When I was a little boy, due to my father’s side of the family on his mother’s side, I was influenced such that I thought I wanted to be an orthodox Jew. I thought that orthodoxy was perfectly moral, perfectly rational, perfectly scientific, and well, just perfect. Then I went to Israel in the late ‘70’s and found out what was really flying.

I had always asked my parents to send me to a yeshiva for a good “Torah true” education. My father always commented to me that he didn’t have the money.

A friend of my father’s who fought in Israel during the War of Independence, went to the late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein because he wanted to enroll his son in Feinstein’s yeshiva Mesivtah Tiferis Yerushalayim. Rabbi Feinstein asked my father’s friend how much money he had. My father’s friend told him and Rabbi Feinstein told the individual that “it wasn’t enough”. End of story here.

When my father found out about my involvement in Ben Yishai, he made due and sent my sister to Hebrew Academy of Suffolk County (aka HASC). My sister told me about some of the unscientific things she was taught from the Gemara (Talmud). One thing she was taught was that a woman can’t enter mikveh (a ritual bath) for an extended period of time after a man leaves it. According to what I studied in a biology class, sperm cells die within about 3 minutes of leaving a man’s body after an ejaculation.

If I had been told some of this bubeh miseh as a child, I think my life would have taken much different turns up until now. I am only hoping that what I went through will have an impact on the rest of the people on this board.

As a side note, my sister joined the Jewish Defense League where she found her first husband. He was 8 years older than her and he had a bad record. My father hated him. [...].

As the results of the Baal Teshuva Movement are inconclusive or negative at best, I don’t know what to think of my nephew’s becoming Modern Orthodox. I hope he doesn’t cause a ruckus like I did.

My basis for wanting a yeshiva education was founded on the section of my family that was modern orthodox specifically of the Young Israel movement. They were tight knit and my grandmother’s sister, my Aunt Doris and her husband, my Uncle Abe, were nice, warm and friendly. They were very hospitable.

I had always imagined that whatever the Patriarch Abraham (Avraham Avinu) was like, he must have been a lot like my Uncle Abe. We used to visit my Aunt and Uncle about once a month. But paradoxically, their son, my cousin was always mad at them for some reason.

I went off to Israel half cocked thinking that these outreach workers would treat me like my Uncle Abe and Aunt Doris used to. I was in for a rude awakening. The outreach workers are Ultra Orthodox of various affiliations and I was treated as an outsider to them. In fact the outreach worker who hated me the most was Rabbi Uri Kaploun who was a Lubavitcher and Lubavitch means “City of Love.” He translates a lot of Chabad’s materials.

Their actually are no Modern Orthodox groups doing outreach although some book I read in West Side Judaica claimed that the Carlebach Shul is actually Modern Orthodox. I also heard that Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Rivendale (HIR) wants to do outreach in a Modern Orthodox context.

Rabbi Yeshua Witt commented to me the last time I was in Israel that I was “just some guy who came to him…” Just some guy? My dad fought in Israel and he worked with the Israeli Consulate as he adopted Israeli soldiers who were injured in Israel’s wars. I saw the ravages of war at an early age and I was surrounded by Israel all my life. I wanted go make a permanent home in Israel away from all the anti-Semitism I grew up in and I wanted to be a Jew living among his own kind. It was not to be.

One thing Yeshua told me is that of all the people who ever came to him, I was the only person who came, left and came back. But now he’s gone. He left Jerusalem for Vienna and left his family.

As I write this letter, Israel’s fate is up in air. I don’t know what to think about all the bombs going off. I hope the area’s conflagration cools down but I don’t think it will just yet.

When Rabbi Miller from Congregation Anshe Emet (a Reform congregation meaning “People of Truth”) in New Brunswick, NJ went to Israel some years ago he was accosted at the Western Wall and some haredi (those in awe of God) told him that his family should have stayed in Israel to have died at the hands of the Nazis. Rabbi Miller said that he refuses to believe that the Kotel (Western Wall) is “an ultra-Orthodox synagogue.” It seems to me that my father’s credo of “the pain of one Jew is the pain of all Jews all throughout the world” just simply isn’t the case. In retrospect, we may all need to start over again.

Hi
Your story is very interesting...I grew up in a small cult in Wisconsin and they considered themselves Jewish.they were quite like the Haradi.or so I thought.They always said they were the real Jews.But now when I went to Israel I find that They are a cult. iwent through quite a bit of fighting with myself before I was able to admit the morally horrible things this cult did.

I now live in Israel and concider myself a modern orthodox Jew.they are so accepting and open..but I still am confused as to my identity.I keep telling myself that what I was in was nothing near Jewish..but.....

Quote
becker
Hi
Your story is very interesting...I grew up in a small cult in Wisconsin and they considered themselves Jewish. They were quite like the Haradi, or so I thought. They always said they were the real Jews but now when I went to Israel I find that They are a cult. I went through quite a bit of fighting with myself before I was able to admit the morally horrible things this cult did.

I now live in Israel and consider myself a modern orthodox Jew. They are so accepting and open..but I still am confused as to my identity. I keep telling myself that what I was in was nothing near Jewish..but.....

You, like I, were born into a tenuous situation. Religion can cause as many problems as it's supposed to solve. I think a new teacher will arise to set the record straight.
My family on my father's side is Young Israel which is Modern Orthodox. But I elect to stay in Christianity. That is where I feel most comforable.

Richard Green:

First and last warning.

Don't use the names of people on this board (e.g. nephew) that have nothing whatsoever to do with any "cult-like" activity.

It is not relevant to this board to discuss your family, what schools they attend etc.

I have edited that out from an earlier post.

The next time you do this you will be banned from the board.