Afraid To Upset Oprah

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Luke Ford

Margo Howard writes:

The second thing you need to know about this book is that most of the kingpin interviewers in the mainstream media were astonishingly up front about saying they would not help Kitty promote her book because they didn

Posted in Journalism, Oprah | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Afraid To Upset Oprah

Orthodox Bludgers

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Luke Ford

Elliot Resnick writes an important Op/Ed in this week’s Jewish Press:

Acquaintances of mine have told me point-blank – without a trace of embarrassment in their voices – that they live in Section 8 housing and buy groceries with food stamps.

Are these individuals ill? Have they been fired from their jobs? Hardly. Most are newly married, as healthy as can be, and could easily afford housing and food if they worked for a living. But they prefer not to work. They study Torah all day long instead.

Leaving aside the debate between the relative value of studying Torah versus working, how does studying Torah justify taking charitable funds? Living off a generous father-in-law who wants to support his daughter’s family is understandable in certain circumstances. But living off the government dole is another matter entirely.

“We qualify for these programs,” argue some young Orthodox welfare recipients. Some do, that’s true. But even so, programs like Section 8 housing and food stamps were clearly never intended for able-bodied men who choose not to work. These government programs are essentially charitable funds set up by society for people who work hard to support their families but can’t make ends meet.

Some Orthodox Jews sponging off their fellow citizens concede this point but then argue, “Many undeserving Americans receive welfare benefits, so why shouldn’t we?” Yes, welfare fraud and associated crimes unfortunately do exist. But how does this fact justify taking charity without truly needing it? What exactly are these people arguing – that because some Americans take charity unjustly, they, too, can take charity unjustly?

Even supposing these charity recipients were right – and they’re not – where is their shame in subsisting on other people’s money? The Talmudic sages assumed normal people would feel ashamed to accept charity, which is why they praised anonymous donors and donors who don’t know their recipients’ identities. They also lauded people who employ poor men, thus saving them the embarrassment of living off donations.

How is it, then, that many young Orthodox Jewish couples today don’t feel any shame in taking charity? Indeed, in some communities, they even boast about how many government programs they benefit from. Where is the shame, the sense of honor, the pride in being self-sufficient?

Unfortunately, the problem runs even deeper. The sad fact is that many of these young newlywed Orthodox Jews don’t even really qualify for government welfare programs. They cheat and lie to receive their money. Some of them have part-time jobs – the women almost certainly do – and make too much money to qualify for government benefits. To avoid such “technical” obstacles, they ensure that a portion of their salary remains “off the books,” sometimes funneled through non-profit organizations.

Another trick I just learned about involves couples remaining unmarried – from a secular legal point of view. By marrying religiously under a chuppah but not civilly in city hall, some couples can continue to receive government benefits they would lose if legally married.

Posted in Abuse, Ethics, Orthodoxy | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Orthodox Bludgers

Saving The Single Woman

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Luke Ford

I think most women grow up believing that a man will come along who will take care of the big stuff for them — the mortgage, the primary income, protection, taking care of the cars, etc.

As Dennis Prager says, women want a man who will blaze a trail for her through life and cut down the underbrush and clear out the mess and protect and provide for her.

In exchange for this, men want a woman who will make him the most important thing in her life (part of this is that a woman will take care of herself and make an effort to look sexy for him).

I’ve failed with women because I am not a provider and a protector. One woman I started seeing had an enemy who pounded nails into her car tires and when I wouldn’t take care of this guy, she left me.

I often run into single women who are reduced to tears by having to take care of the messy parts of life by themselves. Part of me wants to jump in and help, but most of me just feels tired and wants to lie down and to take a nap and to sense my feelings and to blog about them.

Posted in Dating, Personal | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Saving The Single Woman

I Understand Suicide Bombers

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Luke Ford

I have no trouble understanding the suicide bomber.

Hmm, maybe I am one, a suicide bomber of the soul?

People who blow themselves up don’t do it out of hatred for their enemy so much as to achieve status within their group.

If I felt like a loser in the Gaza Strip, as I often do in Pico-Robertson, and I felt like I could become cool if I blew myself up, then, well, sitting here in plush America, I totally understand the motivation to blow myself up.

My strongest drive is to feel important. I want sex and love and luxury and success, but most of all, I want to feel important. I want to feel at the center of things. I want to feel like a big shot.

I feel important when thousands of people read my blog and take to the streets and chant my name. I feel important when hot chicks talk to me at parties. I feel important when I walk down Pico Blvd and people yell out of their cars, “Luke Ford!”

There are many things I’ve striven for in life, such as God and goodness and Dennis Prager’s approval and money and fame and sex and friends and fast cars, but most of all, most of the time, I’ve wanted to feel important.

Throughout school, I hung out much of the time, perhaps most of the time, with the losers. I was rarely in the cool circle. I was rarely popular. I was a freak.

I still am a freak. I’m like the Elephant Man. I remember hanging out on the set of Taboo 22 from Metro. It was directed by DCypher and starred Ava Rose. And most of the people on set weren’t particularly thrilled to have me on set, but they respected the reach of my blog and so I got an invite.

And throughout the day, Ava kept telling me, “Luke, you are not an animal.”

The only time she stopped saying this to me was when she was tied up and had a big red gag stuffed in her sweet mouth.

What **** is all about is revenge on all the hot chicks who’ve rejected you over the course of your life, all the unattainable girls, the cheerleaders and the haughty high-powered executive chicks, oh, how they laughed at you, you pathetic little worm, you tiny tiny boy, you could never do a man’s job, get away from me with that thing.

At least, that’s what I’ve heard.

I know how much I yearn to be loved and to be admired and to hang out with the cool kids, with the Monicas and Davids of the world. That’s where I want to live. I want to breathe their rarified air. I want their good graces. I want their social ease.

I want to be cool. I desperately want to be cool. I want to live from the inside, as Rabbi Dr. Marc Gafni would put it.

Luckily for me and for the world, Jews don’t tell converts that they can become cool by blowing themselves up. If they did, I’d probably be up in smoke.

Well, now that I think about it, I blow myself up regularly when I start blogging. This blog post is my suicide bomb.

I’m now thinking about female sex columnists. They dynamite their chances for future happiness by writing about their intimate life. This is a form of suicide bombing just to achieve some fleeting fame.

From DennisPrager.com today: “Prager H2: Dennis talks to Ariel Glucklich, professor of theology at Georgetown University. His new book is Dying for Heaven: Holy Pleasure and Suicide Bombers. Why the Best Qualities of Religion Are Also Its Most Dangerous�”

Ariel says: “We tend to assume that the kind of aggression that religious people do are motivated by outside concerns. My book says it is motivated by internal social concerns. People will commit suicide for other people because of how they want to fit in their group, not for how they feel about their enemy.”

“His willingness to die while committing the atrocity is about the honor or wanting to belonging or wanting to fit at the heart of things.”

I understand why little people want to do big things so they can feel better about themselves. I too have this yearning.

I understand people who make computer viruses and light forest fires (even though I don’t have this yearning). I understand the thrill of standing there and watching the vast destruction you have created. I can see the flames for miles and the sirens going off and thousands of people evacuating their homes and I can think, wow, all these people’s lives are shifting because of me. I am like God. I can create worlds. I am woman, hear me roar. Gay pride. Crips forever. Let’s roll.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on I Understand Suicide Bombers

Why Haven’t Religious Groups Demanded James Bond Stop Having Pre-Marital Sex?

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Luke Ford

On his radio show today, Dennis Prager noted that anti-smoking groups demanded James Bond not smoke cigars. Why haven’t religious groups demanded James Bond stop womanizing? Dennis said that religious groups are generally less kill-joy than the anti-smoking crowd and other zealots.

Dennis said he has far more freedom to speak on the radio than outside the studio. In any corporate environment, men have to be very careful in what they say in case they engender a charge of sexual harassment. A guy can’t say to a girl, “You look great in that tight sweater, your breasts really pop out.”

Good thing I have my blog where free speech reigns.

Posted in Dennis Prager | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Why Haven’t Religious Groups Demanded James Bond Stop Having Pre-Marital Sex?

Stand And Deliver Torah Style

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Luke Ford

How come there’s all this hoopla about Hispanic math teacher Jaime Escalante (hero of the film Stand and Deliver) and yet we never remember Feivel Himmelfarb, a math teacher in New York in the late 19th century who inspired a group of high school Jewish students to leave their gangs, to stop dealing dope, and to instead pass AP Calculus?

Posted in Satire | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Stand And Deliver Torah Style

Does David Rubin Have Enemies In Orthodox Life?

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Luke Ford

Often when an Orthodox Jew falls from grace, it is easy to see his enemies rejoicing. Orthodox Jewish life is close. We know each other pretty well. We have feuds. And when people fall, there is often rejoicing.

I have not noticed that with David Rubin. He was active in Jewish education and charity. He was the chairman of the board of Yeshivat Yavneh. Now he’s run into problems with the law for his municipal bond business, but I have not noticed anybody in the community rejoicing over his downfall.

Now, I don’t know anybody who approves of his alleged wrongdoings. I’ve noticed some people snickering about it, but most people just feel bad for him and his struggles.

It also helps that David Rubin’s attorney is the well-respected and well-liked friend of George Bush, Don Etra.

I wonder where I might get a program/journal/news clips about a scholarship banquet that Yavneh held in 2002. Ehud Olmert was the keynote speaker.

I don’t know how significant David Rubin’s Orthodox social circle was in his business. David Rubin’s second in command, Stewart Wolmark, is a graduate of Ner Yisroel in Baltimore.

Posted in David Rubin, Don Etra | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Does David Rubin Have Enemies In Orthodox Life?

A Teachable Moment

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Luke Ford

Slate.com presents the case for government regulation:

The 2004 outbreak investigated by the CDC was attributed to this route of transmission, demonstrating that screening itself, even if carried out diligently

Posted in Pornography | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on A Teachable Moment

Chosen For A Mission

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Luke Ford

I talked to this bloke in Israel today. He was raised secular and then became chareidi (ultra-Orthodox Jew) for about 25 years (from approximately 1973 to 1998) and then became a nowhere man, neither secular nor religious.

His story reminds me of the Rabbi Milton Steinberg novel As A Driven Leaf about the Talmudic heretic Elisha Ben Abuya.

Andy* graduated from high school in 1973) calls me this morning. “You sound just like the picture on your site,” he says.

Luke: “You’ve been through so much. It’s an incredibly depressing story.”

Andy: “I carry it around with me, believe me.”

Luke: “The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch is extreme stuff. It’s quite something that that is what got you into yiddishkeit.”

Andy: “I’ve always been oriented that way. It’s not extreme. I was interested in the meaning of life. How should one live? Virtue. It is an inspiring book. It seemed to me like the natural progression from Spinoza… In those days, it was the thing to do, to look for the meaning of life… I didn’t like Eastern religions. They seemed like idolatry. Monotheism is the way for me.

“I wasn’t aware of the pitfalls of Orthodoxy. I was looking at it from this theoretical point of view.”

“Later on, I got involved in yeshiva and found that I liked it. If all this had not happened, I’d still be a fanatic frum Jew.”

“I had a friend a few years ago who I learned Gemara with. He was the opposite. He converted from Christianity. He always saw the problems [in Orthodox Judaism] but he had to become Jewish. He saw it all. I still can’t see the problems.”

Luke: “How have you been able to maintain a sense of worth without working?”

Andy: “Not very well. This did get me. I didn’t manage well. It wasn’t that the rabbis tried to knock me down… You’re interested in this, but I could never talk to anybody about this for the past 20 years or so [since the divorce]. I’d just mention hints of it here and there and people would say, ‘Oh no, that can’t possibly be. Rabbis are perfect.’ I learned to keep my mouth shut.

“I’ve tried to do all types of projects. I’ve tried to write music. I’ve tried to write a book. I’m still trying to write. I was doing chavruta in Uman, Ukraine for a few years.”

Luke: “I’ve never earned more than $50,000 in a year. That’s been devastating on my self-worth. I’ve never married and had a family.”

Andy: “That is sad. There are people out there who are just chosen for a mission. The hand of God comes down and picks you, even if you don’t want it, you just want good things in life and you don’t need all this, but you don’t have a choice. You’re one of those people. This is what you are picked for. On the other hand, do you work faithfully and I am sure that God will reward you.”

Luke: “In the present, we always think we have free will, but when we look back on our lives, we see how we were fated to go in the direction we went.”

Andy: “I’ve been disappointed in people, but I’ve never been disappointed in God.”

Luke: “Do your kids regard you as having failed them?”

Andy: “That was their attitude for many years.”

“My parents didn’t like me going to yeshiva. They didn’t like me giving up all my other interests. In high school, I had a girlfriend and music and philosophy.”

“I wanted family and community. The frum world does a great job of presenting itself like that. Shabbos table Judaism. It’s the hook. Oh, come do Shabbos. We love you. They give a great impression of family values.”

“I’m surrounded by Mastorti (Conservative Judaism) people. They try to be Jewish. They keep Shabbos. There’s nothing about them that is frum (religious). They’re not part of a group. They’re not passionate. They don’t have a drop of philosophy in them. They get together on Shabbos and holidays. All the women hate Pesach.”

“The only friends I have in the frum world are in Israel. I don’t have any secular friends. Secular people don’t understand me. Frum people are the only people I relate to… Most frum people don’t care about the intellectual issues. I don’t bother talking to them about them. I don’t want to hurt them. They have a way of life that works for them.”

Luke: “How do secular people relate to you?”

Andy: “They have trouble. My whole mentality, my interests, my way of thinking and being, is still half between this and that.”

Luke: “What are the most common things that people say to you?”

Andy: “People don’t talk to me very much. After everything I’ve gone through, maybe I have a problem relating to people.”

“On the social level, I don’t think Orthodox Judaism has any validity. That’s where all the evil is — using Torah for power, marriage, making a living. That’s a seduction into the dark side (sitra achra)… When people use Torah for social reasons, they think they are connecting with holiness, but I think they are connecting to the evil side.”

Posted in Haredi, Orthodoxy | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Chosen For A Mission

The Orthodox Rabbis Of Los Angeles

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Luke Ford

Andy* emails me:

Dear Luke:
I have sent to you a thank you note over the years but I never told you why. I went through hell in LA when the rabbis there mainly of chabad but also agudah and Lakewood all banded together to destroy my family. I have not shared the story over the years because no one would believe that rabbis professing family values would actually be doing the opposite. I have never met people that I can honestly say were pure evil until I met the orthodox rabbis of LA.

Let me make perhaps a quick outline of the events.
I Beverly Hills High School
I meet my future wife. I had become frum by reading the kitzur shulchan aruch in high school in my spare time. I would go on Shabbat to R Wassermann and to the Lakewood kollel.
II I go to yeshiva in Far Rockaway.
III I go to the Mir Yeshiva in New York.
In that place I received the general Charedi approach to Judaism which means to learn Torah and to trust in God to provide and i believed this very seriously and it was under this belief system that I married and learned Torah under the foremost Talmudic scholar of those days r. shmuel berenbaum.
IV I go to Israel and become involved with Breslov–(with rav eliezer shelomo shick)
V My wife and our children and I return to California.
VI My wife wanted to belong to a community and that need to belong caused her to accept the Chabad system in those days. That was not against my will and in fact i encouraged it.
VII the lubavitch rabbis urged her to divorce me though we had seven children and had been happily married for ten years.
VII the rabbis of Lakewood and aguda also urged her to divorce me since i was learning Torah and not working.
A couple of weeks before the divorce I asked rabbi fassman the head of Lakewood “my wife told me that if you say not to get a divorce she will not ask for a divorce.” He said “I do not want the responsibility that there should not be a divorce.”
Incidentally another complaint about me was that I was learning kabala and I used the sidur ha’Rashash to pray (that is a sidur of kabala written by a Kabalist from Yemen by the name shelomo sharabi). This was one of the major complaints of chabad against me along with the fact that I was not working. I was not working because I had bought into the philosophy preached by Lakewood then and now that one must learn torah and trust in God to help. Most people in that system are supported by their parents or in laws.
(All the charedi rabbis then learned kabalah but they wanted to be considered as the only people qualified to do so not some baal teshuva down on his luck like me)

We were not lacking money but the charedi rabbis of LA I suppose found a good scapegoat since women’s lib was big in those days and I suppose they felt wanted to show themselves as heroes on the side of a poor neglected wife.

But I really don’t know and can’t understand why the rabbis there decided to destroy me and my family. (That was the year 1990.)

After 1990:

I – I return to Israel thinking that I could give my wife a cooling off period and also perhaps to be able to set up a home where I might be able to win custody of the children in case she would not want to return. That attempt failed.

II in 1993 I return to New York. My wife remarries. My children are sexually raped and abused in the frum schools they go to. The children are taken away and put into the frum foster care agency in Brooklyn.

My children are sexually abused while at that agency. That agency fights me in court and tries to have me painted as a child abuser and the courts being in the control of the frum in Brooklyn award custody back to my wife and her husband.

I finally get two of my children paroled to me after fighting not just that frum agency but many other frum agencies in Brooklyn that seemed to be all out to keep my children from me. I was granted by the courts the privilege of seeing me children once every two weeks but the almost never came. When I complained I was told to go to court but I was in court anyway which was in the process of giving my children back to an upstanding member of the frum community.

Before custody was awarded to my wife the Mir also turned its back on me. I was there one Shabbat when one fellow that was in custody of one of my children came to the Mir to daven. My son saw me and wanted to spend Shabbat with me so he went to get his older brother. Then the people at the Mir called the police on Shabbat and said I kidnapped my children.

III my children are back with my ex-wife and I never see them so I return to Israel. The courts were clearly in the pocket of the frum community in Brooklyn and the frum foster care agency there.

Certain Mitzvoth I still try to keep but I would not be considered frum by the frum world.

But mitzvoth still me a lot to me. You have to understand I really felt the holiness of the Torah. I don’t think anymore that Torah is from Sinai or the Talmud either. Yet I still feel that Torah was written under divine inspiration and meant to be a mythology to give life and meaning and personality to the One true God.

Dear Luke,
I. I had only learnt in yeshiva and (besides high school) had no other education. i was unfit for any type of work and upon my return to Israel I intended to sit and learn Torah in any yeshiva that would accept me. I thought that would be simple since every day in the Mir yeshiva there was some new collector (meshuch) from Israel collecting money for a different yeshiva and all of the collectors -meshulachim said that their yeshivas were taking in anyone off the street and providing them a place to learn torah. Ever yeshiva that had claimed that I upon my return to Israel was thrown sometimes (physically) out of yeshivas are for everyone as long as you are young and have rich American parents. The first place I was thrown out of was aish the breslov then the Mir etc
So in short I did not work and did not learn.
After my return to Israel however I was introduced by the some frum community to a nice girl. It turned out after the married that she had become a believer (Christian) and the frum had just scammed me as usually with one of their rejects so I divorced her.
Then another frum woman met me at the rabbinate and someone had told her I had money so she got me and spent all the time we were married trying to get her hands on my supposed great fortunes in America. It is along story and in fact I owe her a great debt because it was through her that I finally understood an amazing lesson. Her son was a diabetic in some Kollel and he used to learn medical books. i asked her about it and she said there is nothing wrong with science. I understood then and there that the frum approach of rejecting science was not the right attitude. I realized she must have picked this up from her background in bnei brak. So eventually I started learning science and math.
But I did divorce her because of the other problems that were there. But she was also a victim and had been indoctrinated that all Americans are rich.

Posted in Abuse, Orthodoxy | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Orthodox Rabbis Of Los Angeles