Hello Rabbi Michi, I’d like to comment on what you wrote:
A. There is no Haredi ideology that says one should alienate oneself from one’s surroundings. You may be describing extreme factions that behave with alienation toward others out of fear and the like (the Mea Shearim crowd and extremists pretty much everywhere). But the mainstream Haredi public is at most indifferent to others, not alienated from them. But even that isn’t so precise, because in every situation of need and assistance, the Haredi public helps, assists, and supports. You mentioned the aid organizations mockingly, but unfortunately presenting it mockingly cannot change the fact that this tendency really does exist in Haredi society on a far broader scale than in secular society. And not only in organizations, but generally.
B. Let us not forget that contribution is made according to the awareness of the person contributing and out of his worldview and approach. You can’t expect a person to contribute when he feels that it does not contribute but does the opposite. There is an entire public that lives by an ideology it believes in wholeheartedly, with strong faith that its contribution to society is made in a unique way, through action on the spiritual plane. What do you expect? That they should enlist in the army? They truly and sincerely believe that the army and Torah study should be divided within the people and not take the form of universal conscription for everyone. They genuinely believe in Torah study and a life of Torah and commandments as a guarantee of security and peace. So what do you want—to blame them for their belief system, when the things you mentioned are at most a symptom? That’s a bit puzzling…
B. I didn’t understand what you meant about “use and discard,” or where you got such a view of that public.
C. I agree with you that one should not get angry about the feelings that exist in some person. But that only indicates a terrible deficiency in that person. To look at the horrors that occurred and not feel terrible pain and sorrow out of identification with the victims and the horrors they experienced—this indicates a hollow and empty emotional world, and accordingly testifies to a great lack of humanity.

Thanks,
A descendant of the holy Yaron Landon, may he live long,
Rashi: “the holy” — since his face was publicly humiliated because of his words, he is considered as one who was killed over what he thought and felt, and is thus comparable to a Jew killed because he is a Jew and is considered holy.
And see further in “No Man Has Power Over the Wind” on this matter at length, and may you enjoy it.

Honestly, this is the first time I just can’t process one of your answers. Forty-five children and adults breathed their last in a cruel death. Even toward people you hate, you feel solidarity in such a terrible event. I cried like a baby.
You’re not angry about his feelings—I understand your rationale. But to identify with him?! Very astonishing.

Son,
I also wasn’t born yesterday, and I know the matter very well.
So here’s the thing. There absolutely is such an ideology, and not only among the extremists. True, on the personal level not everyone lives it and there are differences in degree. The ethos is entirely like that (see Rabbi Shach’s eulogy for the Satmar Rebbe). By the way, indifference is an expression of alienation.
The apologetic discourse as if avoidance of conscription is because of the value of study has long become nauseating to me. It is simply a gross lie. The avoidance is mainly because of the fear of being corrupted and the fear of creating identification with the surrounding society (the state). Go out and see how those who don’t study behave, and how they relate to those who don’t study and choose to enlist. The excuses outwardly and inwardly are hung on the value of study. This is a distinctly Haredi characteristic: treating apologetic excuses as if they were the truth.
And finally, as I wrote, there is no great deficiency here, and certainly nothing terrible. It is natural for every person, exactly like what you feel toward Rwandans. The whole question is who counts as a Rwandan in your eyes and who counts as close to you.

Ron,
I’m very glad you cried like a baby. Good for you. It may be that London also cried like a baby when he heard about the genocide in Rwanda or on Memorial Day for fallen IDF soldiers. But how is that relevant to the discussion? I cried like a baby when I heard about the death of one of my parents, and I assume you didn’t. And Yaron London didn’t either. So what exactly does that prove?
If you mean digestive difficulties in your stomach, then it’s evident you didn’t digest what I said. The proper advice is to start thinking/digesting with your head and not with your stomach. It is worth remembering that crying, whether like a baby or not, is not a cognitive tool, at least once one is past the age of two.

I agree with most of what Yaron London wrote. Certainly, as someone who comes from a very similar background to his, it’s easy for me to understand and identify. I prefer his attempt to be honest a thousand times over the self-righteousness and sugary smoothness of his counterparts.
I just don’t think he is really being completely honest. I think his description of how hard he tries to care (and fails at it, by his own testimony) indicates a certain ambivalence toward the Haredi population he attacks.
The feeling is that out of a desire (a justified one!) to pull the rug out from under the self-righteous people who perform “morality,” he falls to the other side and performs “sobriety.” That’s how it is when despair becomes more comfortable.

I assume that if, while you were crying over the death of your parent, I were next to you singing with musical accompaniment about how your parent is a worthless and insignificant creature, and that his corpse seems to me like a dead dog… (don’t be mistaken—that’s how I feel), you would understand why my crying is relevant to the discussion. In other words, an emphasis on the collective Haredi pain… (I don’t know any of the dead). But for some reason you chose to mock my crying.

And it’s not digestive difficulties in the stomach… when a man as intellectually and mentally elevated as you identifies with the disgusting things London said, that causes intellectual indigestion. Did the revolting emotion also influence the intellect? Or is this the influence of media incitement, as happened to Lihi Griner (if I may venture to guess—you know her name and deeds). After all, you taught us that although only the intellect makes decisions, clearly what motivates a person to act is emotion.

Why are you getting all poetic? The Haredi tribe is a sociological group, and closeness to it happens in circles. A Gur Hasid would presumably rank his circles like this: family, friends, Gur Hasidim, Alexander Hasidim, Lithuanians, Religious Zionists, secular people. When non-Jews die, he is in all likelihood completely indifferent. Everyone has his own circles. Do you feel close to Gur Hasidim? More power to you. Someone who doesn’t feel it, doesn’t feel it. The idea that we are “one people” and therefore it is reasonable to feel special feelings when Jews die (Haredi, Religious Zionist, or secular) more than when ordinary strangers die is an idea with no value weight. It’s just a matter of feeling close, nothing more.

Yaron, Yaron London writes the post and describes the swarm of people almost erotically, with pleasure… It is evident from his writing that this is hatred bordering on antisemitism. Not just lack of belonging.

I didn’t read Yaron London’s post, and as a person he doesn’t interest me at all. I’m dealing with the question of alienation and belonging. You were moved by the disaster because you feel intense closeness to the Jewish people, and within them even more intense closeness to the religious, and perhaps within that even more intense closeness to the Haredim. A feeling of closeness is something emotional, not something of significance.
I, for example, do feel emotionally close to Haredi people (with no closeness whatsoever to Haredi views and conduct), but when I search within myself, I think it is because part of my family is rooted in Haredi society, not because they are “Jews” or “citizens of the state.” Despite all their flaws, I have grown used to seeing Haredim as connected to me in some way because I have familial ties “to them.” When Jews died in the United States from coronavirus, for example, I can’t say I was moved as I was by the present event. Why? Just because.

“A righteous man knows the soul of his beast.”
One little provocateur justifies another little provocateur.
By the way, as best I remember, Yaron London once said that he has no problem that after his death his organs be donated even to a murderous terrorist.
Interesting whether here too Michi identifies with and understands this in the name of the “brotherhood of little provocateurs.”

Of course, no argument that “the Haredim are detached from the people” justifies a statement like that of London and Michi.
Two wicked people who apparently share a common root of soul.

Rabbi Michi, forgive the blunt question, but
has your immediate family heard about your solidarity with Yaron London’s sentiments?
If so—my pity on them. That’s all.

Elchanan, moving.

Keep us posted!

Good evening.
I did answer rudely and insolently, but I explained how my crying is relevant, and I argued that fine, he doesn’t feel solidarity—but the tone and melody are those of antisemitism. Do you really not understand what arouses revulsion and the evil spirit of antisemitism in Yaron London’s post?

I already answered you earlier, and I don’t see what there is to add here. It’s not connected to insolence but to a lack of understanding suitable to a small emotional child. Perhaps the tears are blinding your eyes, so wait until the crying subsides and then return to the topic.

I’ll wait and come ask again.
But as the crying comes to an end, I can tell you that meanwhile you sound stupid.
And I’m left with two very painful possibilities: 1. that you have deteriorated into self-hatred.
2. that instead of continuing to serve as a ‘rabbi,’ you’ve become a little keyboard provocateur addicted to the internet and to thrills.
See you at the end of the mourning days (the crying ended after three days).

And this reminds me of what Leibowitz said about the Lubavitcher Rebbe, that he is either psychopathic or a fraud. But he thinks he’s both. It seems to me that even about a ‘former’ ‘rabbi’ one can say both and both…

With God’s help, 38th of the Omer, 5781

The conspicuous indifference of Yaron London and the master of this site to the suffering of those who are not members of their circle and people arouses wonder and puzzlement. After all, “people of the wide world,” who champion universalism and liberalism, should ostensibly care also about the fate of human beings created in the image of God, even if they are not of their people.

Are Rwandans and Chinese inferior to animals, toward whose suffering the master of this site cried out, and over which he protested against the religious public for not participating in demonstrations against “animal suffering”? Are Rwandans and Chinese not included in the “categorical imperative,” which is a great principle in the teaching of our master Kant?

In any case, it is worth noting that Moti Kirschenbaum of blessed memory, Yaron London’s partner on the program “London and Kirschenbaum,” not only took an interest, but traveled to Rwanda and produced an entire film documenting his journey to Rwanda.

Even Yaron London’s son (the son of Yaron 🙂 ?), Yoav Zehavi, foreign correspondent for Kan, took special interest in covering the coronavirus pandemic and the ways countries in Africa, India, and Belarus dealt with it—places that are not often covered or discussed (see his interview on “Heads of the Foreign Desk” on the Seventh Eye website).

It seems that in Yaron London’s circle there are also people interested in Rwandans 🙂

Regards,
Yaron Fish”l Rwandan

As part of my curiosity, I looked at the list of casualties in Meron and discovered that among them were also members of Religious Zionism, such as Yehonatan Hevroni from Givat Shmuel, Yedidya Fogel, a student at the hesder yeshiva in Ramat Gan, and Daniel Morris, a student at the hesder yeshiva in Shaalvim. Among the dead was also Rabbi Moshe Mizrahi, one of those who supported and accompanied soldiers of the Haredi Nahal—and that is enough for the wise, or more precisely: enough for the stigma 🙂

In the last paragraph, lines 3–4:
… also Rabbi Moshe Tsarfati, one of those who supported and accompanied…

[See the article, “The ‘Father’ of the Haredi Nahal Soldiers — Killed in the Meron Disaster,” on the Arutz 7 website].

Anyone who agrees with the words of one of the greatest fools in the secular world, Yaron London, should go for a neurological evaluation lest the coronavirus has entered his brain and disrupted his thinking.

Hello our master Rabbi Miki, I apologize for the length this discussion has reached here… My questions were fairly focused and short.
A. Regarding the attitude toward secular people—I do not agree with you. There is an ideology that advocates separation from secular people so as not to be influenced by them. But the discourse is not one of hatred toward the secular person, nor of indifference expressing what you are talking about. The attitude is in the vein of “let sins cease, not sinners,” and the discourse in the Haredi street about secular people is more that they are unfortunate people who should be pitied, helped, brought closer, and are like children captured among the nations. This causes there not to be physical closeness and creates separation, and these contribute to fears on both sides of the divide, but in actual Haredi discourse this is the attitude toward the secular person, as stated above.
B. Regarding conscription—even if it were as you say (and I don’t really agree, but let it be) that the reason for avoiding conscription is fear of spiritual decline, you understand that this is not done out of selfish considerations and personal goals but because of a real fear regarding identity and spiritual decline, which for the Haredi person is as important as his very life. But it does not stem from hatred, unwillingness to help and assist, and the like. You see that where there are opportunities, Haredi society helps voluntarily far more than secular society. The many organizations certainly reflect that reality.
C. Regarding the attitude toward Haredim—you argued that this is a natural matter, exactly like how I feel toward Rwandans, and the only question is who is a Rwandan from my point of view. About that precisely I complain: that our holy master, Yaron London, looks at Haredim as Rwandans. One can say it is not terrible for a child to look at his siblings and parents as Rwandans, but clearly such a feeling is unreasonable unless one has a large measure of lack of humanity and sensitivity toward those physically close to you, in terms of identity and more.
I would be glad to hear your elevated opinion,
and by the way I must thank you for the general attitude, and for the responses on the site to questions and the wonderful articles. That is not something to be taken for granted.

The son of the holy Yaron London.

The discussion here is missing the essential point.

A person should not apologize for what he feels, but rather try to understand why he feels that way and where it comes from, and whether it is good or requires correction. I’m also not a big fan of Haredim, but the disaster that happened (like every disaster involving any Jew) is a disaster that happened to the Jewish people and to the Jewish organism (for present purposes there is no such thing as a universal organism, so there’s really no point discussing Rwandans right now). The lack of feeling among secular people may be understandable (presumably Haredim also do not feel this way about secular people, but from their perspective being Jewish means something, therefore presumably there is less foreignness toward a disaster involving secular people, whereas from the perspective of left-wing secular people like him, Jewishness is just an empty ethnic concept devoid of meaning, and therefore he will care less), but in truth it stems from a degenerated (damaged) nervous system of the Jewish organism.

Because a disaster is a sign of what is to come, and an illness begins with a small pain that, if ignored, turns into a greater pain indicating a more serious illness that has spread from that limb to additional limbs. If the secular people ignore this, trouble will ultimately reach them too. Of course, the same applies in the opposite direction. I did not read Yaron London’s words, but from what is written here in the thread, perhaps it sounds not only like alienation but more than that (I hope not joy at others’ misfortune). He could simply have stayed silent.

I have now posted a column dealing with the Meron disaster and with the attitude toward Yaron London’s remarks. Therefore I will not answer further here (not even to those few things here that are worth addressing).

As for the son of London, he asked different questions and I will address them briefly:

Hello our master Rabbi Miki, I apologize for the length this discussion has reached here… My questions were fairly focused and short.
A. This is also the secular attitude toward Haredim. Unfortunate and primitive people to be pitied.
B. This is exactly selfishness, because concern for themselves overrides the need to share the burden. Thus it is in education and in conscription. They count on others to do the work for them while they remain safe and sound.
C. I explained that in the new column I posted. On the contrary, Rwandans have a clear advantage over Haredim.
With pleasure.