and although we believe Hashem oversees every detail, we know that He wants the world to run by teva-nature.  The reason humans look for patterns is because we innately know that G-d created the world and there is a seder here.  So the author is correct in that we sometimes attribute meaning to something that is not statistically meaningful (akin to expressing amazement about not being struck by lightening on a clear day), but he is wrong when he says everything is random!

I find this perturbing not only because he's wrong, but because he is not being intellectually honest in a book that is about how we delude ourselves! There are things in our world which are statistically rare and make no sense logically and yet he does not acknowledge this.  In the author's atheistic worldview, he must believe that all is random.  It is disturbing to pick up a book that is ostensibly objective but actually has a distinct, anti-G-d bias.

Marital Advice from R' Manis Friedman

It's a crazy idea, he says, to think that once a couple is married they can be on their worst behavior because he/she loves you anyway.  No, he says.  Not true.  When you marry someone you have to be on your best behavior for the rest of your life!

There are people who are so nice and respectful for outsiders in their dress and speech, but to their own spouse they're not.  Why is there less respect for your spouse than for the repairman? It's a very mistaken notion, he says.

Marriage means you are going to put yourself into a situation in which you have to be the best you can be every single day.  If you don't get married, you don't have to be that good.

Once you decide you're marrying the person, decide what to tell him/her that will help him love you, not things that will make it hard for him to love you.

Being completely honest is not a good idea because sometimes being honest is cruel and thoughtless and with your spouse, you don't say things that will hurt him/her just because you want to be honest.  Say things that are helpful and supportive of the marriage.

In general, the rule is: the husband is there to make his wife's life easier, he won't do anything to burden her, and the same is true for the wife.  Any bad news, negative stuff, keep it to yourself.  If together you can work on a plan, if you want advice, for something practical, that's one thing; but just to unburden, no.

An example he gave is, R' Friedman's father was held up in his store and he never told his wife! Most husbands would tell.  R' Friedman asks, what is the wife supposed to do if he tells? She'll just worry.  She will suffer with him.  Out of consideration you can withhold information.

More Tzaros or the Same As Always?

One often hears discussions about whether there are more people dying young today, toddlers, children, teens, young adults, young marrieds, middle-aged marrieds who are diagnosed with cancer and other illnesses, in addition to "accidents" (car, fire, drowning), or not.

I am referring to the constant tzaros we hear and read about, the emails requesting Tehillim. The huge Tehillim lists. The ads and tzedaka requests for families that are suffering from tragedies. 

So first, we have to decide what period of time we're comparing our times to! To life in Europe? To life in America?

1900-1950?
1950-1980?
the past 30 years?

Of course life expectancy has gone up and today we expect all live births to result in live adults when long ago (though not SO long ago), before vaccinations, many babies and children died! It was common for a woman to have many live births, let's say 13, but only have 5 survive childhood!

So I'm not talking about comparing our days to back then.

I'm more interested in knowing whether things have changed since say, the 1950's.  I'm inclined to believe that it's because communications today are so advanced that we hear more than we used to.  When a kalla was in a car accident or became seriously sick years ago, it was just a local issue, but now, people all over the world are hearing about many more tzaros through frum news websites and emails. 

May we soon know of no more sorrow.

Truth in Journalism

As a postscript to the previous post, I was dismayed to learn about the liberties taken with the truth by those who write for women's popular magazines.  Naive me actually believes when I'm told a story is true.  In Sybil Exposed it describes how certain journalists presented fiction as fact. 

The author of Sybil had doubts about the veracity of Sybil's abuse stories.  She actually went to the supposed scene of many crimes and discovered no evidence whatsoever for the abuse claims.  Worst of all, she read a letter Sybil had written to her psychiatrist, denying she had multiple personality disorder.  Her doctor, of course, said she was in denial. 

The author didn't know what to do with all this information.  Furthermore, the story as she knew it wasn't much of a story with a plot and dialogue. 

The ultimate solution? Fictionalizing the story and presenting it as the truth.  Subsequent to the book's becoming a major hit, the author and the pyschiatrist appeared on many shows talking about the book.  By that point, they had certainly convinced themselves that the book was true.

Leaves me wondering, what of what I read and think is true, is actually fiction? Some might say, it doesn't matter.  I've heard this before and been astonished as I've written in this post: click to read previous post

This world is described as Olam Ha'Sheker, a world of lies.  Nothing is as it appears to be.  Fiction can be masquerading as truth.

Sybil Exposed

I did not read Sybil but I am reading Sybil Exposed.  Sybil was a book published in 1973 that went on to become a bestseller and a movie.  It was presented as the true story of a woman treated for multiple personality disorder who had been so horribly abused by her mother that she became a psychiatric case.  The book described grotesque rated R scenes that had the public enthralled.  Not surprisingly, huge numbers of people were diagnosed as having a multiple personality disorder after the book became a hit (like anorexia became a "fad diagnosis" in Hong Kong after it was marketed there, see my post "Crazy Like Us"  click here to read post

The lives of three women are intertwined: the patient, her doctor, and the author of Sybil.  The author of Sybil Exposed shows how the patient's illness wasn't an illness, how her treatment was a sham, and how the fictional story Sybil came to be written and presented as the truth. 

As much as the book is an expose of the book Sybil, it is an expose of the quackery of the psychiatric profession.  As anybody who has read previous posts (labels: psychiatry and mental illness) on this blog have seen, I am not impressed by the pseudo-medical specialty of psychiatry.  The so-called treatments given by the doctor in this case as well as her colleagues back in the 50's till the present day, are a horror.  Forget about "first do no harm."  That is far from their guiding principle.  When will the public finally figure out that the emperor has no clothes? That the psychiatric/mental health profession in cahoots with the drug companies are making us into a nation of drugged, incompetent, invalids?

More Than Happy

I've been noticing superlatives lately.  Things like, "The bus is more than dependable."  Hmmm.  And if you merely said that it's dependable, why wouldn't that be enough to convey its reliability?

She said she's more than exhausted.  Is being exhausted not expressing her tired she feels?

"I'd be more than willing to help."  How much more than willing is that?

He said he's 1000% sure.  And if he said 100% would that somehow convey that he's a bit uncertain?

Why have words become meaningless so that we have to pump them up to express what we mean?

Not So Beautiful

I have enjoyed Hanoch Teller's books in the past but his new book, written after a ten year hiatus, has me disappointed with the very first story.

Why was this story told with pseudonyms when the story was written up years ago with the real names of the people involved?

1) He says the woman was blind from birth when she became blind in her 40's.

2) In his rendition, the woman knew she would be able to see if she could be operated on when in reality, the woman had been told her blindness was genetic and nothing could be done.  A remote possibility that laser surgery could help her was something she planned on exploring.

3) He has the heroine of the story attending a Bais Yaakov school when she actually attended Beis Rifka.  Why not give the girl and her community the credit due them?

4) In his rendition, the idea of seeing an eye doctor is that of the young girl when what really happened was this was a response of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.  Why not give the proper credit?

5) He has them dropping out of the blue on the the local ophthamologist when in reality, they got a recommendation to a specialist.

6) He says the young girl's mother dreaded confronting the doctor about the cost of the surgery when in reality the doctor waived the fee (beyond what the government would cover) immediately.

7) The newly sighted woman made a Seudas Hoda'a to thank the community of Crown Heights who stood by her.  In Teller's inaccurate recounting of the story the many people who played a part in helping out are set aside.

R' Paysach Krohn is to be commended for verifying the details of the stories he tells.  Unfortunately, Teller and another popular story writer don't bother.  They hear a story or read a story and write it as they please, with embellishments and no interest in verifying it for accuracy.

When the talmidim of R' Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezritch, delivered a Torah discourse, they viewed it as the Oral Law and when they heard a story from him, this was considered the Written Torah.

In the Written Torah, every detail matters.