WOW uknow, i used to hate camping with my family, but after learning the deeper meaning of why we camp = “Sukkot”… uknow it was really spending quality time together, and very restful although some places were dirty, and i learned how to cook some food., it was very restful in peace with natural, vacation away from modern stresses.
CAPTCHA: work” asheral

Is it a Jewish value to steal your neighbors’ land and make them live in a virtual prison?

Notwithstanding your experience at the Yeshiva you had to mention the Yeshiva’s name? Couldn’t the same point be made without Loshon Hara. It sounds like your ego was humiliated. Maybe you should go to Aish to be further inspired.

this is loshon hora about aish hatorah, pure and simple. you may feel noble, but it’s an aveirah, “rabbi,” sorry. it’s also a very one-sided account of what happened – i heard about this before i read the article. the reason you needed a wristband to get in is because it was a prepaid affair. they dont let you sneak your family into the zoo on someone else’s ticket, either. we call that “stealing.” this is about as far from accurate as malibu is from jerusalem. though it does kind of remind of kamtza-bar kamtza, doesn’t it?

From what I understand about the event, there was good reason to ask you to leave and the request was made quietly, not publicly. What you have written here is pure and simple loshon hara. As with all loshon hara, you probably feel somewhat better for having done it, but you have damaged Aish HaTorah — an organization that has brought many thousands of neshamas back to Torah — and everyone who reads this drivel, but you have damaged your own neshama and your reputation even more. Tomorrow is Hoshana Raba. Do teshuva.

It’s a tova that Aish still lets anyone on its balconies, because so many people – unfortunately mostly (very) frum-looking ones — abuse the vantage point and yell and throw things at Reform groups down at the Kotel plaza, as well as other un-Jewish-like activities, leaving Aish to clean up the PR damage on behalf of Torah Judaism.
Sorry, Reb Shmuely, you may write very well — but you can’t stroll up to a ticketed event on one of the busiest days of the year with kids in tow and expect to get a seat. And the above post is correct: you could have made your point without naming the yeshiva. This is not one of your finest moments.

Your column is totally inaccurate. Shmuelly, you should be ashamed of yourself for describing what occurred this way. I was there, saw what happened and why. You owe Aish an apology for misrepresenting the events this way.

well at least the title of the column is accurate, shmuelly boteach unleashed indeed…

Shmuley,
You should be ashamed of yourself. This was a private event and you crashed it, what in the world did you expect? I wanted to throw up when I read this pathetic muckraking article. If your “Rebbe” as you call him were alive he would have certainly told you not to publish this slanderous article. It just goes to show that when you say someone is your Rebbe in todays day and age it really doesn’t necessarily mean anything at all. You obviously didn’t even learn the alef beis of Judaism from HIM (if you ever learned it all)
Chazal say that the nachash was punished to eat dirt, a food that gives no pleasure, for all time just as the aveirah of lashon horah for which he was guilty gives no hana’ah at all. How appropriate it will be to see you lick the dirt you have presently decided wantonly to sell the public for all of eternity.
Also since you have defamed a “world wide organization” I don’t think it is technically possible to do tshuvah, since there is no way to secure the mechilah of all of its constituants. It turns out that your calculation to save a little money on paying the price of the ticket has cost you your admission to the world to come (not a very wise calculation)

Dear Rabbi.
This article is blatant Lashon Hara, and you owe an apology and you are obligated to take down this article, since as long as it remains available for reading, you are constantly being over the Isur.
Also, I used to live in the Old City and learn at Midrash Sephardi. First of all, I always found Aish HaTorah to be an open and inviting place for anyone to come in to learn about torah and Judiasm. However, when people would come to the Old City for Birkat Kohanim , many people would try to sneak onto the Aish HaTorah yeshiva balcony for their own personal enjoyment, with complete disregard for the rules. If a person or an organization has a policy designed to maintain order and provide the proper experience for those who are participating in an ongoing basis, and someone knowingly goes against it, that is asur.
Even if you were hurt by the experience you should take a lesson from Hashem and learn what it means to be Nosei Avon, and Erech Apayim (See Tomer Devorah for how to build these Midot in yourself).
You should take a lesson from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the champion of Ahavat Yisrael, specifically his lessons on the dalet minim and achdut and issue an apology.

Once again, ” Americas rabbi” speaks lashon hora and misrepresents Orthodox Judaism. I really think you should just stop- stop your blogs, writings and everything else that’s causing you to get wealthier at the expense of emes. You are an embarrassment to frumkeit. Also , if the Rebbe is dead, who is currently your rabbi and teacher? I suspect that you have none and thus feel that you have free reign as if your opinion is always correct and since you advertise yourself as “Americas rabbi,” you are the acknowledged voice of frum Jewry. How sad.
Stop for the love of the Jewish people. Please.

This is from a man who teaches couples how to find peace in the home!
Even if everything you say is true (and I happen to know it isn’t) do you think writing this will bring more peace in the world?
Is this what you advise couples, if they want to find peace to embarrass each other on the world-wide-web!
Peace is no different between couples or organizations. Any student of the Torah will tell you, the first step to giving rebuke is to speak to them privately.
This article is an embarrassment to the Lubavitch movement.

As a seminary student studying in Israel, I always found Aish to be an open place here people could come to learn about Torah, and have positive and meaningful experiences. In particular, Aish offers many programs and resources, free of charge, to anyone who walks through their doors – and even often goes out to find people who want these things.
If Aish needs to hold private functions in order to raise the funds for these wonderful resources, that seems perfectly rational and understandable. What does not seem rational is that an intelligent, frum person would expect that he can bring people into a closed event without purchasing tickets.
Besides the inaccuracies of this article, it is obviously lashon hara to speak about a Jewish organization and its members this way.
It is even more appalling to group this incident with a tirade about the general yeshiva/seminary world. You are referring to a community of people who have been raised Orthodox from birth, while Aish is an organization designed specifically to cater to Jews from non-orthodox backgrounds – the two have nothing to do with one another! So now you have grouped together 2 different communities, spoken lashon hara about each, and then made it look like this reveals a wider pattern in the Torah world – so your lashon hara is exponential at this point.
Rabbi, the Jewish people are about truth – I encourage you to do a cheshbon hanefesh on this one.

Dear Mr Boteach,
I am surprised you want to publicly announce your ganeiva (theft)
So that is two counts of loshan hara – against Aish and against yourself.
Do yourself a favor and take down this article – for your sake.
Jonathan Bash
Old City Resident

You have issues!!!

Rabbi-
I have always had a lot of respect for you- I have read and ejoyed many your books (to the annoyed glances of my fellow flyers as I tend to buy them at airport bookstores and laugh loudly while reading them on the flights)
It is due to my respect for you and your work that I am really disappointed to witness what appears to be loshon hara in your blog. Calling out a yeshiva by name? One which seems to me to be very much in line with your mission in this world?
I cannot be sure what happened at that event, but I would bet there are some details that you may be unaware of; and EVEN if there weren’t- isn’t the definition of LH saying something negative that is true? Isn’t looking for a way to judge someone favorably one of the basic tenants of Shalom?
You are a very influential person. Why would you want to influence your readers to have negative views of a yeshiva that does so much good?
As someone who has tremendous Ha Korat Ha Tov to both the Lubavitch movement and Aish Ha Torah , I am really saddened to read this.
As a “fan” of yours- I am disappointed.
The good news is that we all learn from our mistakes and there is no better lesson then seeing someone humbly admit to theirs. As a respected teacher of Shalom Bayit, I am sure you know the value of acknowledging one’s mistakes. Maybe you will write an apology and send Aish some chocolates and flowers!
Looking forward to resolution,
A Seattle Jewess

In agreement with the above comments, I have heard you several times in the past. One instance stands out. It is in line with your comments in your blog. When my good friend, a prominent Chabad Rav in our community, and I met you at a local event, we presented ourselves as close friends who work together, which we are. You responded that if an Aish rabbi and a Chabad rabbi work together, one of us have compromised our principles. We both walked away. If you want to succeed in self-promotion, you’d be well advised to keep your prejudices to yourself. You don’t enlighten others and you do darken yourself.

I am shocked that someone who claims to promote ethical values would write an article such as this. It saddens me that Rabbi Boteach is seen in the wider world as representative of the Torah world. On the contrary, Rabbi Boteach represents ego – it’s all about him, his personal views, and the elevation of him above all others. Perhaps Rabbi Boteach should work on humility in the next life rather than coming back as a hedge fund manager. As someone who is part of the “Aish family,” we have felt the impact of the difficult financial times over the last several years and have had to make sacrifices in a variety of different areas. Aish has not “sold its soul” during its existence; on the contrary, Aish has done everything in its powers to help its employees and students meet the costs of everyday living, while continuing with its goal of Tikkun HaOlam. The event written about was a way to help Aish meet these needs. While many of us would have loved to have joined the simcha and watched the blessings, we realized that there is a time and place for everything and our personal interests should be put aside in order for such an event to take place. Unfortunately, Rabbi Boteach felt that his personal needs are above such things. He felt that it is appropriate to lie, steal and then rationalize his actions by publicly spreading malicious lies. Words cannot describe these despicable actions of a petty human being who sadly probably does not want to even try to understand the consequences of his actions. Rabbi Boteach has seemingly spent years selling his soul, so to speak: for money, publicity, the promotion of Michael Jackson (who made anti-Semitic statements), and above all, the promotion of himself. Thank goodness many of these readers are wise enough to realize how absurd this article is. I only hope that Rabbi Boteach himself is wise enough to realize this and will perhaps ask for mechila in the near future.

Rabbi, shame on you. This is how you start a New Year by teaching your children how to steal, then complaining that you were caught and then publicly berating those from who you stole. What values do you follow? What values to you teach?

This article is not worthy of being commented on in its own right. However in as much as “Shmuley” has somehow managed to gain popularity and some Jewish people mistakenly think he is capable of conveying thoughts and ideas that should be collectively accepted and aspoused it is now necessary to protest outwardly.
This Aish event was a private fundraising event with proper ushering and security checks in place at all entrances. The only way to gain entrance was through prepurchasing a ticket. Through blatent and open dishonesty Shmuley, along with the help of a friend inside who had an “official hand band”, proceeded to “trick” his way in to this event along with his children. He was very discreetly and politely asked to leave (before he turned it into a scene).
He then chose to publicly defame the good name of Aish only as a fleeting attempt to salvage his now crushed ego. This is not kamtza and bar kamtza (as Shmuley so pathetically tries to compare it). Bar kamtza was invited (though perhaps mistakenly) to the affair. Shmuley was just a gate crasher who wanted to get a taste of what it is like to mingle with the high society he so desparately needs to be a part of in order to have meaning in his life.
What more needs to be said? Is this “America’s Rabbi”? I certainly hope not because if it is then America’s Jews will wake up one day only to find that they have been lead blindly into eternal darkness by the person they trusted to take them to light.
Beyond that the mere notion that somehow the Lubavetcher Rebbe would have shared Shmuley’s perspective about these “current events” he is describing is insane. Without getting in to any contraversy about Chabad at all, the one thing all agree on is that the Lubavetcher Rebbe would not have wanted this open public defaming of a world wide Jewish organization that only exists to serve Hashem and help Klal Israel and nothing else. Shmuley claims to be a “student” of the Rebbe and then publicly goes against what his Rebbe would have taught him.
It is of course necessary to mention that had this been the first “offense” on Shmuley’s record perhaps one could have chosen to look more favorably at this article and its agenda. However given the fact that this is now an ever more common and consistent “method” that Shmuley uses to convey his ideas it must be looked at in context. Perhaps the very “title” of this webpage “shmuley unleashed” says more than anything else. The imagery of “unleashed” portrays him as some kind of viscious animal???
When all is said and done Aish will certainly be harmed by this article but it will not be the first or last time that has happened. The more pertanent question is how many more people will be damaged by drinking the “polluted waters” of Shmuley Boteach?

It is beyond belief that you have readers who are willing to pass such rude judgement in a pubic forum. When the time comes they are in need of mercy, may Almighty G-d be merciful.
So often we stand by and ignore where there is error, and it continues till it becomes habit and is accepted as acceptable behaviour. Whistle blowing is never a plesant business, but should be taken as unplesant medicine; and then we continue…
Bless you Rabbi Shmuley.

Well, in all fairness to the parents, they are not looking to turn their kids into The New Gaon of Vilna, but to make it more likely that they will breed race-pure and not marry and mongrelize with Christians like Reform do back in America.
To the extent their daughters take a shine to some strapping young buck in an IDF uniform the trip has been a success.
Maintaining race purity and not assimilating are the primary goals, and on those grounds the trips are a success.
The research conducted indicate that girls and boys who go to Israel for a year are much less likely to miscegenate with Christians when they return to America.

Reb Shmuley – your continued silence in light of many calls for an apology/explanation tells your readers (and former readers) one of two things. Either you don’t care about what we think, which is very much not like one who considers himself “the” Rabbi of America (my understanding is that rabbis are supposed to pay attention to their constituency), OR that you have read the comments and do not think an apology is necessary. Regardless, if you want to continue to consider yourself America’s Rabbi, you should at least explain your silence.
Unless of course your silence is in line with the Talmudic concept of “shtikah ki’hoda”, or in English: silence is agreement.
So which is it?

I too, found your comments about Aish Hatorah very disturbing. My experiences with the Yeshiva have always been positive and your criticism of Aish had little to do with the rest of your article and came off as describing your own personal insult.

Please let me know when you are going to apologize to Aish Hatorah – your comments were highly innapropriate

R. Boteach, it is difficult to know from your recounting of the AIsh Hatorah fund-raising event which was the reason you could find peace with them… it could be as you say their desire to protect their donors from you, or could it also be your frustration at losing the opportunity to hobnob with people who could advance your career? Motivations are always sticky to determine. Peace is easy to discern. May you be well in all that you do.

Take it easy on the AISH story. First off- your facts are very wrong and tons of people who were there described the story very differently. While AISH does have to court the rich to support themselves, there could not be a more open place than AISH. When I was a student, everytime the doors to the study hall would open, we never who would walk in- and be allowed to stay. I learned and ate lunch with people you would never want to even sit next to on a bus. There is no place that is a better lesson in loving another Jew. Second, what does this really add to your column- what growth and insight does it give your readers?

Rabbi Boteach,
I highly doubt that the Lubavitcher Rebbe z’l would have condoned such a divisive article.
We don’t know who was to blame for this unfortunate circumstance.
However, you may want to reacquaint yourself with the sefer Shmiras HaLashon.
After an article of pointing fingers, blaming and name calling, you go on to say, “And if we, the religious, don’t practice what we preach then, pray G-d, who will?”
Maybe you should have asked yourself that question before posting an article which is clearly a chillul Hashem.
This should be the lesson for all those involved.

It’s upsetting to me that you would look to put Aish HaTorah in a bad light after all they have done for the Jewish People around the world. I question your intentions in only wanting to get a view from their roof… are you sure its not you who is selling his soul???

R. Boteach:
I was provided with a very different version of the facts. But whatever occurred, in the event of a dispute between Jews, particularly involving the Torah-observant community, I hope that you discussed the matter privately with Aish Ha Torah first, before going public. Moreover, I would like to think that you went to great lengths to resolve the matter before publishing the item in a periodical from Jerusalem, the Holy City in the Holy Land.
Holding oneself out to be a Torah-observant person, organization or Rav, means at least a committment to higher standards. The higher standards are not easy, and frankly, much of the time can be very difficult, at least to me they are. I’m sure being a Rav is no picnic, however rewarding it may be.
Pointing out imperfection is easy; making Peace is one of the great challenges in this world. What happened here?
My hunch, which is virtually speculation, based on the perspectives provided by R. Boteach and Aish Ha Torah, is that a misunderstanding occurred. Misunderstandings between brothers and sisters, particularly Torah-observant ones, should be dealt with privately, and only made public once huge attempts were made to work things out.
Whatever happened, it seems clear that the matter was not handled well. That is disappointing to me, and more imporantantly, a desecration of God’s name and reputation. Shame on us; let’s all do better next time! C’mon people!!

Shmuley, what is the policy of the Jewish Values Network for people wanting to attend their fundraising events?