Putting things into perspective - a short story for my father's birthday

On the anniversary of the birthday of my beloved father on 27th of Shevat, הריני כפרת משכבו, I present the following story:

In 1990, I flew to New York with other yeshiva students. My father, not yet observant at the time, brought me to the airport, but was wearing a yarmulkah (skull cap) as he escorted me and my friends to the gate at LAX (in those days, you didn't need a ticket do this).

At the gate, the students broke out in a song and dance, as customary for Chabad Chassidim traveling to the Rebbe. Other passengers and spectators gathered and smiled, watching the exuberance of the young rabbinical students who looked like they came out of the old shtetl. The spectators (many of whom smiling and some even clapping along) were mostly African Americans; except for two - my father, and a guy with sideburns (and whose tzitzis were tucked in and whose yarmuklah was obscured by a odd-looking baseball cap).

While we danced, I noticed my dad standing next to this guy, telling him something, and then moving to the other side of our circle (we were dancing in the center of the terminal, where all gates connect). After our dance concluded, I walked over to my father and asked him about this.

"It was the weirdest thing," he said. "While you boys were dancing and everyone was standing around watching, this man, obviously a Jew, was shaking his head and said to me - 'What a chilul Hashem!'"

My father was not familiar with that expression, and asked the man for a translation.

The man explained: "A chilul Hashem. A desecration of G-d's name. When Jews advertise their Jewishness and carry on like this, they are causing a chilul Hashem."

And my dad concluded the story:

"So I looked at the boys dancing; I looked at the people watching; and I looked back at this fellow. 'YOU are a chilul Hashem,' I told him, and promptly walked away."

My dad didn't want to stand next to a self-hating Jew (as he called it). If there was one thing my father couldn't tolerate, it was Jews who were ashamed of their Jewishness.

In any case, with this story my father taught me a valuable lesson:

Sometimes people use the expression "chilul Hashem" incorrectly. This man was using the phrase incorrectly, and my father had to set him straight.

May we all be set straight, and understand that complying with covid policy to avoid a "chilul Hashem" - is the real chilul Hashem.

"DO NOT MUTILATE YOURSELVES" - Devarim 14:1.

It is forbidden to mutilate oneself (to "gash" oneself out of grief over a death or as an idolatrous practice - Hilchos Avodas Zara chapter 12 halacha 13. To mutilate for non death-related grief is also forbidden. See halacha 16).

This commandment also includes a prohibition against having two rabbinical courts in a single community, since this can cause great discord. Because of the similarity in the Hebrew roots, the prohibition against gashing oneself can be interpreted to mean: "Do not separate into various different groupings" (ibid halacha 14).

I have always struggled with this odd and intriguing parallel.

Why would the Torah put these two concepts - "gashing" and "grouping" - into one and the same word?

But alas - for those who live in Crown Heights, NY, the connection is evident, and tragically so:

In this community, there used to be one rabbinical court. However, due to communal dissent over the past two decades, two courts emerged. The original one is run by Rabbi Osdaba, who is the last living member of the original court upon whom the Rebbe bequeathed the glorious appellation - "mightiest of the mighty ones," referring to the members' rabbinical prowess and reliability. The other court is run by another rabbi, half the age of the elder (The latter was created to destroy and replace the former. Tragically, its mission was accomplished, to a great extent).

Here is a recent example of their disagreement:

The elder rabbi recently expressed that it is completely forbidden to coerce anyone to take the covid shot. Alternatively, the younger rabbi told school administrators to comply with past governmental decrees of forcing children to take a repertoire of vaccines (including shots for STDs that don't really affect Chassidic youngsters), and with which the covid vaccine will soon be included. Real soon (yikes!). And more recently, this younger rabbi instructs our yeshivas to abide by all abusive governmental regulations, like forcing 5-year-olds to wear masks while they study Torah, soon to force yeshiva instructors to take the dangerous injection that will leave a certain percentage of them infertile, and shortly thereafter to force all children of all elementary grades to take this injection too.

Due to the duality of CH's community rabbinic guidance (which lead to the absence thereof), the yeshiva administrators have the prerogative to listen to whichever rabbi they choose, and will most likely do so based on financial expediency.

Now we can understand the prophetic message related in the abovementioned verse. It is because we do not have a beis din (that must be composed of a minimum of three members) that our children are about to be forced to take this deadly shot. It is because we have stood by and watched the "grouping" of two courts, that we are now being forced to violate the prohibition of "gashing", to mutilate our children, G-d forbid!  

SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Crown Heights - make your voice heard! Demand a single beis din of a minimum of three rabbonim. If this cannot happen in the imminent future, then demand that the younger rab. (the "jab" rab.) step down. As long as he is in a position of communal influence, our children are in danger of either being forced to take the covid jab (as well as each and every 6 month booster) or to be barred from yeshiva, in the coming weeks or months. This younger rabbi has done it once before (in 2019 when he supported the yeshiva's ousting of thousands of Jewish children from yeshivas), and he'll do it again. And if we can't force him to step down, then we need to create a neighborhood watch to oversee the yeshiva administrations, that they dare not comply with the looming covid jab mandate for school children, contaminating our children's pure chinuch with formidable physical danger and unprecedented spiritual impurity.