B”H

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE PHARISAIC/RABBINIC PERIOD


I was profoundly serious on the evening of the Festival of Shavu’ot. I began to think about the many criticisms that I leveled against the Pharisaic/Rabbinic tradition,including the Rabbinut of today. “Maybe I am wrong, I said to myself. Maybe I have been wrong.”

After my husband went out to learn for the night I began to pray to ה' יתברך. I asked for guidance and I asked ה' to stay my hand if I am wrong.

As I finished praying my eye fell on the newspapers that my husband had brought home on Eruv Chag. There is no explanation for why I began to read one of the newspapers, except that it was a Divine directive. I don’t read papers anymore. I haven’t for quite some time. The fact that I began to read a newspaper on a Chag is all the more strange. My eye fell on the paper "בשבע", issued on יום ג', ה' בסיון תשס"ד, 25.5.04. I began to flip through the pages. I came to an article entitled
"עמרי, שר הדתות" (“Omri, Minister of Religious Affairs”) by אריאל כהנא (Ariel Cahana) and began to read it. Again, this was very strange as I am never attracted by articles that deal with politics.

I will translate parts of the article, which stunned me so, here for those who cannot read Hebrew. I heartily suggest that those who can read Hebrew read the full article in the original.

My translations will appear in quotation marks. My comments on the article will appear without quotation marks below the quotes.

“This is actually the story of the collapse of the system of religious services in Israel, among them the Religious Councils. What was one a glorious enterprise for the dissemination of the Jewish light in every settlement in the Land of Israel, in the spirit of the idea formulated by the first Chief Rabbi, HaRav Kook, is vanishing. Only those who are close to the issue are taking it to heart.”

Finally the religious community is waking up to the fact that they have done such a poor job of making religion beautiful and holy and real in the eyes of the Jewish People that no one but interested parties (i.e., those whose salaries depend on the Ministry of Religious Affairs) care whether the Ministry exists or not. No one is raising a finger to help them.

“The situation is described by Dov Dombrovitch, Secretary of the Board of Religious Councils: “Almost all of the Councils are in deep financial crisis. There are Councils, like in Bat Yam, that closed lock and bolt. Against many foreclosures on top of foreclosures are being enacted. The municipalities aren’t providing the budgets that the law enjoins them to. Many of the workers of the Councils, from the women who supervise the ritual baths to the Chief Rabbis, aren’t getting salaries for months. Ritual baths all over the country are opening up on and off. Kashrut supervisors can’t carry out their tasks, and there is no one to talk to about support for learning Torah in yeshivot and in synagogues.”

The article continues: “The crisis, in contradiction to the prevailing opinion, does not distinguish between those Councils that were run in a defective and filthy way and those who management was normal and in working order and whose activities were blessed.”

This particular passage stunned me. I had wondered if I had been harsh, if I had been overly critical of the Rabbis. Now, here I was reading the term מסואב, meaning: corrupt; debauched; unclean; defiled, filthy used in describing the functioning of some of the Religious Councils in Israel by a religious man who follows the Pharisaic/Rabbinic way. I sat shocked. There was yet more to come.

The article says: “ Not one single Member of Knesset or Minister who are close to the issue was wise enough to prevent the complication that was created. The bottom line is: For three weeks there is no legal system that worries about the existence of Jewish life in the Land of Israel.”

I continued to read that Rabbi Yitchak Levi, Head of the National Religious Party (the Mafda”l) was put in charge of dissembling the Ministry for Religious Affairs and finding which other government ministries could pick up the functions of the dissembled Ministry of Religious Affairs. Not only did he not disagree, he saw the project in a very positive light. Officially the Minister in charge of Rabbi Levi is Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister himself. In practice, however, Omri Sharon, the Prime Minister’s son, a man who knows nothing of Jewish Law and cares only for power and wealth, is now in full control of all religious affairs in the State of Israel.

Rabbi Levi in addressing the plenum said: “I didn’t see in ‘Shulchan Arukh” that a Religious Council is holy and it is forbidden to touch it. There are Religious Councils that make the Name of Heaven holy, but there are other Religious Councils that defame the holy publicly.”

Once again I sat shaken reading a Rabbi write such things about Religious Councils that he is intimately familiar with for decades. The Hebrew he used is:

"אבל יש מועצות שמוציאות את דיבת הקודש רעה."

Rabbi Levi continued: “We will keep and protect religious services, but provide them much better.”

The article describes the power plays between the National Religious party and Sha”s over control of the Religious Courts, a bastion of power and money, that was part and parcel of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. It is clear from the article that the Religious Courts are politicized through and through and that the same wheeling and dealing that marks the Religious Councils lies at base of the Religious Courts as well.

In an article that appeared in the newspaper "דתי צפוני" on 24.5.04 there is an article entitled "הרבנים הראשים יחדשו את המאבק נגד הממשלה". In that article it is mentioned that a series of emergency meetings of the Chief Rabbis; Eli Yishai, Head of the Sha”s Party; Members of Knesset from the Sha”s Party and the Chief Rabbis of the large cities in order to discuss the crisis in the Religious Councils.

Their efforts will avail them nothing, a temporary transfusion into a dying body at best. They have made the Name and the Torah ugly in the eyes of the Jewish People. They have caused many to flee the religious world and have confounded many an innocent Soul who came thirsty to their door for Torah. Nothing they do will come to aught.

We see, then, that while the Rabbinut rose to great heights of power in the Diaspora, ה' יתברך is bringing them low in the Holy Land.

Elements of the Exodus from Egypt echo in this story – the fact that there were warnings and warning signals, but they fell on deaf ears – ears that ה' יתברך made deaf because it is the Divine Will to end this travesty and set the Jewish People free to find the True Way.

I understood in reading this article, though it pained me deeply to see that the Rabbinic world had reached so low a level of immorality that ה' decided to make them “vanish” (the term used in the article is נגוז), making a brighter future possible.

I understood that ה' יתברך blesses the work that I have devoted my life to – the dissemination of the knowledge of the Judaism of היחד – the true, authentic, pure and only real יהדות.

I understood that my work is just one part of a process that is already under way. Even as I type, ה' יתברך is ending the age of the Rabbis and clearing the way for our return to תורת אמת.

May it be come speedily in our days.

אמן ואמן

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat
DoreenDotan@gmail.com