Consistency and values went out of the window a long time ago. Today it is only about personalities. Bibi was able to attempt to form a govt with Mansour Abbas but when Bennett actually did it later, he was declared a traitor. The same with the Oslo Accords and the Disengagement. Once upon a time, we essentially had a 2 party system in Israel and the parties stood for things and their members had to uphold those principles. Today, every party is just the manifestation of its leaders and disappears as fast as its leaders do. Remember Kadima, the largest party in the country? It barely lasted 3 elections. There are no more long term parties today with fixed values that outlast their leaders and Likud, the last of the old time parties, will eventually go that way as well.
The same is true with the Charedi Gedolim. If they change their values tomorrow, their followers will follow however much it contradicts what they previously taught, because you have to listen to them "even when they tell you that right is left and left is right." That is why there is hope that if the money stops flowing to them, they will tell their followers to change their lifestyle.
You blew it on your last paragraph or two. Those who are going to Yeshivat HaKotel for its program are some of the most level headed individuals in Chinukh today . You disagree with ONE of them and therefore the entire project you reject?? C’mon now, you have got to be bigger than that !!
There's a dissonance between our traditional Jewish role as a blessing to the entire world and a light to the nations, and our tendency not to care a fig about what the rest of the world thinks of us.
If we are, as we like to think, G-d's emissaries, it should be assumed that everything we do reflects the Divine will. When we behave in ways that make Jews look bad, an onlooker has every right to assume that this too is the Divine will. What outsiders think of us becomes supremely important.
We even have a name for manifest bad behavior: "chillul Hashem": desecration of the Divine Name, the appearance that G-d endorses, among other sins, arrogance, disregard, and supremacy. It seems to me that those of us exhibiting these traits (particularly our leaders) should review the concept.
Consistency and values went out of the window a long time ago. Today it is only about personalities. Bibi was able to attempt to form a govt with Mansour Abbas but when Bennett actually did it later, he was declared a traitor. The same with the Oslo Accords and the Disengagement. Once upon a time, we essentially had a 2 party system in Israel and the parties stood for things and their members had to uphold those principles. Today, every party is just the manifestation of its leaders and disappears as fast as its leaders do. Remember Kadima, the largest party in the country? It barely lasted 3 elections. There are no more long term parties today with fixed values that outlast their leaders and Likud, the last of the old time parties, will eventually go that way as well.
The same is true with the Charedi Gedolim. If they change their values tomorrow, their followers will follow however much it contradicts what they previously taught, because you have to listen to them "even when they tell you that right is left and left is right." That is why there is hope that if the money stops flowing to them, they will tell their followers to change their lifestyle.
Dear Natan,
You blew it on your last paragraph or two. Those who are going to Yeshivat HaKotel for its program are some of the most level headed individuals in Chinukh today . You disagree with ONE of them and therefore the entire project you reject?? C’mon now, you have got to be bigger than that !!
I'm not rejecting the entire project. I'm rejecting the participation of one person.
Not since Sinai and כאיש אחד בלב אחד were the Jewish people able to experience one moment's peace of clarity and consistency.
There's a dissonance between our traditional Jewish role as a blessing to the entire world and a light to the nations, and our tendency not to care a fig about what the rest of the world thinks of us.
If we are, as we like to think, G-d's emissaries, it should be assumed that everything we do reflects the Divine will. When we behave in ways that make Jews look bad, an onlooker has every right to assume that this too is the Divine will. What outsiders think of us becomes supremely important.
We even have a name for manifest bad behavior: "chillul Hashem": desecration of the Divine Name, the appearance that G-d endorses, among other sins, arrogance, disregard, and supremacy. It seems to me that those of us exhibiting these traits (particularly our leaders) should review the concept.