The “analysis” by the typical
yeshiva guy of today for any conflict whether it be global, national, local, community,
familial, or internecine is nearly always the same. It comes down to this: “He’s
a rasha!” He could be talking about the leader of another Orthodox Jewish
group, a Charedi even, a gaon, tzadick – “He’s a rasha.” That’s it.
That’s what we call playing God.
Who else has a view into the soul? Only God has that. Well, God and the typical
obnoxious yeshiva guy.
This even applies to talmidim, to
kids at cheder. If the kid is not perfectly obeying every command, if he
wiggles in his chair, and certainly if he asks a question the teacher can’t
answer: “He’s a rasha.”
They don’t always say it. They
don’t always use the word. But that’s essentially the attitude. You see this
with conflict between neighbors and in families. “He’s a rasha!”
This week I was in a car with a yeshiva
gadolah mashgiach, and here’s how he summed up the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. “Putin
is a narcissist who wants to go out with a bang.” That was his brilliant analysis.
He’s saying, “He’s a rasha.”
Now Putin may be a rasha, but
that does not necessarily explain his actions here. Let’s delve into this for a
moment. The American press is telling you that poor Ukraine is being assaulted
by the big-bad Putin for no reason other than his hatred of freedom or some
such nonsense. It’s like a kid’s comic book with the big mean bad guy. That’s
the American media’s depiction of events. And stupid obnoxious yeshiva guys buy
into this very quickly because their minds operate on a comic book level. So, what’s
really going on.
This Russo-Ukraine war started
with a US supported coup of the Ukraine in 2014, followed by America sending
billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine. The US even has bio-weapons labs in
the Ukraine. NATO has in recent years expanded a lot in Europe to create bases,
missiles, intelligence, and sales of arms. It is now an existentialist threat
for Putin and like him or not, you cannot blame him unless you let yourself
manipulated by the propaganda. Ukrainian militia has been bombing Russian speaking
people in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine for eight years and literally
burned people alive there. This started a war for independence in that region.
NATO was founded allegedly as a defensive instrument against the USSR but has
been used since for American hegemony. Just as with Iraq this war is largely
about oil and gas contracts. The American press tells its usual bogeyman fairy
tale sprinkled with talk about fighters for democracy when this whole thing is
about American greed. There were options on the table for a resolution,
including a promise not to bring the Ukraine into NATO, to give some measure of
independence to the Donbas region, to a cessation of American weapons flooding
into the country, but the State department rejected all of that. Since 1900,
America has been involved or orchestrated the toppling of 63 different regimes,
including 12 since 1990. Putin has every reason to worry about that. On top of
that is the takeover by American industry and banking of that of other countries,
not by out competing but through assassination, bribery, extortion, and
military actions. Putin is taking a stand. He was backed into a corner and
tried many means of avoiding military action. The deaths are America's fault
more than that of anybody else.
Here is some news 6 days before
Putin invaded.
18 February
2022
On Friday,
people living in the Donbass region began to displace themselves towards Russia
due to Ukraine’s bomb attacks on their territories.
“Russia is
prepared to host 1,5 million people. So far, 500 women and children have been
refuged,” stated Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk People's Republic
(DPR), which integrates the Donbas region with the Lugansk People's Republic
(LPR).
Besides
accommodation, refugees arriving in Russia's Rostov City will receive hot
meals, medical care, and US$130 to cover basic personal expenses. President
Vladimir Putin ordered Emergency Situations Minister Aleksandr Chupriyan to fly
urgently to Rostov City to organize the reception of refugees.
So far, Ukraine
has attacked 47 points along the conflict zone including a kindergarten in the
Stanytsia Luganska City, where two civilians were injured. The car of the head
of the RPD People’s Militia Denis Lugansk also exploded in Donetsk City, but
the officer was not injured.
LPR Head Ivan
Filiponenko condemned that the Ukrainian Army systematically opened fire on the
territory of his country to provoke the People’s Militia to respond to the fire
and create a pretext for the start of Ukrainian aggression in Donbass.
Moscow accuses
the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) of supplying arms to Ukraine and
stoking tensions about the Donbass region control in favor of their
geopolitical interests.
The mashgiach’s comment bothered
me not because I’m heavily invested in politics in the Ukraine, but because it’s
typical of the stupidity that I have encountered from yeshiva guys for 35
years. This is supposed to be one of the smarter people, and this guy actually
is a decent person, but in this case, he’s being so uneducated and simplistic
and judgmental and condescending. And he’s a Mashgiach! He’s supposed to know
people, supposed to be wise. But he’s a dope. And that’s how these guys are
about so many things, about religious choices, marital choices, life choices. They
are toxic.
I was with him because we made a
trip to a cemetery to say kaddish for someone. He asked me if any gadolim were
buried there. I didn’t know but I did spot some graves marked zt’l and Morienu.
He said, “I am looking for famous people.” He cares about fame, about being a
gadol, not that he might be standing next to the grave of a tzadick. Who cares
about that? I showed him a grave of a guy who died at age 21. To me, that’s a
big musar lesson, that one should be grateful for making it past 21. He wasn’t
interested.
These people are depressing. They
are toxic. Even the better among them.