How DO we judge success? thoughts on the 50th anniversary of מבצע תפילין

Received via e-mail:

"We did not hear that there were some people abstaining from eating treife food or refraining from desecrating Shabbos or that they were educating their children in religious schools, not under the heretics; I only heard that they put on tefillin." These are the words of the build up to סאטמאר רב'ס condemnation (tirade) against the big התעוררות for תפילין in Israel after the miraculous 6 Day War. See "על הגאולה ועל התמורה דף ק"א, ברוקלין תשס"ו". The argument on its own is very weak; After all, did he hear how many people became נוטרי הברית after his annual שובבי"ם campaigns? since when does a התעוררות get measured by its success? He was leading an anti אגודה campaign smearing all גדולי ישראל who did not see everything going on in the Holy Land as heresy..... it was a big machloka and caused lots of infighting between frum Jews, who were thus being עובר on many איסורי תורה. (not some sins sourced in non halacha) Did he ever decide to close shop on his anti Israeli election campaign, since it got nowhere? Every year more than half a million frum Jews participate in the Israeli election and it's only growing... why does only מבצע תפילין need a consequential success statistic? All the above aside, what will we do if we will help him in his quest to find Jews that did change because of tefillin ? I think we may have done just that. Or rather we discovered it, the actual work was done by others. This פסח the Mishpacha magazine ran a long article on a popular right wing conservative talk show host, who is leading an Orthodox lifestyle, eating kosher, Orthodox schools for his kids and Shomer Shabbos, all because of his one act of putting on tefillin. It was the holy soul "Schwartzie" ע"ה,  the Chabad shliach Shlomo Schwartz at UCLA.  In Michael Medved's words "Tefillin is the key metaphor for his Judaisim." That was what started him on his path to a life of full Torah & yiddsihkiet. This is not a 770 paid PR stunt. Will this story and thousands of other similar stories change a mind in that camp??? I do see that a harsh anti religious and anti Zionist Haaretz columnist who wrote an anti tefillin rant 9 years ago, did change his mind on tefillin, (See below)

 Maybe. Just Maybe our "frum" brothers will also get a הרהור תשובה.

לפני תשע שנים, כתב העיתונאי בני ציפר מאמר חריף נגד הנחת תפילין ברחובה של עיר

אלא שנראה כי מאז ציפר שינה את דעתו בעניין... הוא עצמו הגיע לא מכבר אל הכותל המערבי ונענה ברצון לפנייתו של אחד משלוחי חב"ד במקום שהציע לו להניח תפילין. התמונה שמפורסמת כאן, הינה באדיבות העיתון כפר חב"ד שמקדיש השבוע כתבה נרחבת לנושא מבצע 'הנחת תפילין' שאותו יזם והגה כ"ק האדמו"ר מליובאוויטש, לפני 50 שנים ערב מלחמת ששת הימים, ומאז ועד עתה הוא נחשב לאחת הפעילויות החשובות שמבוצעות ע"י חסידי חב"ד 

מאתר 'לדעת' פנו לבני ציפר בכדי לקבל תגובתו, ואפשר רק לברכו על המהלך וגם על תשובתו הקצרה והיא: כן, שיניתי את דעתי. אשריכם ישראל

Protesting about a problem doesn't - necessarily - mean you care (Guest Post)

Click here for an interview with Mr. Tzvi Aldroti.

Hirshel Tzig:

You don't know me, but people who know me say I have too much rage and I have to stop already, since we live in a great multicultural world and everything is peaceful and tranquil. I just haven't seen it yet, but that's how it is. Maybe it's my age, or where I grew up. Yet, before I realize what everybody else has already I have something interesting to point out. The Satmars are famous (or infamous) for their protests to fix Israel's ills (which was - in my humble opinion - just a ploy by the Satmar Rov to get the Pupa Ruv and Tzehelemer Ruv types on board of his political protests. He knew they were lovers of Israel.) Take Reb Yoelish's fight against the mixed swimming pool in Jerusalem, the mixed pool on Bedford Avenue corner Rodney in the YMCA - right in front of his nose - bothered him very little. Only the mixed pool 3,000 miles away outraged him obsessively, (they write in the new foreword of על הגאולה ועל התמורה he poshut got sick from it) at the same time you see the Lubavitcher Rebbe trying his best to change the whole Israeli PUBLIC SCHOOL system from learning co-ed. Speaking to anybody and everybody that could have any influence over there. Obviously the Rebbe got nowhere, as the the Leader of the 11211 community got nowhere either. But you detect a real non political pain from a erliche yid - if nothing else - and not trying to win points with anybody.....

POTD

Pic Shows the Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum (Hand to face) as he left the Queen Mary with His followers today after visiting Israel. September 01, 1965. (Photo by Barney Stein / (c) NYP Holdings, Inc. via Getty Images)

וואס? זיי שטייען אויך דארט? איך וויל נישט מיט זיי אינאיינעם! שוין אהיימקומען

דא רעדט הרב ר' שמואל פריעד, דער באוואוסטער טוען און סאטמארער תלמיד, וועגן א מעשה וואס ער אליין איז עס בייגעשטאנען. דאס יאר איז מסתמא נישט געווען תשכ"ב, עכ"פ איך דענק אז גאלדא איז נישט געווען פרעמיער אין תשכ"ב. דאס איז אלץ "ביסייד די פוינט." וויכטיג איז צו הערן וואס דער סאטמאר רב, "בעל ויואל משה", האט געזאגט, אפילו אז מ'האט זיך געדינגען מיט אים. א הארציקן יישר כח צו אונזער פריינד וועלכע האט אונז אריינגעשיקט דעם קליפ און דערביי מחיה מתים געוועזן דיעזען בלאג.

....ר' ישראל זופניק'ס יערליכע בוירטדעי פארדי

The narrative by the Hungarian chareidim is that celebrating a birthday is almost prohibited, since it's obviously "Chukas Hagoi." Then we have the chazal of Mutav Sheloi Nivreh. But the more you delve in to it, the more you realize the list of Gedolim that did participate or celebrate the Yom Holedes is quite long. From the great Hungarian Ish Mesorah the Ksav Sofer to the Lithuanian Chofetz Chaim, and then put the Ruzhiner/Viznitzer Rebbes into the mix. What you have is a list that spans the spectrum. Of all the gedolim I was shocked to see that the Satmar Ruv participated in an annual celebration from one of his philanthropists, Reb Yisroel Zupnick, and received a nice sum at the Melava Malka/party. $72,000, to be exact. We see here how the protagonist Jacobowitz liked these kind of fundraisers, since he didn't need to bring his own checkbook, Zupnick was taking care of the bill... It seems that the Baal Divrei Yoel didn't see the party and his participation as a contradiction to his old shtetel mentality, that which he worked tirelessly to refurbish on US soil...