Messianism, Lesson 9

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, we’re at… I said, I wasn’t home, so I didn’t have time to print out the pages for myself. I’m using the computer. Maybe I should always do that, save the cutting down of forests in Brazil. Fine. We talked a bit—in effect we more or less got to the end of the discussion on messianism in Zionism. I’ll just summarize the points that came up there, and there were mainly two points, or two kinds of points. One point was the attitude toward meta-history, or metaphysics actually—meta-history is more accurate than metaphysics. Meaning, you’re not looking at history, at what happens in history, but at the meta-historical foundations that drive these processes. And assuming that of course you can’t really know, but you assume whether this brings redemption, or on the contrary delays redemption, whether it belongs to the “other side” or to the “side of holiness,” or things of that sort—and that’s basically the plane on which you make decisions. In other words, you don’t make decisions by thinking about the events as they are, but about what stands behind them. And here there’s some dimension—and again, I distinguished this from the characteristics I spoke about earlier—of an unrealistic, bizarre attitude. Because I’m not talking about decisions that fail the realistic test, meaning crazy decisions. As I said, Religious Zionism generally doesn’t make crazy decisions. I don’t think it’s right to put them in that category. But the way you arrive at the decision is not on the real-political plane, not on the historical plane, but on the meta-historical plane. The considerations, the type of considerations you use—it’s not that you’re now going out to a world war against superpowers, I’m not talking about decisions of that kind. But the decision of what to do is very often justified on planes that are meta-historical, not historical.

[Speaker B] Say, Rabbi Shach as the counterexample, as a rational leader. Yes, a rational leader, yes. Precisely on the most rational subject, like an economy of subsistence.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, well, that’s a famous question. I’ve been dealing with it for many years. I think I understand the question. Basically Rabbi Shach as a pragmatic Haredi leader—not only Rabbi Shach, in general the Haredi leadership of the last generations, whom I present as pragmatic, yes, like the story with the rabbi from Brisk and Rabbi Herzog—there’s a phenomenon that challenges that description, because their economic conduct is not rational. Meaning, how can you send the whole public to study in kollel and rely on donations, charity, support from the state, or things of that sort, and hope—

[Speaker B] —that it’ll go on forever.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And of course also, in practice, when you look per family, it’s a low amount. In other words, you’re sending people into a life of poverty. It’s not only the question that there isn’t enough money for everyone, but each one of them who makes a living is doing so under severe financial pressure. So here there are two answers. One answer is that this is usually backed by possibilities of obtaining support from the state. Meaning, if state support stopped, they would stop this policy. In other words, true, they’re not relying on themselves, but there are other factors they were relying on. They weren’t doing this as a shot in the dark. Even the Satmar Rebbe, say, when he sends his people to study, he makes sure—he doesn’t take from the state, but he definitely has a pool of people who donate and so on. In other words, he bases it on something.

[Speaker B] With Satmar the issue is different, and even—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —with Gur too, because it’s permitted to work—

[Speaker B] And obviously, many go to work and a minority go to kollel.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying the antithesis here is not relying on a miracle but relying on the state—that’s exactly the miracle. But if one day—

[Speaker B] One day Lapid could come and…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] When Lapid comes, the policy will change. In the meantime, there’s no Lapid.

[Speaker B] One day, that—

[Speaker D] It happened, that day happened around 2005, when Bibi was finance minister. There was—he stopped the child allowances, they cut them dramatically, and that moved the Israeli economy, and then a huge crisis emerged, and you saw people starting to go to work. When it happened, it happened.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Second thing, second thing: his consideration is a completely realistic one, because what stands on the other side is the disintegration of the Haredi social fabric. Because once people stand on their own feet economically, Haredi society as we know it can’t really remain.

[Speaker B] Satmar is different—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s different. It’s Hasidic. It’s not the same thing.

[Speaker D] In America, and in America, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In America, and in the Hasidic world, it’s something different. In the Lithuanian world, in my opinion, at least the assessment with a very high degree of probability is that it can’t work.

[Speaker B] So here elements of a switch come in.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He can’t—there’s no social engineering. You can’t play with people; they don’t completely dance to your flute. Rabbi Shach, by the way, I know this troubled him terribly. He didn’t sleep nights. We were somewhat close to the family there, to Rabbi Shach’s family, and I know from personal information that he didn’t sleep at night over this. He wasn’t calm about it at all, and he struggled with these things a lot. But what stood on the other side was his fear that the whole thing would fall apart. Once people integrate into all the systems of life—into the army, education, employment, and so on—and Lithuanians won’t go become merchants the way Hasidim become merchants, but will go to university. It’s a different character, a different culture, and there it will collapse quickly. If you go be a merchant, fine, you can stay a Haredi merchant; you don’t encounter intellectual challenges that threaten your worldview intellectually, okay? In the Lithuanian world it’s less workable, in my opinion, and I think his fear was justified. And therefore he paid the price, but he paid it out of a halakhic—or not halakhic, but completely realistic—consideration, a consideration that says this is a kind of decree, like when the sages make a fence: I forbid something because I’m afraid such-and-such will happen. That’s conduct that was completely accepted throughout the generations. In that sense he’s not deviating from the tradition we know. True, he took a certain economic risk, but he took it because of a completely realistic reason, not because of the Messiah and not because of abstract metaphysical things. He made a judgment the way leaders did in every generation: you close things off, you put up a fence where you fear people will get to places they shouldn’t get to. In that sense this is normal conduct. I’m not saying risks aren’t taken, but they’re taken out of considerations that are halakhic or realistic-historical, but not metaphysical. He wouldn’t say to do this because that’s how you bring the Messiah—that’s the point. I think he would not make this move in order to bring the Messiah; he would make it because he’s afraid people will deteriorate, that people won’t continue to keep commandments, to remain committed to commandments, or at least to the Haredi social character of commandment observance. So I don’t think this refutes my thesis, that’s how it seems to me. In any case, as I said, there are two kinds of characteristics that do border on a certain kind of messianism. One, as I said, is considerations that relate to the meta-historical plane, not the historical plane. And the second kind of characterization is the attitude toward symbols. I said that the attitude toward symbols of the state, toward officeholders of the state, is something that is not—it’s connected to the first characteristic—you don’t see the person, you see what he represents. Military uniform is the vestments of the High Priest. Or the president of the state is the one holding one leg of God’s throne in the world. He’s not a person, not a flesh-and-blood being. I spoke about this—if I remember correctly I mentioned that letter of Rabbi Tau to Katsav, when Katsav was sitting over rape charges, and Rabbi Tau sent him some completely bizarre letter—really, even by Rabbi Tau’s standards it sounded absolutely unbelievable. He sent him some letter of support: don’t let your spirit fall because of the persecutions, and things like that. It’s incredible. It was clear that he simply did not have the person before his eyes at all. It’s not a person. He sees before his eyes the one who holds God’s throne in the world. He is the symbol. Yes, exactly. He’s not a person at all. There are statements of this sort and others—“I’m not sitting here as prime minister; I’m sitting here as a representative of the State of Israel”—things of that kind. But I don’t know, there are limits. Like the judge who has the flag behind him and says: I’m not Moshe Yankele the individual judge; I represent the state here. Which is true in a certain sense, to relate to it that way. But fine, don’t mix the levels. When he puts on the hat of a judge—

[Speaker B] Right, then he’s not the individual, he’s the judge—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, he’s not the individual, he’s the judge. He’s a representative of the judiciary. But on the other hand, when he rapes, I don’t relate to it as though the judiciary raped someone. Moshe Yankel raped someone. In other words, you can’t ignore—it takes a bit of complex thinking. You have to understand that he is also a representative, but he’s also a person. And as an individual person you have to judge him as he is, with all due respect to the fact that he also represents various things. So that’s why I say: the flag, the anthem, the president, the chief of staff, all these symbols, some of which are people and some of which are not—there’s a sense that the attitude toward them is, I don’t know, disproportionate. They become some kind of holiness in the object itself. I already said this—I may not have mentioned it last time, but on other occasions—I’ve already spoken about this matter of the flag in the synagogue, which always gives me a fever. Again, personal sensitivity. I obviously don’t think that someone who brings a flag into a synagogue is committing idolatry. But I don’t know, it jars me, yes? I can’t get along with it. With all due respect, it’s a flag. And I can respect that people get very emotional about it, fine, wonderful. The symbol itself doesn’t speak to me very much. Fine, I identify with what it symbolizes, but a symbol—I don’t know, symbols don’t speak to me. But what is it doing in the synagogue? Why paint it in religious colors? The feeling is that they’re turning the mundane into holiness. I spoke about this when I discussed the mundane and holiness—we had a whole series on that. And here too, again, I say: not in the halakhic sense. Haredim and others always use halakhic terms. I think that cheapens the issue. It’s not idolatry, not even a trace of idolatry. But there is still something here that bothers me, and I don’t know exactly how to define it.

[Speaker B] There’s a question of the reverse regarding Wagner. Regarding what? Regarding the composer Richard Wagner. Wagner. In fact, the boycott of him began in 1938 after Kristallnacht. Now in practice they portray him almost as a Nazi, but in fact researchers discuss whether there is antisemitism there or not—it’s a question altogether.

[Speaker D] If there is, it’s a complex antisemitism.

[Speaker B] And he had a lot of Jewish friends, and actually prouder Jews, so to speak, more than converts. Converts tended more to follow his rival, Johannes Brahms. But the conductor who conducted in the opera house he built was an unconverted Jew, someone named Hermann Levi, who also refused despite all the pressure to convert. And basically they were just looking for a German scapegoat in 1938. There was no shortage of composers more antisemitic than he was.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So they turned him into an icon.

[Speaker B] Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky—but they were simply looking for a German scapegoat. And specifically among the Germans there was a problem with composers, because Schubert was, Schumann was anti-antisemitic, he threw Liszt out of his house when he attacked Mendelssohn. And what I heard from a certain rabbi who served as an emissary of that Fund in LA, in Los Angeles, was that in cases like these the perceived value is more dominant than the historical truth.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, when it comes to the Holocaust there are sensitivities—good grief. It’s the issue of the day right now with Poland, with what’s happening now in Poland, this crazy hysteria. I don’t understand at all what they’re doing. What is this wild reaction? I didn’t read the wording of the law; maybe there are some nuances there. But they turned it into some kind of…

[Speaker E] I read the law. The law doesn’t apply to anything that’s scientific research or an artistic work. Yes, no, scientific research, and okay, they were anti—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, beyond that. I’m saying the claim is a claim that one must not distort history. The Polish state really was not a partner; there wasn’t a Polish state, and that’s all—what’s the problem? That’s the historical truth. Now, I’m in favor of not forbidding any expression of opinion. That includes Holocaust denial—I think it should not be forbidden, because I think a person should speak freely and raise arguments, and everyone should decide what they decide. No, in my view you must not silence people, however vile they may be, so long as a person is not speaking incitement; it’s an expression of opinion. And in that sense I’m against this as well. But the people who agree to Holocaust denial here, yet oppose silencing speech there—I really don’t understand that. Around the Holocaust I think you can see a lot of this: the hysteria is great, and I don’t know how far one can bring examples related to Nazis and the Holocaust into other contexts. There people react in a very irrational way.

[Speaker D] Emotion completely takes over reason.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s simply hysteria there. Fine. So I’m saying that these two characteristics—if I summarize where we’ve gotten up to now—these two characteristics, let’s say, there’s some kind of messianic spirit blowing there. I don’t know how far one can really determine anything here, and as I said, the concept of messianism itself is not a sharp concept and not a halakhic concept, and therefore this determination is kind of gray on top of gray. But still, I don’t know, my feeling is that in these two aspects there are indeed elements of a messianic movement here. Now I want perhaps to sharpen this through another concept. I wrote this on the site in one of the columns I wrote on Har HaMor and Chabad—a fairly loaded column, one of the more loaded ones—and there I resorted to a more modern concept, though no less vague: the concept of a cult. What people today call a cult. And in the course of the discussion we had here about messianism, it suddenly occurred to me that the concept of a cult and the concept of a messianic movement are, if not siblings, at least cousins. In other words, both are vague, both are not simple. Even though the concept of a cult doesn’t generally arise in a religious context—messianic movement is perceived as a religious problem—the concept of a cult is perceived as a social, psychological, sociological problem. In secular discourse it doesn’t belong to religious discourse. But when you think about it a bit, it’s similar. Basically, the concept of a messianic movement is a translation into religious jargon of the concept of a cult, or a certain kind of cult.

[Speaker B] In religion, cults usually have some kind of theological split, or a halakhic-behavioral split, from the mother religion, don’t they? I didn’t understand. Religious cults usually have some ideological religious dispute of one kind or another.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question is how you define it. I don’t know—Mormons, for example—can you call them a split from Christianity, or a religion? I don’t know exactly how to relate to those Mormons; it depends how you look at it. But if I look at them now as a religion in their own right, without even getting into the question of Christianity’s attitude toward them, what’s my attitude toward them? A lot of people would say: that’s a cult. Now those people are secular people; they’re not accusing them of being a messianic movement. In other words, that’s not an accusation coming from a religious point of view. Rather there’s some kind of sociological-social problem here, something irrational—I don’t know, there too the characteristics are not simple. How exactly do you characterize this concept, the concept of a cult? And there the problem of characterization is not because there are no halakhic sources, but because this concept is really located on a continuum where it’s hard to draw the line at when it becomes pathological, and to what extent each of us has a bit of contact with it. In other words, none of us—or almost none of us—is completely glatt, right? So the question is where you cross the line and it’s already called a cult, already pathological. That’s not a simple question. And when I wrote that piece, it was following a feeling that arose in me at that stage as well. Har HaMor and its daughters had gone out on one of their crusades—I don’t even remember what it was about, maybe around various religious legislation issues at that time, I don’t remember, anti-religious legislation in their view that was around then—and they went out on some lecture campaign, and the organization Libah was there, really some kind of such organization.

[Speaker F] With those pajamas, with that “Pijama Library” thing, where the Ministry of Education distributed books from the New Israel Fund to children.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know, I don’t remember that.

[Speaker F] Books for little children, and they were against it because it was funded by the New Israel Fund.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, so the New Israel Fund is one of the big demons there. Again, there’s something to it, but the proportions and the attitude are completely insane.

[Speaker G] They present there a family of father and father, I think. What? In those books they presented a family of father and father.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah yes, okay. Wasn’t surrogacy there too? There were a few laws there, I don’t remember exactly which, but I wrote about it. So various pamphlets came out, they went around giving lectures in different places, and even in Lod, Rabbi Mikha Halevi came—he’s the rabbi from Petah Tikva. He came to speak there, and it really angered me. I wrote about it in an email: he’s a state employee. In other words, he can’t speak against the Knesset and against the government. You can express your position on various issues, absolutely fine. But you can’t come out against a law passed by the Knesset. Resign, and then say whatever you want. There are certain rules of discourse. There is—I don’t know—like Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, there’s some ethical problem with rabbis’ public statements in this context. I’m not speaking now about the content of the statements themselves, but about the ethical problem. They feel they are still rabbis in some sense. Maybe this is part of my war against the rabbinate, I don’t know, maybe that’s my own issue.

[Speaker D] Same with an admor. The Gerrer Rebbe, that’s perfectly fine for him to say. Yes, right. The Gerrer Rebbe isn’t a state employee.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let him say whatever he wants. You can oppose what he says because you disagree, but there’s no ethical problem in him saying it.

[Speaker B] And in the end, what do we want—that city rabbis should be government rabbis?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] City rabbis—even if we don’t want it, they are government rabbis. And that’s why I said this may be part of how I view the rabbinate in general. So I don’t know, maybe I’m biased on this issue too, because from my standpoint they’re clerks. So let them take the salary and keep quiet, and fix the eruv. Figures of rabbinic leadership are not supposed to be playing on the field of the Chief Rabbinate, and in fact I expect them too to speak and say what they think. But you’re a government official—be quiet and do what you’re supposed to do. Certainly, as the Merciful One instructed the angel, as was said. In any case, fine, but that’s really my own point of view. The point is that around that issue, suddenly the penny dropped for me, because the whole discourse was taking place around some kind of demons behind the events and not around the events themselves. More than the law itself bothering them, what bothered them was that the law came from the New Israel Fund. In other words, not what the law says, or what the phenomenon is, or anything like that. From their standpoint that merely served as a marker, because the New Israel Fund is invalid in the object itself. In other words, it’s not the issue of what… and again, I don’t like the New Israel Fund any less than they do. I also think it’s a problematic institution.

[Speaker D] In 90% of arguments today, in every field, that’s exactly how it is—they deal with who expressed the opinion—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —and who—

[Speaker D] —stands behind it, and who funded the law, and who this is—not—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —what the law actually says.

[Speaker D] They don’t even read what’s written.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And there’s something here that really is a total ignoring of what is. It fit for me with this whole outlook of ignoring what is happening and relating to what’s meta-historical, to meta-reality, and not to the things themselves. We talked about the pioneers, yes? That you see the commandment of settling the Land of Israel in the refined purity of their delicate souls, their soulfulness, even though none of them is aware of it at all and the person is secular and believes in nothing. Some kind of ignoring of what’s happening and relating to what lies behind what’s happening. That’s where I started asking myself…

[Speaker B] They’re not aware, but the soul is aware. There’s a lot of that in Hasidism.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, of course, it has Hasidic roots. And I say the same about Hasidism. It’s not… So I said that the title was: Streams and cults in Judaism: what do Har HaMor and Chabad have to do with each other? So Hasidism is here too. I once said, I think, that when Rabbi Shach began the war against Chabad, people raised their eyebrows, because overall the feeling was that the war between Hasidim and Lithuanians had calmed down a few generations ago. It was as if suddenly the feeling was that the embers had dimmed but had always been there, and now suddenly it flared up again. People thought there was no longer any issue, everything was fine in Agudat Israel. There were both Hasidim and Lithuanians and everything was okay. So why did the war between Hasidim and… suddenly wake up again? And I thought then, when Rabbi Shach went out with that war, that this was not true. In other words, they always opposed Hasidism, except that Hasidism was no longer really Hasidism. There are Hasidic groups that still remained Hasidic in the old sense of the early Hasidic groups—rebellious, truly innovative, with far-reaching theses. That’s Chabad, Breslov, maybe something else, and that’s it. And against them the Lithuanians really did continue fighting all along. It’s just that Gur and Vizhnitz and all those guys remained with the stockings, and other than that what is there to fight? Overall they look the same, they just dress a little differently.

[Speaker B] Two claims that are true. Most Hasidic groups also became blurrier, more—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Institutionalized, more bourgeois.

[Speaker B] But on the other hand, Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin also came to the conclusion that the fear of heresy… We have disputes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I don’t know that conclusion of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, but it seems to me the tension continued long after him too. It’s not as though the tension ended with Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin.

[Speaker B] No, of course not. There are disputes, but they’re not heretics—they keep Jewish law.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t know. I think the tension definitely continued after Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin too. I don’t know what Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin said about it, what decisions of his or shift of direction you’re referring to—I’m not familiar with it. But fine, it could be, I simply don’t know. But I think the point is that it was always there, except that Hasidism simply stopped being Hasidism—that’s the point. And there are a few Hasidic groups that remained Hasidic, and as against them, the problematic aspect in Lithuanian eyes remains in place.

[Speaker B] Meaning, after all, they were mainly even territorially close to Chabad. The Lithuanians? Yes. And in Chabad there was maybe—not like in the last generation—but it wasn’t really so institutionalized, rather it remained an activist Hasidic group in that sense.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Activist? There are lots of activists. Satmar too are activists. But they don’t have those boundary-breaking religious ideas, those innovations—that doesn’t really exist anymore. What are you talking about?

[Speaker B] Sleeping outside the sukkah, Tzemach Tzedek, third generation—that’s basically a generation parallel to Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s what I’m saying.

[Speaker B] That exists in Chabad, it exists in Chabad, and here—they live with it, they didn’t issue a ban in every generation.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The more it sharpened, and under the last Rebbe things sharpened more in the less rational directions, the more that tension sharpened. And therefore Rabbi Shach did indeed say that Chabad is the cult closest to Judaism. And that’s really so. Afterwards I thought that in my opinion he was not joking; he was speaking completely seriously. He claimed it’s a cult—that’s what he claimed—and by the way, I agree with him. I think Chabad is a cult, completely. It’s not even gray. In my opinion Chabad is absolutely a cult.

[Speaker E] Messianists or non-messianists?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think there’s a very dramatic difference between the two parts. The differences are secondary.

[Speaker B] But there still wasn’t a Lithuanian leader besides Rabbi Shach, even number one, like Rabbi Steinman—did he take on Chabad?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I said everybody agrees. I said I agree with what Rabbi Shach said.

[Speaker B] I don’t know. I think among the top Lithuanian leadership, Rabbi Shach was exceptional in that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, and I still think there’s really something to what he said. Meaning, I think he wasn’t joking either. People took it as a joke at their expense, but I don’t think he was joking. In my opinion—and again, one of the problems, and I’ll talk about this more, one of the problems is that on the personal level most people are nice, smart, they behave rationally in life, in their everyday conduct, in economics and commerce and human relations, whatever, everything is fine. But somehow there’s something in the air, in the collective conduct, and sometimes even on the private level, in the way they relate, that is completely cult-like. Meaning, you feel that you’re not with him, you’re not talking to him—he’s just not with you. Meaning, you have no way of penetrating the conceptual wall, the perceptual wall. There’s something here—and I’ll talk about it a bit more—but in my view this really is a cult, and at a certain stage I thought that even Har HaMor has quite significant cult-like dimensions. So I wrote this piece, and I want to go through some of what I wrote, because it sheds a stronger light on the somewhat vague conclusions I came to last time, or that I just summarized now, regarding Religious Zionism. Because really Religious Zionism has all kinds of shades, but when you take these shades, the hardal ideological shades—not only hardal, actually hardal isn’t exactly precise, because Mercaz HaRav is also hardal. But I’m speaking more specifically about the Har HaMor side than the Mercaz HaRav side. Because there I think the characteristics appear more strongly, the characteristics I spoke about before. And therefore what I said earlier in a vaguer way appears here more sharply. So I want to show you a few characteristics that I wrote there. Before I moved on to those characteristics, I tried to show characteristics without defining the concept of a cult. Because I don’t know exactly how to define it, and I looked around a little and saw that people don’t really define this concept. I actually didn’t find that much material on these things, and that surprised me quite a bit. But again, I didn’t do very comprehensive searches. I mean the concept of cults in general, not specifically these phenomena. But I introduced it by saying that there’s a reluctance to discuss these things, and this reluctance has five reasons, at least five reasons that I managed to think of. And in my view, these five reasons are actually reasons to discuss the issue. First of all, the first reason is that it seems like a low blow. When you say about someone that he’s a cult, then you’re not dealing substantively with what he says. If something doesn’t seem right to you, give reasons, say what doesn’t seem right, explain why it doesn’t seem right. Why are you labeling him under the heading of a cult? That’s a non-substantive response. That’s one point. A second point: there’s some desire for unity, mutual respect, tolerance, and when you say “cult” you’re putting someone down; that’s somewhat connected to the first reason. Dispute—you’re supposed to distance yourself from dispute, from this ethos that one who persists in dispute violates a prohibition. A third phenomenon is that in both of these movements, Chabad and the yeshivot of the Kav, there are quite significant characteristics that deserve a lot of appreciation. You can’t dismiss these phenomena—they have amazing strengths, and in entirely positive ways. Meaning, it’s not pitch black, it’s not a black phenomenon. It’s a phenomenon with a lot of complexity. Meaning, it has strengths and it has problematic aspects, and it’s hard for people to come out against phenomena that have positive religious power. In a moment I’ll sharpen that more—for example, maybe I spoke about the shawl women and all kinds of things of that sort. Why is it that even though almost all the Haredi rabbis oppose that phenomenon, the fact is they don’t manage to overcome it? And in my view that is very similar to the hilltop youth, which they also don’t manage to overcome, even though almost all the Religious Zionist leadership opposes that phenomenon.

[Speaker C] In what sense don’t they manage to overcome it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I mean that the phenomenon doesn’t stop. It has its charm, people join it, and it doesn’t fade. It doesn’t fade. It doesn’t fade even though in both cases these are people who come from commitment to religious values and also from commitment to halakhic decisors, also to rabbinic leadership. Meaning, ideologically they are not rebelling against the rabbinic leadership. Rather, what are they saying? They claim: we are basically doing what they would want to do, but they don’t dare. That’s really the point, and therefore you can’t deal with this phenomenon. Because when you deal with this phenomenon, and the person standing opposite you is convinced that deep in your heart you actually praise him, you’re happy, you’d like to be like him, only you don’t dare. You don’t dare either because you’re just a coward, which is a lower-level explanation, or because you have influence and you can’t allow yourself to do it because you’re a public leader. And therefore maybe justifiably you can’t do it, so I’ll act on your behalf and I’ll do it. The spearhead, yes exactly—I’m the spearhead. Meaning, I’m some kind of avant-garde doing things that really you instructed me to do. And in a certain sense, maybe in many cases they’re right too. They’re right too. And that’s one of the reasons that the opposition to these phenomena is not a very, very unequivocal and forceful opposition. And therefore people are allowed to understand that behind the opposition there stands a great deal of empathy. And I know this—I spoke with people. After I wrote sharply about these phenomena, I got reprimands from all kinds of rabbis saying, true, it’s not okay, but listen, the intention is for the sake of Heaven, and there’s self-sacrifice there, and they… I’m talking about the hilltop youth, not about the shawl women, but I’m sure it’s the same there too. And they feel that very well, they feel it very well, and rightly so. It’s not a delusion, it’s not an incorrect diagnosis. And therefore the point is—and now I’m returning to the characteristic I spoke about here—the point is that they are basically taking the correct ideology and carrying it through to the end, while we are pragmatic, and we have a bit of a guilty conscience about the fact that we’re pragmatic, that we don’t dare go all the way with our truth. And here these young, brave guys are doing it, so I’m actually in some kind of inferiority feeling, some kind of split attitude in how I relate to this phenomenon, and therefore they don’t manage to eradicate it. And in that sense it’s the same thing: people don’t come out against these phenomena because overall they have very positive aspects—Chabad and Har HaMor. Even those who opposed them didn’t come out—Rabbi Lichtenstein didn’t come out against them. True, his nature also wasn’t to wage wars, but I think there was more than that here. He didn’t come out against them because he genuinely appreciated them too, and he genuinely understood that there is a phenomenon there that is worthy of appreciation; it has many positive sides. You can’t launch a world war against such a thing, because a world war is always a package deal. You have to paint it as black, and there are shades there that are white. This is something that is both black and white. On the other hand, I think that decision is incorrect, because then you leave them white too, and that’s also not right. Meaning, you need not to be afraid of complexity, to go to war against a complex phenomenon—and that’s the third characteristic of why people don’t come out against this issue, or why there is reluctance to come out against it. So I said, the third phenomenon is that it has positive sides. The fourth phenomenon is that not only does it have positive sides, but they are doing what we should have done, only they do it all the way. There’s a kind of inferiority feeling, or appreciation, yes, self-effacement before them. And the fifth reason is that there is a connection between us, yes—spreading evil speech about Torah scholars, about a dear and important public that does important work and so on. So there is a certain reluctance to do such things, and in my view all five of these reasons are good reasons why one should do it, because precisely because of all these reasons people will be taken captive by these phenomena and won’t notice that there is also black within the white. And the responsibility for that also lies with you. So there are costs in both directions. The cost is that if you come out against them, people will lose the white sides they have if you paint everything as black. But on the other hand, if you don’t come out, then you paint everything as white, so everything is fine. Meaning, there’s no conduct without costs, and therefore I think it is right to distinguish between blue and dark blue—to say what is black and what is white, and to come out with full force against what is black, and to give credit for what is white. Meaning, fine, together with that. But I don’t think it’s right to make sweeping decisions either one way or the other.

[Speaker B] And then you said that this is a dispute for the sake of Heaven, that when people think a dispute is for the sake of Heaven, then it endures. It causes the dispute to endure, it even…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s even stronger, because then you’re going out to a holy war, to a jihad.

[Speaker B] So what should one do?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I think it’s right.

[Speaker B] To increase dispute in Israel? Yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does it mean, increase dispute in Israel? Where it’s needed, yes. You need to say it. “Increase dispute”—I don’t see any problem with that as long as you deal with things substantively.

[Speaker B] That’s true, but dispute in the sense of splitting the people—that’s not just dispute.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In a place where it’s a halakhic dispute over whether one recites a blessing on the head tefillin, no one will make it into a dispute about the people themselves. But here there is indeed a problem with the people themselves, not only with the mode of conduct, and I think here one needs to point to that and not shrink from waging wars or disputes. Yes, that’s right, you wage a war—yes, something doesn’t look right to me, so what? What happened? I’ll give respect where it is due. In that sense it’s very important to be substantive, specifically in a place where you’re waging war also with the people, not only with their ideas. The war is with people, unequivocally, not only with the ideas, because it’s impossible to separate between them.

[Speaker E] The two cases you just called cults, both Chabad and Har HaMor, involve two specific figures. In Chabad it’s the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and in Har HaMor it’s Rabbi Tau. Take Rabbi Tau out of the equation, there’s no…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Messianic movement? There’s only Sabbatai Zevi, you know, there’s only one figure.

[Speaker E] Wait, but every…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The thousands around him—that was the messianic movement.

[Speaker E] Could that be the sixth reason, that people think, okay, fine, he’s eighty, eighty-something, soon enough… who’s his successor, Rabbi Tau’s, in Har HaMor?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who could it be?

[Speaker E] I have no idea, I was never interested, but there are other people there, and there aren’t people there who arouse antagonism.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think he has various successors. I have no idea through whom it will come, and it really doesn’t interest me at all. I haven’t been that interested in what goes on there. But there are younger guys there too who are going in these directions. What, doesn’t Kalner go in those directions? Same direction, exactly the same thing.

[Speaker B] I don’t see any difference there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. He’s not, because meanwhile there’s still someone else. When that someone else is gone, then he will be—or I don’t know, it doesn’t matter…

[Speaker B] Him—I’m not expert there in the structure. What can we infer from the history of such disputes? Disputes that collapse after a generation—what is their benefit, their gain, and what is their cost?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No Chabad follower is going to repent because I slander his Rebbe or his way of conduct. But it’s possible that others won’t join Chabad because of it. That’s all. I think that’s an important point. I think it’s not right to give things up because of all these concerns, even though these concerns really seem noble and correct and value-based and everything is fine—in my view they are mistaken. I don’t think it’s right to do that. Especially since many times as well—not always, but many times—the reasons… symmetry is not maintained. Meaning, one side shows respect and the other side doesn’t bother to respect the first side to the same degree. Yes, meaning, for some reason only one side is careful with the honor of the other side many times—not always—that side is careful with the honor of the other side. Okay, so I want to bring a few characteristics, and these characteristics—again, I’m not giving definitions, but it seems to me that the collection of characteristics already gives the general feeling. All right, I’ll start. First thing, leadership. There is some leader who is all-knowing, who is kind of unable to make mistakes, he deciphers the mysteries of creation and conduct, yes, and his opinion is da’at Torah, all kinds of things like that. The Haredim also have da’at Torah and all that—the classic Haredim, I mean—and that is not a cult phenomenon. Because anyone who knows the atmosphere there knows that there is a very realistic and pragmatic attitude there, despite all the speeches about da’at Torah. Meaning, it’s not… there is something there—true, there are certain phenomena, I don’t know, wigs from India and things of that sort, fine, there are a few points—but the daily conduct is very pragmatic and measured. Meaning, there isn’t some mystification of the leader there, some extreme conceptions, I don’t know—at least that’s how it seems to me. By contrast, in the contexts of Chabad—and there it’s much more prominent—but with Rabbi Tau too, in certain respects, there is some notion that he does not err, he deciphers the mysteries of creation better than all of us. Meaning, he explains every single thing that happens and gives guidance as though from the furnace of the world, so to speak. I don’t know, I read the books and a bit… I didn’t read much because it didn’t interest me that much, but I’m really not impressed. My feeling is that there really is here some sort of cultic leadership. Meaning, they create some mystification that builds itself up. Meaning, and once you’re inside that framework, you can’t even imagine any kind of critical thought that maybe Rabbi Tau missed something in his analysis of this phenomenon or of…

[Speaker B] The issue of distorting ethical meaning that you spoke about earlier at length, which is very common…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the Haredi and Lithuanian sector.

[Speaker B] That’s what I meant.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Earlier, I said that ostensibly there are similar phenomena there.

[Speaker B] And that’s a distortion, not a genuine direction.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a distortion, and still I think there isn’t a cult atmosphere there. Meaning, it’s not… I don’t think… if only because the Haredi leadership does not do what Rabbi Tau does, does not allow itself to do what Rabbi Tau does. They don’t give concrete interpretations to concrete events. They don’t do that. Meaning, Rabbi Shach didn’t do that, Rabbi Elyashiv, Rabbi Steinman—none of them did that. So people attributed da’at Torah to them, all true, but that’s a theoretical statement. They didn’t explain to everyone the meaning of every process and everything that happens, and how it does or does not fit our ideology. They didn’t formulate a very detailed ideology at all in the way Rabbi Tau does. Meaning, it’s not…

[Speaker B] I think maybe something even more serious is being done here. In practice, the elevation of a group of operatives together with Yated Ne’eman—they determine who is the leading sage of the generation, and anyone who follows another rabbi is…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m aware of all these things and I have sharp criticism of them. I’m asking whether this is a cult phenomenon. That’s the question, not whether it’s worthy of criticism.

[Speaker B] Anyone who disagrees is defined as a rebellious elder. It’s not just operatives—anyone who disagrees with the accepted leader is defined as a rebellious elder, a rebellious elder. Isn’t that a cult phenomenon?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Those who do not disagree with the accepted leader, those who are inside the camp and not in the other camp, they too understand that all in all the accepted leader doesn’t explain to them every phenomenon, what is happening, and doesn’t really know everything about every matter.

[Speaker B] But they believe that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I lived there, I know how people relate. Meaning, it’s not… the attitude isn’t like that. There isn’t… I’m saying, even if theoretically they give him the scepter and say yes yes, he has da’at Torah and he never makes mistakes—he never makes mistakes because he doesn’t say anything. Now if you say about someone that he never makes mistakes but he’s careful not to say too much, that’s perfectly fine. That still isn’t a cult, at least not in the full sense. With Rabbi Tau, he never makes mistakes, but he also tells you his opinion about everything.

[Speaker B] But anyone who disagrees with him is a rebellious elder.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, in phenomena of broad leadership, on the question of whether to enlist or not to enlist, on the big questions, there are fierce arguments. But it’s not… I don’t know, how can it be? I’m also not sufficiently immersed now in the current arguments. Maybe now it’s starting to look like a cult, since I’m no longer so much inside that world, so I don’t know.

[Speaker H] The leadership of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky. What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky—there yes, it goes very much with mysticism. Yes, maybe. I don’t know, I’m not familiar enough, and that’s why I’m saying so. But I’m saying, when I lived at least in Bnei Brak, the feeling was—true, people spoke about da’at Torah and that whatever Rabbi Shach says one must do, and insofar as he decreed it and all that, true, and everyone with a wink did it and everything was fine. Meaning, no… they did, they did what Rabbi Shach said, not that they didn’t. But fine, the attitude was not that he knows everything and never makes mistakes. Everyone understood in what context this was said, and why Rabbi Shach didn’t give an interpretation of everything that happens, and he didn’t explain everything, and he didn’t build as detailed a theory as Rabbi Tau does. Meaning, where everything is explained—it’s a kind of theory of everything, yes, kind of like that. He knows everything, explains everything, and every tiny event that happens here fits the theory, and he deciphers the will… there’s an issue of quantity, of proportion. Meaning, I think this doesn’t exist. We said, we spoke about the fact that the Haredim are a very non-ideological group, whereas Har HaMor is an ideological group, and that’s part of the matter. So the leadership—even if the theory seems the same, the practice is different. The practice is different. Here, you read the books they study there, and he explains every single thing that happens and gives it meaning—everything. It’s terribly presumptuous. Terribly presumptuous. Meaning, there is something megalomaniacal here in itself, and certainly in the fact that the group receives all these things as some kind of sacred interpretation—Moses received the Torah at Sinai and handed it over to Rabbi Tau. Meaning, this sort of thing—I once spoke about, I think I mentioned this once, there was a memorial book when Rabbi Ra’anan was murdered in Hebron. So a memorial book came out. This was before the split between Har HaMor and Mercaz. A memorial book came out, and as is the way of memorial books that come out in yeshivot, mainly Haredi ones but Mercaz is like Haredi, so there’s the memorial book with Torah articles and there’s a section called “Hidden Treasures of the Ancients,” meaning manuscripts or things that weren’t published and are now being published. So there was a section in the book—various manuscripts of Rabbi Akiva Eiger or of medieval authorities that had not been published, or things of that sort. Now the “Hidden Treasures of the Ancients” there were not even Rabbi Kook, I think; it was Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, Rabbi Charlap, and something else. Those were the “Hidden Treasures of the Ancients” there. The feeling was that this really was Moses received the Torah at Sinai and handed it over to Rabbi Kook. Meaning, there was no history in the four thousand years that passed between this and that. And with the Lubavitcher Rebbe it’s the same. With the Lubavitcher Rebbe it’s much more so. I think Moses received the Torah from the Lubavitcher Rebbe—not that Moses received the Torah at Sinai and handed it to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In some circles there, in my opinion, there was something that verged on actual halakhic idol worship. Meaning, there were people who prayed to the Rebbe. Meaning, there were theologies there, at least certain expressions, that identified the Rebbe with the Holy One, blessed be He. It was on the table. There were there, again, I’m not sufficiently expert in the nuances, and who said what, and to what extent it was accepted, but there definitely were such expressions. I once brought an example from a Breslov book I saw in Netanya once, some Sabbath afternoon prayer time I read one of those punctuated Breslov books, where they told there how the Rebbe is sitting there, Rabbi Nachman, sitting and watching over the flock, and in the flock there are Abraham our patriarch and Moses our teacher, and Rabbi Nachman watches over all of them as they graze on the grass down below. So yes, it was similar to this. And you see, as with Lenin and Stalin, that all of modern physics is really contained in his words and he really knows everything; he has a very broad general education—which in Rabbi Tau’s case may actually be true, that he has general education—but it immediately expands into myths. In the Haredi world, by the way, this is very common, because anyone who knows how to read and write is a professor. Meaning, anyone who knows a little, read a few books in English—he says, I know, because I was simply around there—they told me miracle stories about the leading sages of the generation: there’s nothing he doesn’t know. Meaning, in all areas of Torah and science and knowledge and everything. Fine, he read a few books, he knows a few philosophers, everything—I spoke with him, meaning—but they turned him into that kind of figure because he knew how to read and write. And in a place where the background is weak, you have no way to assess it. He’s a professor known all over the world because he traveled to conferences abroad. Meaning, that’s obvious—of course he’s a professor known all over the world. People don’t understand that professors travel to conferences all over the world, and that’s what professors do. He wrote international articles. Has anyone ever seen a non-international article? Meaning, an academic article is always international. Are there non-international articles? Newspaper articles aren’t international—in Yediot Aharonot, I don’t know where, in Ma’ariv, they aren’t international. Every article is… people don’t know the terminology, so it turns into… But fine, that’s just ignorance. But then all sorts of legends started developing that he knows everything, and a bit of that also developed about the Chazon Ish—brain surgeries and things of that sort.

[Speaker I] Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and the Steipler, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and the Steipler. The one who crowns—the one who crowns more than…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He’s the mystical note that gives backing to the practical leadership.

[Speaker B] Or Rabbi Kaduri, the Ashkenazi version. I think that this thing also exists in the world. It’s different, it has different characteristics, but all-knowing—I don’t think so.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think there was a feeling—I don’t know—when I lived in Bnei Brak, in my surroundings there wasn’t a feeling that Rabbi Shach and Rabbi Elyashiv were all-knowing. No, absolutely not. There was a feeling that when they lead and make a leadership decision, then they have divine assistance; they don’t err. That, yes.

[Speaker B] But anyone who…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who disagrees with their decisions—not with their deciphering of history. Again, because the conception is that they have divine assistance because they are leaders of the public. Fine, these are things we’ve already heard about. I’m not sure I accept them, but these aren’t revolutionary things; we’ve heard them.

[Speaker B] But that’s not what I’m talking about. Never mind, they were leaders of the public, that…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It has nothing to do with who crowned them. Yated Ne’eman crowned them. But in practice they really did make the decisions for the public. That you can’t argue with. So if you believe in divine assistance for someone who makes decisions for the public, then there you go, he has divine assistance and doesn’t err. So anyone who disagrees with a leader crowned by Yated Ne’eman is a rebellious elder? True. Why? Because in Yated Ne’eman, ultimately—who has crowned leadership from time immemorial? Operatives. Operatives have always crowned leadership. Who crowned leadership? The ethos says, “follow the tracks of the flock,” meaning the Jewish people have this kind of sense of smell, they know how to identify. That’s nonsense. A collection of operatives has always crowned the leaders, and fine, that’s how it works in politics too. Who crowns leaders in politics? Propagandists, operatives, and all kinds of propaganda. Fine, that’s the way human society works. Not all the members have some direct connection to the leader. It’s always done through intermediaries, there’s no choice. And the intermediaries are always people who get themselves positioned there and run things as they see fit. Yes, there’s a book by the rabbinical court advocate Tzvi Weinman—I think a rabbinical court advocate—called From Katowice to Jerusalem. From Katowice to Jerusalem. He has a very large archive of documents on the history of Agudat Yisrael, and in the whole book he explains there that from time immemorial Agudat Yisrael was run by clownish operatives. Meaning, this has always been the case; it’s not a new invention. The leading sages of the generation were always tassels and flowers for decoration. In the end—and he says this is backed by documents. He wrote an entire book about it. From Katowice to Jerusalem—Katowice was the Great Assembly. So it was always like that. But fine, I think that’s how human society functions. For my part, I even have a certain contempt for it, but I don’t see it as some unusual phenomenon. Meaning, that’s how human society functions; it’s politics, there’s no choice. Politics is not cultism, it’s something else. With Rabbi Tau, I’m not talking about decisions he makes about what to do with the yeshiva. If they tell me that there he doesn’t err because he makes decisions for the generation—the prince of the generation. These guys always speak in terms of “the prince of the generation.” He’s the prince of some thirty-two guys who believe in him—that’s the prince of the generation? Meaning, all the leading sages of the generation believe in him. That too is a cult characteristic. So he makes decisions and doesn’t err. Fine, I’m prepared to accept that. But when he deciphers history and doesn’t err, then he’s a prophet. That’s not divine assistance. Then he’s a prophet. It’s not decision-making where the Holy One, blessed be He, helps him not to err—even that one could debate. But that thesis I’m prepared to accept, fine, as a possible legitimate thesis, even if it isn’t correct. This is something else. A second characteristic is fundamentalism. They do not subject principles to critical examination. There are things that are absolute truth. Everything is measured according to the principles we are completely locked into. Meaning, there is no willingness at all to consider—and I’m speaking even about second- and third-order principles. I’m not talking about the existence of God and the giving of the Torah at Sinai. I’m talking about the flourishing of redemption, the beginning of the flowering of our redemption in the State of Israel. I’m talking about principles that are not—fine, when it comes to the giving of the Torah you tell me the Holy One, blessed be He, said it. The Holy One, blessed be He, said it—who am I to doubt? Let’s say. Even though one can doubt whether the Holy One, blessed be He, said it; that too can be doubted. But let’s say. I’m talking about second-, third-, and fifth-order principles. Meaning, things Rabbi Tau decided, or things that, never mind, the Mercaz-HaRav tradition decided—I don’t care now how it crystallized. And even there, it can’t be that if the State of Israel is destroyed then I’ll take off my kippah. I once brought that in the name of Rabbi Kaner. That’s a kind of fundamentalism that in my view is very problematic, and it’s a cult characteristic. You’re not willing to subject your principles to critical examination, even though these principles don’t really have any actual source. I’m not willing—there is no principle of mine that is not subject to critical examination. Maybe except for that principle itself, that every principle must be subject to critical examination. But the Holy One, blessed be He, said—because the question is whether He said it. And who said? Meaning, most things He said actually reached us through the mediation of people. It’s not that He said it directly, and therefore everything is subject to critical examination. But all the more so when these are values or ideologies or modes of thought that developed in one period or another, by these people or those people—that is a clear cult characteristic. Another thing is closedness. Similar characteristics, but again, a kind of unwillingness really to encounter something else. Meaning, they aren’t really willing to encounter it. They’ll send lecturers. By the way, that also exists among the Haredim—they send lecturers. There’s always this kind of discourse, an egalitarian encounter, where everyone greatly enjoys the egalitarian nature of the encounter—Haredim, secular people, all kinds, in Rabin’s tent or things like that. Three lecturers from Arachim come there and sit with the rest of the public outside there, and they went through preparations and all sorts of things, and they know what needs to be recited about everything, and everything is fine. And there’s an encounter and everyone really enjoys it, eye-level, and things like that. They would never allow an ordinary person actually to encounter other ideas. There’s no such thing. And that really also exists in regular Haredism.

[Speaker B] That’s a strong aspect.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right. It really also exists in regular Haredism. Now I’m also talking about the internet and newspapers that aren’t ours. What bothers them about the internet and newspapers—they talk about pornography and violence, nonsense in tomato juice. The last thing that bothers them is violence and pornography. I mean those who ban them. What interests them is openness to other modes of thought. That is far worse in their eyes than violence and pornography. Violence and pornography are human weaknesses. Fine, it can involve prohibitions, problematic, all true. Human weaknesses—we always knew how to deal with human weaknesses. But where there are ideas that you need to confront, different modes of thought, with that you don’t know how to cope. That you need to ban. Meaning, in my view that’s part of the matter. Yes, I spoke about writings that contain a comprehensive explanation for all the phenomena of life, yes, theories of everything—the ones of Rabbi Tau and somewhat of Chabad. I think with Rabbi Tau it’s even more than Chabad. Life, life—and this too is not an absolute characteristic, but there’s something there—they are groups composed mainly of insiders, of “our own people.” Meaning, yes, because that’s part of the unwillingness to be truly exposed to something from outside. So often they hang it on modesty—don’t go work in immodest places. In my view, maybe modesty is part of what troubles them, but not only modesty. What troubles them is the encounter with other people, meaning the encounter with people who think differently. The same, by the way, is true with the problem of military enlistment. The problem with enlistment is not because we want them to sit in yeshiva because that protects us better than the army. Nonsense.

[Speaker E] Well, specifically the Hasidim—certainly Chabad—you can’t really accuse them, of all things, of not meeting other people.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it depends who, depends who. There are emissaries.

[Speaker E] All the emissaries—but in Chabad ninety percent of them, ninety-nine…

[Speaker B] Percent of them—people don’t…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But one has to be careful. The emissaries are a special phenomenon because they really go through the indoctrination and the preparation and all those things. It’s like the Arachim lecturers on the Lithuanian side. True, it’s a broader phenomenon—it’s not that they build… they’re detached from the environment, and look how a Chabad emissary conducts himself in a place like that. His children won’t play with other children.

[Speaker D] That’s not an encounter.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And his children will study—they will never study, not even in a Haredi school in that place, only in Chabad. They’ll drive them a hundred kilometers, they’ll fly them by plane to a boarding school—they will study only in Chabad. They’ll eat only Chabad supervision. Not one millimeter of compromise. With all the emissaries—he can live in the Amazon, and they’ll fly in food for him with Chabad supervision, and the children will be taken by helicopter to the nearest Chabad schoolroom. In that sense you have to understand: there is a very deep closedness in Chabad, very deep. They are not willing to open up to anything. To anything. Despite the fact that they live among all the Jewish people and meet absolutely everyone. That’s true. But it’s organized within this sort of shell, and that’s even more so than Arachim with the encounters I spoke about before. The organized lecturers, yes. There’s something here where you need to encounter—because I met Chabad emissaries. There was a Chabad emissary in Yeruham, a very nice man by the way, we were on friendly terms, everything was fine. There was no encounter at all. He would never come to any place, he would never taste food anywhere under any supervision, even the most Haredi one—I’m not talking about heretics like us. Nothing. He won’t eat there, his children won’t play there, his children won’t study there, nothing, nothing, nothing.

[Speaker E] His son studied—actually where did his children study?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They traveled to Chabad in Kiryat Gat, by transport to Kiryat Gat from Yeruham. They bring in outside teachers for them. No compromise whatsoever. Only in Chabad will the children study. Or at home.

[Speaker H] They bring a private teacher.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, or at home. That’s it. If you’re in the Amazon and don’t have a helicopter available—private teacher. The father will teach them. That’s it, they won’t go anywhere. This is a very significant point.

[Speaker B] What?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, the internet is a very significant solution for them now. And again, these emissaries are people who devote themselves entirely to connecting with the public, they do wonderful things and forms of… what?

[Speaker D] I was once in Colorado, and I went to eat at a Chabad emissary’s house there. And the children were little. They travel every day two and a half hours there and two and a half hours back. Yes, for their school. Yes, of course.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To the nearest Chabad—there they’ll go. That’s it. These groups that live within themselves also create a kind of bubble that lets you see the group as though it were the whole world. I spoke about this earlier, that my son was in Mercaz, and now he got to know other things. Meaning, finally he came from a home that all in all wasn’t so closed, and he came and said, but all the leading sages of the generation say such-and-such. I said to him, what “all the leading sages of the generation”? Come list for me all the leading sages of the generation you’re talking about. So it’s three guys from his yeshiva—that’s all the leading sages of the generation. Not the guys from the yeshiva, never mind—Rabbi Lior and Rabbi Tau and Rabbi whoever, not Tau, Rabbi Shapira.

[Speaker D] And I took him to another leading sage of the generation, I went with him to Yehoshua Fisher.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, Yehoshua Fisher, yes. No, he got out of it in the end too, but I’m saying, you live inside some bubble where from your perspective, what do you mean—after all, all the leading sages of the generation say this. Meaning, again, that’s part of the same shell that gives you some complete picture. Meaning, you live inside a matrix. That too is a cult characteristic.

[Speaker B] That’s also true among the Haredim.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s true.

[Speaker B] Tell a Satmar Hasid that a Hasidic court somewhere else says such-and-such—it’s irrelevant, he’s outside it. Right, right.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let’s talk about the Mizrachi. I’m saying, these characteristics are not black and white. That’s why I said, these characteristics are not black and white. I’ll give you—I could bring more, maybe I’ll bring more later. I see I’ve taken a lot of time today. I’ll bring more characteristics, and you’ll see that overall these characteristics give some sort of picture. Each one of them you can find in other groups too, and in different doses. But the totality—you know, even diagnoses in medicine and psychiatry are often built by asking whether you have four characteristics out of seven, then you have such-and-such a phenomenon. Because there are things you can’t define with litmus paper, yes or no. So you need to collect characteristics, and if there are enough of them in sufficient quantity and quality, then it’s a cult. And if not, then not. Without my giving an explicit formal definition of what a cult is. So yes, it exists in other groups too. Okay, we’ll stop here for now.