Struggles of a Tsadik in Our Times and Comments from Rav Dovid Eidensohn

Notice from Rav Dovid Eidensohn: When this was first published I received a call from a prominent Posek who pointed out that this troubled tsaddik that I quote had a lot of trouble with Torah Jews, and this can leave a negative impression on a lot of people that we have no proper Torah leadership. On the other hand, my blog torahhalacha.blogspot.com is filled with my bitter complaints against senior rabbis who make invalid Gittin and mamzerim. It is also filled with complaints that besides me and my brother Daniel we have a dearth of people who complain about senior rabbis who encourage women to remarry without a kosher GET. There is now a woman who remarried with the encouragement of senior rabbis with no GET at all, and almost nobody is telling her today to beware of mamzerim for children except me.

In fact, when this senior rabbi was finally attacked by major poskim for lying about the facts of the case and encouraging the woman to remarry with no GET and absolutely no logical Torah reason, a Beth Din of very senior rabbis was announced to deal with the problem, but guess what! weeks later nothing was done! I called up one of the major poskim on that Beth Din and asked him what the Beth Din decided. Should the woman remain with her new husband with no GET or not? The important posek then answered me, “This is not  your business. The Beth Din was made for the benefit of Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky. Ask him if  you want to know what the Beth Din ruled.” Then I realized that the very senior rabbis on this Beth Din were working for the very man who encouraged a woman with lies to remarry without a GET.

 The two names of people that I single out in the blog are Rabbi Dovid Feinstein, the Rosh Yeshiva of Tiferes Yerushalim, the son of Reb Moshe Feinstein, who created the entire fake Beth Din to invent protection for a first rate liar and mamzer maker, Shmuel Kaminetsky. And Hillel David, who told me it was none of my business, is somebody that I say to him, “It is my business. And if  you made a Beth Din with David Feinstein to support a mamzer maker, then you are a mamzer maker, and deserve to be denied the right to sit on any kosher Beth Din.”

Moshe Heinemann is a major mamzer maker, who advertises in the Internet that everyone should support Ora, the organization that forces husbands to give a GET and thus makes mamzerim. Rabbi Hershel Schechter, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva University and the head of the OU Kashruth division and a major posek, has called for forcing husbands to give a GET and even to get violent with them. He is a mamzer maker. And then, there is Shmuel Kaminetsky, considered by Agudas Yisroel to be a Gadol who is a liar, a  mamzer maker, and when somebody asked him if he would continue to support the woman who is remarried without a GET, he replied, “It is an argument of the rabbis.”

Thus, I consider it my job to tell it like it is, and if people think that the above people are great tsaddikim, and the Agudah honors them as major speakers, etc, along with other organizations, let the world know, I am different, and I will continue to be different. I spent much time talking to Reb Aharon Kotler, and he once hinted to me that I understand his derech in gemora. I spent much time talking to Reb Moshe Feinstein, and he gave an haskomo on my halacha sefer: “Rabbi Eidensohn is known to me for many years as one who delves deeply into complex halachas.” Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner Rov of Bnei Braq wrote in his haskomo, “Words of truth are recognized” and “words are written Lishmo.” I have many more haskomose from the greatest Torah teachers of the past generation. I also have a very strong semicha from Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev zt”l, which includes his personal name to use for my Beth Din in Gittin. Now my chaverusa was furious with me that I asked the Rov for that, but when you are in my line and want to talk to the Gedolei HaDor, the only way is pure chutzpah, and I played it to the hilt.

 We now turn to the troubled tsaddik and his remarks. I believe he has suffered and is surely not the only one. Let us hear what he had to say, which is only his personal suffering and not the suffering of all Jews.

I am presently over 40 years of age, and see it as a chessed from Above that I continue to look and remain "young at heart" amidst all the trials and tribulations that I've undergone - first with the "erlich" society, and then with my seven and a half years of marriage with my ex-wife.

My parents [they should be well] are coming from the same time and place that you're from; only, they are both baalei teshuva from after their marriage in the 60's day and age. When I was 7 years old our TV broke, and they didn't bother fixing it. (My father was then listening to Rav Miller's tapes, and he hated TV.) A year later we moved from White Oak (Silver Spring area) to Baltimore, and I began 3rd grade in T.A. My parents had always encouraged us to increase in our yiddishkeit; only, socially we never really "clicked" with the community at large.

Seven years later made aliyah, and moved to Bnei Brak. if we didn't socially "fit in" with Baltimore, well... just try to figure what the "Bnei Brak move" was to us teenage kids!

I myself was 15 years old at the time we made aliyah, and I was left to my own devices to "break in" with my surroundings. My parents only saw positive in the "erlich" surroundings, and any dissention on our part was seen as a sign of "rebellious Americanism". [Little did I know then - it was totally inconceivable by any stretch of the imagination - that the main "beis din" there would some time later smear an individual hounded by his rebellious wife to give a GET (the infamous "Chaimsohn" case) - posting a "teshuva" from Rabbi Akiva Eiger well out of context; creating a GET MEUSEH, and allowing a married woman to the shuk!]

I myself went to learn in yeshiva here in Yerushalayim, finally finding myself "at home" with a more American crowd - but not for long. In the year 5749 the "olam" erupted in mahlokes over the "gimel vs. eitz" controversy, and I found myself in disfavor with those around me. I simply couldn't comprehend what was happening right before my eyes: Grown men, kollel yungerleit with beards and payos, distinguished rabbanim and roshei yeshivos had joined in the fray with extreme zeal - slamming and smearing all those who challenged them and their "daas torah"... They were clearly aware of the chillul hashem going on around them with 7 year old kids gleefully cursing out known Rabbanim who happened to side with their opponents. They claimed they were following Rav Shach... If they only cared a shred what Rav Shach REALLY wanted vis-a-vis the"Yated" model that they dressed him up to be. I did see it though, as a "siyata from Shamayim" the fact that we moved from Bnei Brak to Yerushalayim on Isru Chag (Tishrei) that year - the day that Bnei Brak erupted.

But the one thing that bothered me tremendously at the time was that at my yeshiva the one concept they attempted to "burn into us" bochrim was what they called "hisbatlus"; namely - we had to "nullify" ourselves before "daas torah" (strictly by THEIR definition). I simply could NEVER be led to believe that the typical "shtoddy" American bochur, clean-shaven with a Borsalino hat doubling his facial features, who smoked and talked politics in seder- that HE had a clear ticket to Olam Haba, merely because he "nullified" himself to his Rosh Yeshiva; while I simply could not. (To me this smacks of Christianity.)

Other than this I did feel, at the time, that I could yet "go with the flow", and that we all still had the same fundamentals in mind - serving Hashem, and growing in Torah.

When I got married I was close to 23 years of age - still living in this "bubble" thinking that we all had the same goals and ideals in mind. It took me several years of shaking up and rude awakenings to get me out of this thinking process. I was already aware then of the paradox of "top bochurim" selling themselves out to the wealthy in terms of shidduchim, and I myself would have none of it at all. I had begun taking to the teachings of the GRA some time before, and I recognized that for me there was no other way. At the time I naively assumed that this was basically the accepted approach in the yeshiva "velt" as well; I simply could not be led to believe that the modern day "daas torah" was off on a far different track altogether...

To talk about my marriage, which lasted 71/2 years, is a story in itself... At this point I'd rather not talk too much about it, but it started going REALLY sour after my wife began splurging money, and I told her that I wasn't going to bother her too much about this; rather I would simply leave kollel to go out and work. This really unnerved her, and she began smearing me hours on end behind my back. It was particularly an insult to one of the local rabbanim, whom she was closely connected with prior to our marriage, and had previously convinced her to get married with me in the first place. Even still, he wasn't chiefly the one who ruined our marriage - it was someone else (who signed his name "Rabbi ...", despite his haughty and greedy policies which had ruined other marriages as well). He's been dead for several years now; even still, I'll never forgive him - just to hear his name repulses me. But time itself reveals all that people try passionately to hide... my ex-wife who wanted so badly for me to remain in kollel - she eventually connected with a lawyer who had a similar story to mine, and subsequently proceeded to deplete his monetary resources.

My turbulent nature with present "modern chareidi" society (a paradox in terms like "warm ice") causes me to minimize any talk which is liable to create conflict, and misrepresentation. I definitely consider it obligatory to expose the treachery of modern day RA - banim who create "new faces" to our Torah which negate it entirely. The higher they are - the harder they must and will fall! I am afraid; however, to open up a can of worms which will be gleefully misused and distorted by nay-sayers and baalei machlokes, (who "are what they eat") to only further disgrace the Torah, and thereby do the opposite of what my intention is. Therefore, I jotted down in a single line the peirush of the GRA in Megillas Esther. There - he explains at some length how during the Ikvesa DeMeshicha the level of chutzpah will be so overwhelming - that even the gedolei hador will defect to the interests of the younger ones.

I hope that I've cleared up here any misunderstanding, and I fervently wish that you continue to make the TRUE voice of Torah resound in our midst - over the rattle and ramble of all the phony "daas torah" pervading the media today - which is actually "daas taavah/toaivah".

Thank you for listening!

Hatzlachah! May Hashem be with you always,