Corrupt Jewish Judges are the Elephant in the Room
Hello again everyone, and welcome to my channel, where I show you how to navigate a Jewish Divorce.
While today’s subject is a rather sensitive one, still it is something near and dear to my heart. And even though I have said it many times before, I believe it is worth repeating.
Did you ever wonder why we have been seeing an uptick in tragedies lately affecting the Jewish people, especially in Orthodox circles? Case in point are the horrific terrorist attacks in Israel, among which we found the story of the little Paley brothers, who were killed at a bus stop in Jerusalem. We also hear about whole families getting wiped out in fires, car accidents and plane crashes, Hashem Yerachem. And the list goes on and on!
Now, to be sure, Jewish people do not believe in happenstance, or simple bad luck. There is no such thing as a “freak accident” either. We believe that each and every event, big or small that occurs in the world is orchestrated by hashem for some reason. But can any of us today ascertain what this reason might be? What seems to be the message that Hashem is sending us? Some events come across to us as positive in nature, yet others appear to be negative, depending on which way you look at them. Sometimes they involve an individual, while other times they involve a community, or even an entire country. For example, the Biblical stories of catastrophe befalling the cities of Sdom and Nineveh, seem to be clear cases of collective punishment. More recent events though, are not as clear. Take for example the recent devastating earthquake in Turkey, which from a Jewish perspective might be construed as being a heavenly warning of some sort.
Now, there is nothing new about tragedies happening, but we have been hearing about them much more frequently lately. It seems that every other week or so, there is a new fundraiser for an orphan, or someone very sick, Rachmono litzlon! So what I am asking today is, what do you suppose the message is for us? What must we rectify in order to prevent future tragedies from occurring? Obviously there has to be something that we need to correct!
Now, there is a tendency for us to always direct the blame onto certain novelty causes, such as talking in shul, speaking loshon hora (slander and gossip) or avoiding wigs made in South Asia.
Chazal compare the events preceding the arrival of the Jewish Messiah to the birth pangs, or contractions, that a woman experiences prior to childbirth. Just as these contractions become more frequent, and have more intensity before the child is born, so too are the tribulations before the arrival of Moshiach. The signs are here that we are rapidly approaching this era of Moshiach, and we know that there is still much for us to correct in our Torah observance. But what exactly is it?
Let me give you a recent example of a real tragedy that was in the news, which I will link for you below. In the Ponovezh yeshiva of Bene Brak, one of the most premiere Yeshivas in the world, a sefer Torah fell out of the Aron hakodesh! Now, when a sefer Torah falls down to the floor, the custom in Judaism is for the community to fast. This is done not only to make us aware that the Kovod haTorah has been affected, but also because this kind of thing conveys a hidden message, telling us that there is something to do teshuva for, or repentance. Well, it just so happens that two weeks before this incident, some bochurim from this very yeshiva did harass, and even physically attack, one of their own Roshei Yeshiva! And this is besides for the fact that fights regularly break out among these bochrim, where fists go flying and chairs go careening over people’s heads. And yet amazingly, none of the leaders in Bene Brak dared to mention this behavior in the context of this Sefer Torah tragedy, which happened only two weeks after that attack! This is true even though our sages compare a Torah scholar to a Sefer Torah. So I ask, could hashem be sending us a clearer message than that? And yet when the Sefer Torah fell out of the Aron Kodesh in Ponvezh, a rare event that most shuls never even see; still here it occurred within two weeks of a rosh yeshiva being attacked, and no one but I makes this obvious connection! The most the rabbis did was to parrot some generic talking point that had been sanitized, in order to make it fit for general consumption.
So what then are we in the frum community supposed to be fixing? Another example of a problem that needs attention is the situation in Lakewood, New Jersey, where children are not being enrolled in schools. This predicament, which causes children to stray from the path of Torah, is something that only their local leaders can tackle.
But going back to what I asked at the beginning of this video: What can be done about the increase in the frequency and intensity of tragedies befalling Am Yisroel on the macro level? These tragedies are happening all over the place: We are hearing about them in Brooklyn, as well as in Monsey, Los Angeles, Miami, and of course, in Jerusalem. What is needed is to identify a factor that is common to all of these communities, and then remedy it. I could tell you about the obvious things that all of us can do, such as avoiding Loshon Hora, or eradicating Sinas Chinom, baseless hatred. But these are universal things that you don’t really need me to tell you about, because your rabbi is already telling you about them more than enough already.
Now, what I am about to tell you is not something that was invented by me. Nor was it concocted by Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Chazon ish, the beis Yosef, the rashbo, the rambam, or even rashi. Rather, it is a Gemoro, no less, in Masechet Shabbos daf 139A. I have said it before, and I will say it again and again, until our leaders finally wake up and start adressing this. If you take the time to open up a translated Talmud of shabbos 139A, you will find that it says there the following, and I quote:
(READ FROM QUOTED PAGE: Rabbi Yose ben Elisha states, if you see a generation upon which many troubles or tragedies come, go and examine the judges of Israel in that generation, for all misfortunes that come to the world, come only on account of the judges of Israel.”)
And just as a side note, the curious fact is that the numerical value of that page in masechet Shabbot, 139, spells the word קטל, which in Hebrew means killing, or death. In other words, the lesson here seems to be, that the prevalence of corrupt judges in Israel leads to people dying prematurely. I don’t think that the page numerology here is a coincidence, do you?
All of this begs another question: Why indeed does Hashem take the corruption of our judges more seriously than other sins? The answer can be found in a Mishna in Pirkei Avos 1:18, which states: The world endures on justice, on truth and on peace. The world cannot continue to exist without truth and justice, because the perversion of these things leads to an absence of peace. Hashem expects the Jewish judges to do their job fairly and honestly, according to the Torah’s dictates. But when the judges become corrupt, their rulings lead to horrendous outcomes: Not simply monetary loss, but also the loss of reputation, the breaking up of families, and the destruction of harmony, whether it be between man and his brother, man and his wife, or man and his neighbor. But worst of all, they cause perversion of the Torah itself, which is a direct affront to Hashem. For it states in
ירמיהו, פרק לג פסוק כה
that If Not for the Torah, there would be No Reason for the World to Exist.
And so my friends, there you have it. I don’t think that there is anyone who can argue with this gemoro in Shabbos 139a. It is telling us that everything comes down to the corrupt dayanim, or judges of Israel. But here is the problem: Even though the gemoro just told us to Go And Examine the judges of Israel, do you think that anyone will actually do it? What about the ones who are most qualified to do this checking? I am referring to the various Rabbinic groups. Do you think the Moetzes Gedolai HaTorah or the Aguda will be doing any examining of these judges for us?
So this, exactly is the problem. You see, if it were true that that the bais dins of today were operating with righteousness and justice, as dictated by the Torah, then at least we could eliminate this step, and move on to other items on the list of things that need correcting. But since the judges are not doing their jobs correctly, at least we have the Tanna in Masechet Shabbos, who informs us that it is these derelict judges that are the obstacles to our success. But even though we know this, our fake leaders keep on avoiding the elephant in the room!
And while we are talking about checking and examining, it just so happens that we are getting ready next week to do bedikas chomets, the search for leaven, in preparation for the Passover holiday. And although a thorough house cleaning is never an easy task, the truth is that in the case of corrupt Jewish judges, you won’t need to do a bedikas chomets on our dayanim at all, since this channel is already doing that work for you! Regular viewers of this channel know that I have been revealing the improprieties of our crooked worldwide Bais din system for quite some time now. I have produced numerous letters from many different sources, which provide unassailable proof of the corruption in the bais din system.
So if you made it this far in the video, congratulations! You now know that tragedies happen because of fraudulent rabbis. And probably the worst thing they are doing is fabricating false rulings and perverting the Torah, especially when it comes to matters of divorce. That is where they are presiding over forced gittin, and thereby causing the Jewish pedigree to be tainted. The inept judges are enabling adultery on a massive scale, all due to their misinterpretation of the Torah.
While I was doing preparation for this video, A very curious case of rabbinic malfeasance came across my desk. As usual, it involves the Israeli Rabbinate, which in my opinion is the most corrupt of all rabbinic organizations. You see, these are the ones who produce illegitimate Gittin on a weekly basis, proliferating the sin of eishes ish and mamzeirim. This case that I am referring to involves a man who managed to escape the oppressive divorce system in Israel, which led to the Rabbanut issuing his wife a fake annullment, since no Get was forthcoming from him. Meanwhile, the woman remarried, and had a child born to her. So now, instead of the rabbinate congratulating themselves that they helped a woman get remarried, apparently they realized the truth that her child was really born a Mamzer, and that they are the ones who caused this to take place. So now, they are trying to force this man to issue a Get! I hope you can see the irony here: By insisting that this woman needs a Get now, they are essentially admitting that she really needed one all along, and that the annullment that they themselves presided over was never legal. The Rabbanut, in their bizarre quest to legitimize this mamzer, is actually announcing to the whole world that this woman’s second marriage is not kosher! And of course, according to Jewish law, a woman who consorts with another man and marries him without a proper Get from her first husband, must divorce the second husband as well. The perversion of this faulty ruling made by the Israeli Rabbanut should be plain for all to see. And yet, we will not hear a peep from any of our leaders about it. We know that the Israeli chareidi rabbis are simply too scared to voice their opposition to the Israeli rabbinate, since they risk being jailed for opposing an official government entity. But what is the excuse of the other rabbinic organizations, the world over, who choose to remain silent while affronts to the Torah such as these are taking place?
In Judaism, there is no virtue in remaining silent while iniquity is going on. The Torah holds everyone accountable for the sin of a small few. We learn this concept from numerous places, one of which is the story of Purim, the feast of which we just celebrated. In the Talmud Masechet Megilla, we learn that only some Jews attended the feast of Achashverosh, and yet all of the Jews were marked for annihilation, G-d forbid. Another place we learn it from is Joshua Chapter 7, where Ochon partook of the spoils of Yericho, and roused the anger of hashem over the entire camp. We also learn it from the story of Kamtza uBar Kamtza, where certain rabbis who attended the party remained silent while Bar Kamtza was escorted out of the venue. This silence was a contributing factor which led to the Bais Hamikdosh being destroyed.
So how do we put an end to the obvious corruption that is afflicting our batei dinim? I submit to you that there are only two ways: Option A, which is the most direct, is for a panel of distinguished rabbis from all over the world to form a committee. It’s aim would be to shut down most of these houses of idol worship. In their place, they would set up Jewish courts, composed of honest rabbis that they would vet, although I’m not sure how many truly authentic rabbis can be found. These courts would render rulings according to true Torah law, without giving consideration to outside influences. But since I don’t see this happening anytime soon, we are only left with option B. And that is, to stop going to any Bais Din for the foreseeable future. Instead, we should seek a resolution through mediation, without utilizing the bais din or the civil court system. If every one of us would simply boycott the Bais Din system, then we could indirectly correct what hashem wants us to fix. And then, we would have no more perverted or fabricated Torah emanating from these houses of ill repute, since no litigants would be in attendance. In this way, we might be able to cancel the corrupt batei din from the grass roots.
So I pray and hope that hashem has mercy on all of Israel, and saves us from all afflictions. And the next time you are asked to join a tehillim group, or do some other tikkun with the hope of alleviating tzoros from klal yisroel, please read the gemoro in shabbos 139A again, and internalize the message that the holy tanna Rabbi yose ben elisha is trying to convey to us.
Till then, thank you for watching, and see you all in the next video.
