Wednesday, May 07, 2008
The question you might have is “Who is Rabbi Shea Hecht?” The answer is as follows:
Rabbi Hecht is a descendent of a 4th generation line of rabbis. His father, Rabbi JJ Hecht, was the official interpreter for the late Lubavitcher Rebbe as per the Rebbes sichas
(“talks”) given on Sunday in Yiddish. While Shea was raised inside Chabad, his father came in from the outside. He is not descended from the peasant stock from Belarus White Russia of Chabad’s mainstream.
Hecht came into my life when my father and my uncle went to Chabad for help in getting me out of the Ben Yishai cult. He and I have been antagonists for over 30 years.
Hecht told me that “Maybe is says something in the Torah but you do the opposite. Only a Torah true scholar knows for sure.” Well, if I am so uninformed as to what the Torah actually says and I don’t have a Torah true perspective, how can I judge whether or not he or anyone else for that matter is competent authority? Of course this is politics and it implies that I don’t really have a Torah true perspective, which he does. I have a few comments about that.
Now, Shea is a bright guy. But calling him a “Cultbuster” is an exaggeration at best. Although he managed to get several dozen people out of cults, he destroyed none of the cults and that included the Ben Yishai cult I was in. Currently the cult is called Shoresh Yashai. My ex-cult continues in Maine and Colorado and also has chapters in other states.
First of all, Hecht told me years ago to leave Ben Yishai but to not sign up with Chabad as they don’t have the truth either. He told me that from what he can tell, the universe doesn’t work the way his dynasty’s books claim it does. And he studied all of Chabad’s books since his youth. Nevertheless, he still is working at his cushy job at The National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education. This is the original hypocritical double standard here and I resent it.
Furthermore, anytime I mention anything, he always claims that in reference to me, nothing is ever done correctly and I don’t know what I am doing. He and I got into a conversation about my Jewish certificate of divorce called a get and he laughed at me and told me, “They didn’t do it right.” This has been a consistent pattern for over 30 years.
I got into an email communication with Isaac Skolnick who heads an organization called Kayama. They facilitate obtaining gets. I got married through Chabad, the marriage was a flop and JJ Hecht tried to help me get my divorce but he passed on before he could effect the get. Isaac Skolnick told me not to judge Judaism by a “semi-messianic cult.” So, Chabad isn’t held in high regard in the Orthodox world.
I have a smicha or “rabbinic ordination” that was ratified by 2 rabbis affiliated with the Carlebach movement and also it is as an Assistant Rabbi. Those rabbis also had ordination from several sources like the former Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel, Yisrael Meir Lau. So, I have a pretty good pedigree. Hecht be damned for his ongoing insults.
Hecht wrote the Confessions book over 20 years ago. I reviewed it on Amazon and based around the distortions and outright lies in my story, I can’t trust anything else in the book.
If you know anything about marketing (I have a Master of Science in Management from Boston U as well as an undergraduate degree in Business, Management and Economics and have taken 4 courses in marketing and got A’s in all of them) and writing books, you always place your best material all the way at the beginning or at the end because that’s what people remember. My story, Hank and the Hebrew Christians was the second chapter in Confessions and the first one about a cult victim. So I must have been his favorite. That’s my contention. I don’t think my story was the most popular, but I think Shea had a particular affinity for me.
I left Ben Yishai despite Chabad, not because of it. I told that to Rabbi Naftali Citron who is Rabbi S. Carlebach’s grandnephew and I also gave him feedback about Hecht’s book. He saw my point.
Recently, Hecht found out about my panning him on the Internet and he told me to “stop attacking him and stop writing nasty things about him and get the mental help I need.” I need this help largely because of what he and these other religious groups did to me.
He tried to chalk up my criticizing him to my mental illness. First of all, it appears
that I may be working again very soon. I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag prematurely but a magazine has shown interest in my writing for them.
Shea claims that he always had a “warm spot in his heart for me.” I don’t doubt that he does but he refused to hook me up to chesed (“charity”) funds (Rabbi Witt did when I stayed with him in Israel 13 years ago) and he simply told me “No one owes you a living.” Well I almost died in his care, as he was my mashpiah in Lubavitch. And his book was selling just fine on the shelves the whole time I had that problem with my ex-wife and with my landlords.
Hopefully, I will recover from all of this and this video will help me publicize my story. Thank you for viewing this.

[www.sheahecht.com]
The above is his website, with additional information.