{"id":75,"date":"2010-09-27T10:23:36","date_gmt":"2010-09-27T10:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/09\/the-religious-industrial-complex.html"},"modified":"2010-09-27T10:23:36","modified_gmt":"2010-09-27T10:23:36","slug":"the-religious-industrial-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/2010\/09\/the-religious-industrial-complex.htm","title":{"rendered":"The Religious-Industrial Complex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Come to Israel for Sukkot and there are many things you’ll see at night on Ben Yehudah Street, Jerusalem’s premiere recreational thoroughfare. You’ll experience outstanding caf\u00e9s and mouth-watering restaurants, families with strollers and tourists buying souvenirs. Wait till night and you’ll see American teenagers taking over the street, many of them drunk and wandering aimlessly. You’ll see friends guiding their inebriated colleagues home, navigating broken glass and discarded bottles. But one thing you will likely not see are their Yeshiva and program heads, responsible for their supervision. Yes, the kids are alone, away from Mom and Dad and away from nearly any kind of responsible supervision.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Welcome to the Israeli-American
\nreligious-industrial complex where a year abroad for many American youth means
\nenrolling in a program that costs their parents upwards of twenty thousand
\ndollars and is supposed to enhance their religious commitment, but in reality,
\nis just a year-long opportunity to drink and behave like hooligans.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Let me be fair. There are countless
\nAmerican Jewish youth who avail themselves of the opportunity to study the
\ngreat Jewish texts and immerse themselves in serious study and religious
\nreflection. They emerge immeasurably enriched by the experience and infinitely
\nmore attached to the Jewish state. But for the hundreds who gather nightly on
\nBen Yehudah the idea of spiritual uplift is about as distant as Jerusalem is
\nfrom Malibu.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

About four years ago I wrote a series of
\ncolumns in the Jerusalem Post that expressed how disturbed I was to witness the
\ndrunkenness and loutishness on Ben Yehudah. The columns were roundly criticized
\nby year-abroad Israeli Administrators and American High School teachers who
\npress their students to go study in Israel. I received hate mail from people
\ntelling me that I am dampening parents’ enthusiasm for sending their children
\nto study in the holy land. But low and behold, after a few months a slew of
\ncolumns by other writers began decrying the same torrid scene.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Every one of my children, upon coming of
\nage, studied in Israel and I currently have two daughters living there. But I
\nmade it clear to all of them. If they are not in serious programs of study and
\nreligious commitment, or if they abuse the privilege of being in the Holy Land
\nby acting in a non-holy manner, I would take the first plane to Israel and
\nbring them home.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I am currently in Israel working on a TV
\nseries for the Israeli market using Jewish wisdom to heal broken homes. I have
\nalready experienced some of the hesitation that non-religious Israelis have for
\nthe orthodox, essentially accusing us of being hypocrites, preaching one thing
\nand practicing another. The last thing we need is a bunch of spoiled American
\nkids with Yarmulkes getting hammered nightly on the streets of Jerusalem to
\nprove their point. Where are their Yeshiva heads to pull their students back to
\ntheir dormitories and enforce responsible curfews? Jewish ritual is designed to
\ninstill Jewish values and blowing thousands of dollars a year on booze and
\nthrowing up in public is neither Jewish nor virtuous.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But the religious-industrial complex is a
\nproblem that transcends wayward youth. In essence, American Yeshivas sometimes
\nbetray a greater love for donor dollars than Jewish values. While walking with
\na few of my children to the Priestly blessing at the Kotel last Sunday, a
\nfriend of mine, who is a donor to Aish Hatorah, invited me to witness the
\nmoving spectacle from Aish HaTorah’s rooftop, with panoramic views of the Old
\nCity. Aish had invited their wealthiest donors for a fancy breakfast to witness
\nthe blessing. I was aghast and humiliated when one of the organizers suddenly
\ncame over to me in public and told me I had to leave because, while my friend
\nhad procured an invitation for me, the same was not true of my children and
\nthey were not welcome. But my communal embarrassment and bruised ego aside,
\nhere is a Yeshiva whose stated purpose it is to bring non-religious Jews back
\nto their tradition. To do so they must understandably raise millions of
\ndollars. But must they sell their soul in the process?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My first thought was to promise the
\norganizer that if they allowed me to remain I would be a hedge fund manager in
\nmy next life. But then I remembered the sweet countenance of my Rebbe, the
\ngreat leader of Lubavitch, who stood on his feet for endless hours every Sunday
\ngiving dollars to rich and poor, successful and desperate, mentally whole and
\nmentally challenged, so that they would know that they were important and
\ncommit their lives to virtuous ends. I understood that my chosen profession as
\na Rabbi was not less than that of a businessman, however the organizers had
\nmade me feel. The Jewish community has at times erroneously elevated two
\nartificial elites. The first was the aristocracy of the learned. The second was
\nthe nobility of the wealthy. The Rebbe obliterated both by declaring that all
\nJews, even those who could not read Aleph Beis, were equal to the greatest
\nscholars, and that the most impoverished of Jews was as deserving of love as a
\nRothschild. Let us embrace his message lest we become corrupted by wealth.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Before my banishment one of the Aish
\nRabbis walked over to me at the reception and congratulated me on a recent
\ncolumn where I decried the extravagances of opulent Jewish weddings and Bar
\nMitzvahs as a betrayal of Jewish values. He told me he was of a mind to preach
\nthe same to his donors but was reluctant to criticize them for fear of
\nalienating them. But liberating people from material competition is a blessing
\nrather than an offense.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I love Israel and Judaism with every
\nfiber of my being and have devoted my life to their promotion and defense. But
\nboth are premised on the dream of a nation whose values of G-d, family,
\nspiritual living, and peoplehood are so precious that we are prepared to live
\nand die for them. And if we, the religious, don’t practice what we preach then,
\npray G-d, who will?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is
\nthe international best-selling author of 23 books and was the London Times
\nPreacher of the Year at the Millennium. As host of ‘Shalom in the Home’ on TLC
\nhe won the National Fatherhood Award and he was awarded the American Jewish
\nPress Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. Newsweek calls
\nhim ‘the most famous Rabbi in America.’ He has just published ‘Renewal: A Guide
\nto the Values-Filled Life.’ Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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