Reform Judaism and feminism achieved a union of perfect moral bankruptcy

Since Rav Hirsch opposed reform Judaism, feminism, and Zionism, I post the following. (Note, when I say that he opposed feminism, let us note that his writings inspired Sarah Schneirer to start the Beis Yaakov movement and she used them - with rabbinical help - as  her guide.)


On this day in 2019, Reform Judaism and feminism achieved a union of perfect moral bankruptcy. And Zionism and consumerism came along for the ride. The Israeli web news site, The Times of Israel published an article that sang the praises of one Dr. Sara Imershein of Falls Church, Virginia. Dr. Imershein is a physician who has made it her life's work to perform abortions.  She is very proud of herself. She says

"abortion empowers women to have the families women want" 

Yes, you heard that right. Not to save the life of the mother but to go shopping. Buy this dress, throw that one in the garbage. Cut the other one up to make it shorter. It's all about making the woman so, so happy. Empowerment of women is the idol of the day. Empower them in every way possible. As abortions are also performed on female babies, this empowerment only applies to females over a certain age. The others are served up as child sacrifices on the idol of feminism.

Here is another gem from her, “I always said as a physician, when I grow up and retire, I’m going to do abortions because it was a way to use my techniques to alleviate suffering.” 

She rips babies to pieces to alleviate suffering. 

These could be the most twisted, narcissistic, and selfish comments that I have ever heard a human being utter. She is intelligent enough to get through medical school and as stupid as only a person with higher intelligence can be. Simpler minds cannot invent such demonic logic and present it as idealistic. 

Imershein, a Jewish woman, bases her rationalizations on a misreading of the Talmud. She says, “Somewhere along the line, I learned the Talmud and Genesis back up the Jewish philosophy, that it is not when someone is conceived, but it’s a matter of when someone becomes human, and that’s clearly defined by the Talmud when the head is born, or the greater part, the nefesh becomes ensouled.”

Meanwhile, the great Talmudist HaGaon HaRav Moshe Feinstein zt'l, posek hador, ruled that abortion except to save the life of the mother is murder and absolutely prohibited even to prevent birth of a baby with birth defects. (Iggros Moshe- Choshen Mishpat- 2:69) Furthermore, he ruled that even amniocentesis is forbidden if it is performed only to evaluate for birth defects for which the parents might request an abortion. This view in normative among poskim, ie experts in the Talmud. 

Calling herself "religious" and "a woman of faith," Imershein studied - if you can call it that - with equally ignorant and lost people in the Reform Jewish movement.

Question: What drives a mind to such foolishness? Answer: Chutzpah. 

The Talmud says (Beitzah 25b) the Jews are "the most brazen of nations."

How can this be? Doesn't the Gemara say in Yevamos 79a that David HaMelech prohibited the Nesinim from marrying into the Jewish people because they failed to display the three signs characteristic of the Jewish people:  mercy, bashfulness (bushah), and kindliness?

The Maharal (Nesiv ha'Bushah 1) explains that the attribute of kindliness comes from Avraham, mercy from Yaakov, and bashfulness from Yitzchok who specialized in the attribute of yirah (fear and awe) from which bashfulness comes.

However, there are two types of Bushah. One type comes from a lack of motivation and assertiveness. This type results in the person who is easily discouraged from taking initiative.

The other type stems from a recognition that a person is greater than you. This type results in submission to that person. 

The brazenness of the Jewish people corresponds to the first type of Bushah. The Jewish people have a great degree of initiative and assertiveness.

The Jewish people (meaning the truly religious ones) excel in the second type of bushah. They recognize the greatness of Hashem (G-d) and their own insignificance before Hashem. And so they submit to him. Dovid rejected the Nisinim because they lacked this bushah.  (Source: Insights into the Daily Daf, Kollel Iyun Hadaf of Yerushalayim)

In other words, chutzpah needs to be challenged properly. It cannot operate unbridled, unyoked. It needs to be paired with humility before Hashem and His Torah as taught by His great scholars. This crazy woman is the poster child of this Gemara. She possesses none of the proper bushah and is busting with the kind that needs to be kept in check by the proper kind. Her natural idealism, compassion, intelligence, and boldness have all been twisted into any ugly mess.

Go ahead and read the entire article and ruin your day as I have just ruined mine. This is all the logical conclusion of the haskalah, that is the so-called "enlightenment" and the departure from Torah life. As upset as I am by the thought of this woman shredding babies to pieces, I am upset by how of a Jewish woman can reach such a level of perversity. The haskalah, the reform movement, feminism, and Zionism are all just a rebellion against the Almighty, the Creator of life and justice. Every year, the rebels get more selfish and more twisted. In this crazy woman, it goes further than I ever though it could go. But the Times of Israel writes about her like she is some kind of heroic saint, so she is not an isolated nutcase. She is representative of an entire swath of the Jewish people today. Their heads are drunk with a potion of wild self-indulgence catalyzed with a sprinkling of misplaced idealism. Up is down, down is up, left is right, right is left, and wrong is right.

We mourn for the babies and we mourn for the souls of the lost and wicked people who kill them. 

The grin of an idiot who is well on her way to gehennom

Shavuous Challah

Ashkenaz custom, a challah with the design of a ladder in it. For Shavuous.

Except for Acher

You likely have heard of Acher, the tanna who went off the derech and the Gemara that tells the story of how he heard a bas kol that said, "Return all my children, except Acher." His real name was  Elisha ben Avuya but he came to be called Acher, "meaning something" else or "outside".

So I heard a clever thought from the Shela that Acher should have invoked the rule of guests who must obey all orders of the baal habayis except for an order to leave the house. He should have said, "Hashem you cannot kick me out of your house."

And I was thinking how the word acher makes the Gemara relevant to all of us. We cannot do teshuvah if we are mentally outside the fold or even worse outside by way of halacha. I know people who are no longer frum who want to return but try to do it with a weak sentiment all the while staying outside. You can't really do teshuvah, meaningful teshuvah, if your only connection to Judaism is guilt or fear of punishment. It's like giving answers to a torturer. You'll tell them anything. But your heart isn't it. Your mind certainly isn't in it.

No, you have to find a place within Judaism and repent from there. That can take work. That can take thought and research.

I don't know if it matters which place, which path, but it has to be a real one, even if one you concoct. You have to be at home, feel at home, ie have a home to want to return to it. Perhaps, for some Torah Im Derech Eretz is the way, a way of being within Judaism, no longer an acher.

So Hashem, the baal habayis, cannot kick us out of His house. However, the house has to be a home for us so we are not acher. TIDE is the way for many.