How Do We Endure?

The story explained by Mystical Paths in Israel has been pretty scary. US armed forces following buses bringing kids to school, police with bats being rough with kids daring to play in the streets of Geula, more rockets in Sderot – and Bush offering a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital as reward for their terrorism. It sure seems like no one cares about the safety of Jews in their own land – but put Bush’s safety in jeopardy and the entire country shuts down (with of course no care again given to the Jews affected). How do we endure this suffering?

The same way that our ancestors did in Egypt – infallible belief that HASHEM CARES, we WILL be redeemed, and they will pay for every OUNCE of our suffering!

This redemption is supposed to mimic the redemption from Egypt. Here’s one big similarity:
In Egypt, we were supposed to spend a specific number of years in slavery. However, the Egyptians reveled in their power over us, and subjected us to much more severe suffering than had been ordained – and they were made to suffer, middah k’neged middah, for both enjoying giving us the suffering we were supposed to get, and making us suffer even more (and we were redeemed early).

Now, it is the same thing. We have paid twice the suffering allotted, and the goyim have indeed – and continue to – revel in the continued suffering they inflict on Jews. It feels never ending, and so, so unfair. The double standard is so blatant, and yet no matter how much we protest, write letters to the White House, our representatives, and the media, it just doesn’t change. It’s because they don’t want to listen. They don’t want to hear the truth. They continuously choose to harden their hearts against us.

Just remember that they don’t run the show – Hashem does. No matter how much they fight against His people, no matter what they try to do to erase us and everything we stand for off the map, whether they do so using Katyushas or “peace” treaties and politics – they will not succeed. They will become just like the Egyptians, who were wiped off the map and weren’t heard from again for hundreds of years, and in truth, never really recovered even half of what they had been previously. “Hashem ish milchamah” – Hashem is a Man of war. It is not the IDF that fights our battles, nor the Israeli government that it is our spokesman, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu Himself.

“There is an Ear that hears, and an Eye that sees, and everything is written in the Book, and the signature of each man is transcribed therein.” When the Day of Judgment comes, the goyim that were against us will fight the verdict, but lo and behold, it will be their own signature. They will get their due and we will rejoice – not for sweet revenge, but in celebration of Justice and the fulfillment of His word. Amen!

Link to Mystical Paths Post: http://mysticalpaths.blogspot.com/2008/01/well-this-explains-lot-or-not.html

Reality Check: Comparisons between Iraq and Israel

I would like to comment on the amazing "coincidence" that is happening in the Middle East, specifically designed by G-d to make us wake up:

1. In Israel, there is a Green Line separating Israel from the Palestinian Arabs, designed to safeguard Jews

a. In Iraq, there is a Green Line separating the Americans from the Arabs, designed to safeguard Americans.

2. Israel is faced with recurrent suicide bombers who try to kill civilians any which way – in markets, on the roads, buses, etc.

a. America is faced with recurrent suicide bombers who try to kill soldiers any which way – in markets, on the roads, car bombs, etc.

3. Due to the insurgence of terror, Israel must operate checkpoints to be able to monitor people and items coming in and out of the border. These are contested and many people complain about them, saying that they are an affront to the rights of the Arabs.

a. Due to the insurgence of terror, America must operate checkpoints to be able to monitor people and items coming in and out of Iraq/the border/different safe zones. Where are the human rights people now?

4. Granted the severe situation, Israel finds itself in a quandary, faced with a seemingly endless situation with opponents who don't fight fair and won't talk – or talks, and lies. Many people say that Israel should leave (cease to exist/give up more Israeli land).

a. Granted the severe situation America finds itself in a quandary, faced with a seemingly endless situation with opponents who don't fight fair and won't talk – or talks, and lies. Many people say that America should leave.

I am sure that there are many more similarities that I can't think of right now. Do we learn? Does America/the Western World stop limiting and fighting Israel's right to defend itself, even as they are forced to take the exact same measures to protect themselves? Even more so – America is trying to protect soldiersand Israel is trying to protect civilians who shouldn't be in the war in the first place. Should the civilians not have at least as many, if not more, safeguards than soldiers?

We are living in a time of great illusion, where truth is twisted and everything is backwards. And still, no one wants to look, they just want to say "Get outa my face." America – and many Israelis for that matter - just want the situation to "go away" and are not listening to the Arab who is cursing them with death in the meantime.

The situation isn't going away, because both parties have to want it. In reality, one party has told us numerous times what it wants – a world without Jews, and a world without Americans/Christianity/the West either, and they are happy to kill us and themselves to get it. We have to be willing and able to fight to the death to meet the challenge, and we're too stuffed with materialism and excess to want to do anything besides retreat to our nice little beachside second home in La-La Land.

Be Wary

Sat-Sun-Mon before Annapolis (Thanksgiving weekend): Strong earthquakes in Japan, Indonesia and India
Thurs before Annapolis: 2 medium earthquakes in Jerusalem (actually I only saw one reported - possible one and aftershock), 7.4 (REALLY BIG) earthquake in the Caribbean Islands just off Martinique (most popular island?) and Fort-of-France and another medium earthquake in Chile.

The world is not on solid footing. I would be interested to see stats of probability of earthquakes in all those places at once, granted that they're on different plates. Interesting though that America and Europe were not hit with natural disasters.

Even more: June 15 a press release was given stating that the Old City of Jerusalem and the Al-Aksa Mosque in particular are in danger of severe collapse if there is a strong earthquake in Jerusalem, which the city is supposedly overdue for. This is especially because these areas are built on rubble as opposed to rock.

The prophets say that before Moshiach comes, there will be a great earthquake in Israel, and "every wall shall fall, and the mountains shall be laid bare." Nice way to get rid of that disgusting dome, Hashem, that rests on stolen land. Very clever.

Real Faith

Sorry for the long lull in posts, I got married... :-)

Speaking of which, it taught me an important lesson about faith.

YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT WILL WORK OUT IN THE END.

The problem is, in the middle, it doesn’t always look hunky dory. The evil is still out there, it’s still floating around, it’s still running amuck, and it’s still affecting me. People die, G-d forbid. Little kids get sick. Families are torn apart. This world isn’t tearing at the seams – it’s bleeding at the seams.

And everything is supposed to be alright? I'm supposed to walk around like the world is a garden and everything’s beautiful? We’re supposed to skip off into the sunset saying “G-d will take care of me, no worries” as the road crumbles underneath us? That’s not faith, that’s folly! That’s the blindness G-d has been trying to remove, trying to get us to see the evil that’s there and grapple with it instead of just ignoring it and saying – it’s good, it’s good. It’s NOT good and we have to deal with that. G-d is probably tired of saving us from ourselves saying “it’ll be alright, G-d will save me.”

But how do you hold the two things together, and how do you know what to DO?

So fine, G-d is good, and all He does is good, and…we still have needs that aren’t met. We need jobs, we need money to pay rent, we need food, we need safety. We still only have so much energy and so much time. G-d is good up in His heavens, and He knows our hearts, and He loves us, and…we still need what we need!

That’s where faith comes in to tie the two things together. Yes, we need whatever we need, and right now, it’s actually good and it will be good once we get to the end of the story. Faith is what gets you through to the end of the story, when we see that all of the evil we thought was actually, inexplicably and yet understandably, good.

Knowing that, then we get to work to fight the evil we do see and try to fill the needs we do have, because believing it will eventually be good doesn’t mean we don’t have to do our part to try and make it good NOW.

Preparation is Everything

The Sfas Emes remarks on his commentary on the Chumash that “the preparation for a mitzvah can take ‘l’olam’ – forever.” I think the Sfas Emes is saying that while the performance of a mitzvah is “1,2, 3, gamarnu (done)!” one can spend their entire life working on having the right kavannah (intention) and preparing the mitzvah so it is done more and more perfectly.

Moreover, it is imperative to understand that the kavannah is everything. Although in most cases it is better to do a mitzvah without kavannah (in the hope you will eventually have the kavannah) than to not do the mitzvah at all, there is one exception: when the kavannah you have is negative. That is, if you do the mitzvah grudgingly, if you are not happy and excited to do the mitzvah, it is not counted as a mitzvah.

Let me give an example. Suppose a wife gets sick in the middle of the night, and after some hours of trying to go back to sleep, realizes that she must have a certain medication in order to go back to sleep.

Scenario #1: her husband, although tired and groggy, dutifully gets up, runs to the local drug store, and comes home with his prized possession. He portions out the medicine for her with a glass of water, and they go back to sleep together.

Scenario #2: her husband loudly complains about how tired and groggy he is. He gets up, runs to the local drug store, and comes home with the medication. He hands her the bottle, practically throws a glass of water at her, and goes to sleep. She takes the medicine and falls asleep sometime later.

The husband got her the medication in the middle of the night in both scenarios. The difference was his kavannah, what he was thinking as he performed the mitzvah. But, you say, there were other differences too! The whole WAY he got her the medicine was different! Exactly. It is exceedingly difficult to perform a mitzvah perfectly without the correct intention, because you simply won't be engrossed in the mitzvah enough to understand the details of what need to be done. Therefore, the more perfect the kavannah, the more perfect the mitzvah itself will be.

Let’s take this further. Imagine the difference in the wife’s reaction to each scenario. In Scenario #1, she is probably able to fall asleep not only because of the medication, but also because of the wonderful manner in which her husband acted. The mitzvah brought her and her husband closer. In Scenario #2, she is probably angry. “After everything I do for him,” she thinks, “he can't do a thing for me when I need it! I would have gone myself if I knew he was going to act this way.” Her frustration probably makes it harder to fall asleep and prolongs her pain, as she lies looking at her “insensitive” husband sleeping peacefully once more.

Does the mitzvah have the same reward in each case? Certainly not. While his wife has the medicine in Scenario #2, she is not happy about it, it does not increase the affection she has for her husband, and it actually distances them further.

The same is true when we do mitzvot. Mitzvot are meant to perfect us and bring us closer to Hashem. When we do them b’simchah, with joy, this is certainly achieved, and Hashem rewards us accordingly. However, when we do mitzvoth in the manner of the husband in Scenario #2, not only do we not get the reward for the mitzvah, Hashem is angry with us, just like the wife is angry at her husband, even though he did get up and get the medicine.

This also explains the verse in the Torah: “these curses shall come upon you because you did not serve the Lord your G-d with joy.” When mitzvot are not done with joy and gladness, with a happy heart that is glad to be able to make Hashem “happy” (Scenario #1), then not only are we not blessed, we are cursed!

Therefore, as the Sfas Emes remarks, we must strive l’olam, forever, to constantly perfect our kavannah and do mitzvot with increasing joy. And in turn, the more we perfect the kavannah, the more perfect the mitzvah itself will be done as well.

Baseball Rules; Rabbi Rules

This year’s World Series, and indeed a number of White Sox games that led them to the World Series, beautifully illustrates a very difficult Jewish concept. In fact, this concept is something I continue to struggle with in my understanding of Yiddishkeit.

There is this interesting concept that “Torah lo bashamayim hi” – the Torah is no longer in Heaven. As illustrated in a fascinating Gemara where Rabbi Eliezer “proves” through miracles and even a Bat Kol, a “voice from Heaven,” that his ruling is correct, the ruling goes in favor of the majority. Why? The Torah is not in Heaven anymore.

But if Rabbi Eliezer was correct, if his ruling was the ruling accepted in Heaven, as proven by the Bat Kol saying that this is so, then how could we actually poskin (rule) in a different way? Why does it matter that the majority didn’t agree, even when the majority is wrong?

Come back to baseball. There were a number of calls made by umpires that were proven through the hi-tech zoom cameras of the TV station to be incorrect. The correct call, the Truth (if you will) was (although perhaps not easily) clearly shown through the video. However, the incorrect call of the umpires stood.

But how could that be, if the video showed that the umpire was wrong? Why didn’t the call get changed to reflect the reality, the Truth?

The answer is that baseball rules give the umpires the sole discretion to decide the proper call(s) for each play. Although we certainly hope that they get each call right, and usually they do, the game isn’t based as much on Truth as much as each umpire’s truth: what they saw. In effect, the CAMERA wasn’t given the ability to decide; the UMPIRE was given the ability to decide, even if that seems to contradict the camera.

Similarly, when Hashem gave the Torah to the Jews, He put the creation of law into the Jews’ hands, and out of His own. Of course, Hashem also gave Moshe directions on how law was to be made, and one of those directions is: the law shall follow the majority. Just like the umpires “lay down the law” in baseball, whether that seems to match reality or not, so too the Rabbis “lay down the law” following the directions given to them by G-d. Just like one could say that the umpires are shlichim (messengers) of the game to enforce the law the game gives them, so too G-d installed the Rabbis as shlichim of law for the Jews, and they are given full discretion to rule according to the laws and rules G-d gave them.

Losing the Ikkar for the Toful: Forget the Hat!

Recently, two friends of mine recounted to me the following stories:
The first is directly from a friend of mine for whom it was his father’s yahrzeit. He lead Maariv (Evening Prayers) & Shachris (Morning Prayers) without issues, and then went to a minyan that often needs help getting 10 men for Minchah (Afternoon Prayers). He told the Gabbai of the shul that it was his father’s yahrzeit and that he would like to lead davening. The Gabbai asked him: “How is your Hebrew?” He replied that it was “OK” – certainly good enough to lead davening but no professional either. After some consultation with other members he was told that he could not lead davening. The Rabbi of the shul later explained that the minyan was particular about proper pronunciation and did not feel comfortable with just anyone leading the minyan.
The second comes directly from another friend, who was telling me a story about his father. It seems his father also desired to lead davening for his father’s yahrzeit, but he was in another area of town and unable to daven at his usual shul. He went to a shul near where he was - and was flatly told that he could not lead because was not wearing a black hat – only a standard black yarmulke. He asked if he could borrow someone else’s hat and lead – and again was refused.
These two stories strike a similar chord of discontent in me. Firstly, each of these men had a very specific chiyuv (obligation) to lead davening, usurped only by someone in shivah or shloshim (the first week or 30 days after the death of an immediate family member). As one friend put it, “Does my father’s neshamah matter less than theirs?” Both times, a primary mitzvah was ignored for a preference of some sort.
Where are our priorities? First of all, although under normal circumstances it is better to have someone lead services who can speak Hebrew perfectly, it is not a requirement. The only requirement is that the person leading services pronounce the Hebrew well enough to be understandable and that the Hebrew be basically correct. To my understanding, in the case of my first friend, the shul’s desire to be exacting on a mitzvah actually led to a blatant disregard for halachah! Forget my friend’s feelings as well.
In many ways, though, the second story bothers me more. I’ll never forget, I was speaking with a Rabbi about someone I knew in the beginning stages of learning about Judaism from being outside the fold. I asked him if I should tell this person to wear a kippah. The Rabbi responded “What, that? Certainly not. Don’t bug him about a Rabbinical chumrah. He has much more important things to focus on right now.”
Now, granted that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed because of sinas chinam – baseless hatred – I am going to make the assumption that sinas chinam in every form is the most despicable in Hashem’s eyes. Many times I have learned that Hashem will forgive just about any transgression against Him if only we will get along with each other. What the shul did to my friend’s father in the second story is flat out sinas chinam. He had is head covered, there’s no halachah stating such and such black hat is the only proper way to cover one’s head.
Now follow my logic. 1) Hashem hates discord among Jews 2) He will more easily forgive aveiras against Him than sinas chinam 3) A man wearing a head covering is not even directly from the Torah, but Rabbinic (Rabbinic law should still be followed, but it is not held to the same level as Torah law) 4) Jews are constantly fighting about proper headcovering, and stereotyping Jews based upon it – to the extreme of someone not being able to fulfill a mitzvah because he was fulfilling the mitzvah differently than others (and still fulfilling the mitzvah, mind you!) – I would argue that Hashem would rather us burn all of our kippas and stop hating someone because he wears a different type of hat/kippah/whatever than you, than wear the kippah and fight! Keep the orange ones for the time being, it’s a great statement, but I think you get the picture. I’m not saying kippas don’t matter, I'm saying if the kippah (trying to do a mitzvah) leads you to an aveira (sinas chinam) – forget the stupid kippah! “A mitzvah that comes through an aveira is not a mitzvah.”
Practically, I don’t suggest everyone burn their headcoverings immediately. I do think we need to re-think our priorities and what all of our chumras are leading to given the philosophical understanding I just explained. If the chumras lead to good, then fantastic – and if they don’t, maybe we need to reconsider our priorities, maybe something needs to change. The change might only be the way we approach the mitzvah – wearing whatever headcovering we choose and respecting others choices as well, for instance. But try to remember what’s essential and what’s not – and choose accordingly.

The New Chacham

Gedolei HaTorah are that only in the strictest sense right now, in my mind. People are so focused on Gemara to the exclusion of everything else, the situation with Gush and everything else gets ignored. A friend of mine asked a friend learning in Israel about the situation. The person responded "Forget about it. Bittul Torah." You cant expect people to focus solely on Torah & ignore the world and then expect them to do something to change the world, even when their abdication of everything non-Gemara means other Jews are getting hurt and the entire country is at stake. Torah has become defined as Gemara (for men) and Chumash (for women). You're right - if they were Gedolei HaTorah in the broad meaning - meaning Torah as the blueprint of the Universe, representing justice & truth - they would be doing more. They are Gedolei HaGemara. Doing something besides sitting and collecting money would be "Bittul Torah."

Someone who learns Torah at the expense of everything is is not a TalmId Chacham in my mind - but a TalmUdChacham. Give them credit, they know a lot. But they're students of Talmud, not Torah. Of course there are people who are both. There are lots of frum people involved serious issues and matters besides Gemara. But anyone who focuses on learning to the exclusion of everything else is not on the path of Torah – because learning Torah is the greatest mitzvah because it leads to every other mitzvah. If and when it doesn’t lead to other mitzvot, something is wrong in my mind. It may be information, it may be of Torah content, but don’t call it Torah.

Fences

Just a brain-meld on “fences” – the Rabbis building guidelines around issurim from the Torah to make sure they are not transgressed…

On the one hand, the need for fences is obvious. With no boundaries, it’s exceedingly easy to make all sorts of mistakes. Anyone building a bridge knows there must be guardrails. Well, if life is “gesher tzar meod” – a very narrow bridge – it makes perfect sense to erect guardrails and create a cushion between the bridge and the abyss. The argument that “it was an honest mistake” is certainly understandable, but in many situations the counter-argument that “you should have had the foresight to take precautions” also holds. So I don’t have a problem with fences per say.

The question now becomes more sticky. How high should the fences go, and how wide should the cushion be? Safety is an issue, but so is feasibility and maneuverability. Granted that in this schema the borders of the bridge are defined and cannot be widened – the daled amos (four feet) of halachah – the more cushion, the less room to actually walk. Using the metaphor of the bridge as four feet across – if the cushion is 6 inches on the outside, you have 3 feet left in which to move. If the cushion is 1.5 feet, you get only 1 foot to walk in.

It seems to me, that in the Rabbi’s minds, safety was the only consideration to be made. Every generation has extended the cushion, so that today there is only a tiny amount of room left to walk in, and leeway in halachah and lifestyle is extremely limited. The extent to which the cushion can be extended is practically limitless provided there’s still one person who is willing to accept it all and call it Torah (e.g. a Rabbinical opinion that in order to be absolutely sure one is fulfilling the mitzvah of eating matzah on Pesach, one should eat an entire pound!). And the Torah, which should be freeing and light in our arms, has become a burden, literally a yolk tied around our necks.

This results in the majority of the people who don’t fit the one mold left find themselves alienated by their own heritage. Those who don’t buck the entire system choose some other model that leaves them more room to be themselves. However, these systems also choose to ignore or change many halachos outright. Hence, in the name of safety to never transgress anything in the Torah, to never veer outside of the daled amos accidentally, the vast majority of Jews choose to refute the entire system and ignore daled amos altogether. If you’d like to argue that many Jews never learn about halachah growing up (I know, I grew up Reform) I’d like to point to their grandparents – and to the throngs of Jews leaving Orthodoxy in their teens and early adulthood as well.


What about current Modern Orthodoxy? My current issue is that a significant chunk of people who consider themselves to be Modern also don’t seem to be within daled amos on a number of issues. Maybe I’ve just never heard these opinions – I am planning to delve into them more in the coming months - but it seems in an effort to expand the framework of halachah, people have gone too far here as well. Moreover, in the effort to embrace secular thinking, the purpose has been forgotten – to use the secular to expound on Torah, to bring the elements of truth from the big wide world into our understanding of Torah. What I have experienced is a certain amount of the secular taking precedence over Torah, not being integrated. For example, I have found many more “modern” Shabbos table conversations centered around TV shows and stocks than around Torah or even something secular but meaningful to life, which to me still fulfills the purpose of a reflective, restful Shabbos. This doesn’t cut it for me either.

I think the main answer is that there should be no one answer. There needs, instead, to be a framework, a much-widened framework, that does not compromise halachah to secular ideas, but does compromise halachah to the fact that people should be living joyful, healthy lives that give them room to channel their G-d given gifts, not be told they have no place in Judaism. I don’t believe in a system that desires I give up the essential self G-d gave me in the name of the safety to never transgress anything, but I can't stand TV shows as a stand-in for Torah on Shabbos either. There must be some way to give people more room to live without losing the essence of halachah and Torah.

So I'm exasperated and looking for answers. But these are my thoughts. Feel free to comment.

What's the Derech?

I've heard a lot about “the derech” or “the path” of Torah since I started becoming religious five years ago. Recently I came to a startling realization – this “derech” of Torah, which usually stands to mean keeping “Torah & mitzvot” (quotations because exactly what that means is also a discussion). “Torah & mitzvot” usually means the religious Orthodox lifestyle, with its three pillars – Shabbat, Kashrut, and Taharas Mishpachah (the laws of family purity). Things like praying on a regular basis, tzniut (modest dress and behavior) and learning Torah on a regular basis, and everything else, can get thrown in here as well.

There’s just one teensy tinsy problem. These things are all external. You could keep all these things and it doesn’t say one thing about you – you could be “on the derech” and yet be G-d forbid an abuser, a molester, or any other number of things. Is someone who commits adultery on the path of Torah because he wears a black hat and doesn’t drive on Shabbat? And yet I see this type of thinking everywhere. Something is desperately wrong! The community that should be a model of G-dliness and holiness in the world is a place I am running from because it so backwards & corrupt. And I am dangerous because I hold myself to a moral calling and refuse to forgive injustice because Rabbis are considered to be above the law since “we have to trust in our leaders and give them the benefit of the doubt.” Where did it all go wrong, and if this isn’t Torah, how do I know what is?

Then I remembered a story in the Talmud about Rabbi Hillel. A man came to Hillel and asked – teach me the Torah on one foot. Hillel answered: that which is hateful to you do not do to your brother, the rest is commentary – now go and learn. THIS is my basis for Torah. Anything and anyone that does not answer to this statement, and its counterpart positive statement of “love your brother as yourself” IS NOT TORAH. I will not associate with a self-aggrandizing community that poses itself as the end-all-and-be-all of Judaism and does not follow this most basic precept.

Please note that Hillel did not cite anything external and none of the pillars I described earlier. I still believe these things are important, in my mind they are commandments by G-d and to be treated as such. But they must answer to fundamentals. People who live by outward commandments and not by the former statement are, in my mind, not on the path of Torah. I don’t care what title they have and how much Gemara they’ve learned or how tzniut they dress. My question to them is: I see that you LEARN Torah. But do you LIVE Torah? And not just the OUTSIDE of Torah, but the INSIDE as well?

I don’t know how this will all end up, but I certainly know that I will not be in any way involved in or associate with a community that is staging the greatest Chillul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s name, of Torah, of everything holy) that my Polyanna mind can conceive of. And this is not just one group of people in one area – they are using popular Orthodox ideas as their backing, and using those ideas successfully. This shows me very clearly that the issue is not one group of people, but an entire system of thought that has at its root true concepts, but mixed in are elements of falsehood that allow for and create the situation I am now facing.

It is also tremendously ironic to me that many people, perhaps even you, are wondering whether or not I’ll end up “off the derech” in the traditional sense of the word. The funny thing is I think I've been off it, and I'm once more searching for it. This is not a rebellion against G-d and Torah, but a search for it. And my credo comes from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged – "Accept the fact that...your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible...that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error...any knowledge man acquires is through his own will & effort, and that is his distinction in the universe...learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality-make every allowance for errors of knowledge, do not forgive any breach of morality." Thanks, Ayn, for reminding me that no credo, no religion, nothing can ever own my mind or tell me to submit to the “daas Torah” of others because my mind is too little and too subjective to comprehend it. Of course I’ll still be the inquisitive person, asking questions and seeking advice, that I've always been. But I own my mind, I make my own decisions, and I will not allow anyone’s reality to impose upon my own, I will not bend what I know to be true to others who tell me it’s not.

P.S. This may sound even more amazing than the last few paragraphs. I plan on moving, I am not sure where to yet, because I have discovered that there are people, a significant number of them, who are out to convince me that what I witnessed and experienced with my own eyes, ears, and body is a lie. That I heard every word wrong, that I misunderstood every aspect of entire conversations. That the previous attempts to alter my understanding of reality did not happen that way either. And that if I have the audacity to continue to speak the truth, with mounds of evidence behind me, to those who need to know reality in order to be protected from it – that my reputation will be destroyed because I cannot be allowed to continue to spread – you got it – a warped version of reality. And of course that’s not a threat or an ultimatum designed to shut me up, it wasn’t meant to be taken that way, it’s just that we have to protect ourselves you see, it really isn’t wrong, it just feels that way… Somehow these guys missed that the more you bang against my sense of right & justice, the more energy I’ll have to do absolutely everything in my power to stop it. No, I won't cower because I'm dealing with cowards who have to use force & fear & lies in order to rule, since they own nothing else. The kicker – this is the result of an “investigation” into my claims. Oh yes, people are actually buying that I was stalked, harassed, and inquired about because they wanted to “protect me.” Now if that’s not brainwashing, I don’t know what is. And of course destroying my reputation will have to include defamation, I have done nothing wrong except to do what I felt was right when no one else would…I think speaking out & taking action against injustice when others keep silent is a tremendous part of being Jewish…And you say these people are on the derech, while I am going off it…

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."
- Francisco d'Anconia, Atlas Shrugge