I have spent much time and effort trying to understand the phenomenon of people going off the derech [OTD]. It is a tragedy when someone loses true life in this world and more significantly, eternal life in the next world. Ha-levi that we could save some souls.
About a year ago, there was a lot of talk about an entire Belzer family, father, mother and 8 children who dropped everything. [Note: 99.9 of all Belzer chasidim are born that way, marry that way and remain that way until death. It is the 00.1 percent who get the publicity]. The father was close to the Belzer Rebbe Shlita and high up in the ranks [although from what I gather more an askan and less a talmid chochom]. I saw an interview with the parents. "What caused you to go off?" The secular TV personality asked the now secular ex-chasida.
I couldn't wait to hear what it was....
"It all started when one of my children came home and told me a story from school that the Baal Shem Tov went on a horse and traveled in a few minutes what was normally a three day trip" [or something like that E.E.]. "I said, do you believe that?? It doesn't make sense".
Then they decided that krias yam suf doesn't make sense and ultimately that nothing makes sense and so they threw it all away, took their kids out of their frum schools, cut off their peyos etc. etc.
First of all, nobody is supposed to believe in Torah based on the veracity of a chasidic legend. Everybody knows that stories are made up and embellished.
Second, how does she know it didn't happen? Why can't something supernatural happen? Even an atheist would admit that if there is a G-d, he could change nature. It is not a question of logic.
Third, think of what they are left with. Now they are presented with the question of how we got here. The secular answer is that at first there was nothing. Then suddenly there was something. Does that make sense??
Then that something blew up. BANGGGG!!! Now there are lots of single cell bacteria walking around.
OK, but how did I get here?
Well this bacteria developed into a rocks.
Ahhaaaaaa. All by itself? Of course. Smart bacteria.
Then the rocks developed into monkeys.
Ahhhhhhhh:-).
Then the monkeys turned into my great grandparents R' Moshe and Rochel Klein.
Ahhhaaaaa.
So the great mind of Albert Einstein was just the evolving of a rock into a monkey into Albert?
When the mayor of New York City, Jimmy Walker [his brother Johnny did well in the alcohol business:-)], met Rav Baruch Ber Leibowitz in the early 1900's he exclaimed that after meeting this man, he knows that we have not descended from apes for he radiates the Divine.
Frankly, it is millions of times more likely that the Baal Shem Tov's horse had קפיצת הדרך than that unlikely story of nothing turning into something [already completely unbelievable] and then into the complex organisms that human beings are and the miraculous symmetry of nature and countless other wonders of creation.
"At one time living cells were considered no more complex than empty ping pong balls. As biochemists have learned more about the complexity of life, it has become increasingly apparent that thousands of specific and complex chemicals are required for any form of life to survive.
Evolutionist Harold Morowitz [a yid!!] estimated the probability for chance formation of even the simplest form of living organism at 1/10340,000,000. By comparison only 1020 grains of sand could fit within a cubic mile and 10 billion times more (1030) would fit inside the entire earth. So, the probability of forming a simple cell by chance processes is infinitely less likely than having a blind person select one specifically marked grain of sand out of an entire earth filled with sand.
There is nowhere near enough time nor matter in the entire universe for even the simplest cell to have formed by chance combinations. Even if all the correct chemicals somehow came together in the correct place, you still wouldn't have life. This is exactly the situation every time a living organism dies. Immediately after death, all the right chemicals exist, in the right proportions, and in the right place -- yet the creature is still dead!
Five billion years is nowhere near long enough for evolution to have taken place. In reality, all of eternity would not provide enough time for random processes to form the enormous complexity of life." [From "A Closer Look At The Evidence"]
Yet, that is what they believe. Once someone denies G-d, it is not that they believe in nothing - they believe in everything.
What are their children left with? No meaning and purpose in life. They also lost hundreds of cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles etc. etc. [it is a huge family. I have a friend who is related and he alone has 14 married children and has a new grandchild or great grandchild almost weekly it seems].
My claim is that the decision to leave the fold is never purely intellectual. Much has been written about the fact that almost all [if not all] decisions we make in life are not predicated on pure logic but on emotion and other factors [see Malcolm Gladwell's books and others]. The same applies to religious choices.
There has yet to be found ONE proof against the existence of G-d or Torah Mi-sinai. Not one. Many of the greatest minds in world history believed it. Read about Rav Chaim Heller [1880-1960]. He was about the greatest genius of the 20th century [besides the Rogochover], was an expert in Semitic languages and many other areas of knowledge. He believed. Rav Soloveitchik had a Phd in Philosophy and was a super genius. He believed. If it really "doesn't make sense", why did these people follow the Torah with such precision and devotion.
This couple were clearly not towering intellectuals by any stretch of the imagination. [If their path downward was triggered by a chasidic legend she didn't believe that proves it]. There were many factors that we [and maybe they themselves] were not aware of, that influenced their decision. The tragedy is that 8 innocent neshamos are being raised as goyim. For that we mourn. [And for the less innocent parents].
[A lesson to be learned: Only tell true stories. I almost always try to verify sources and accuracy in the stories that I tell. Mori Vi-rabbi Shlita tells thousands of beautiful stories but always with a reliable source.]
Rav Kook writes [did the family study Rav Kook before chucking it? He is the Master of Emunah from the last 100 years. EXTREMELY DOUBTFUL]:
מה שהמחשבה האלהית היא קבועה בצורה מיוחדת וידועה אצל בני אדם, מפני ההרגל והדמיון הילדותי, מביא המעצור היותר גדול ברוח האדם בבאו לכלל דעת. זהו ניצוץ מהפגם של עשיית פסל ותמונה, שהרבה הרבה מאד אנו צריכים להזהר בה. וביותר חובת הזהירות מתגדלת, בתקופת הדעת היותר בהירה. הכפירה, כל תעודתה במציאות היא רק להסיר את הצורות המיוחדות מהמחשבה המהותית של כל החיים ושרש כל המחשבות כולן. ומי שמכיר את התוך שבכפירה מצד זה, מוצץ הוא את דבשה ומחזירה לשורש קדושתה
שמונה קבצים א' קע"ח ועיין אורת המבואר עמ' 114
So deep.
Idolatry is the perversion of Divine truth. Instead of bowing down to the invisible , unknowable G-d, he bows down to a statue that can neither hear nor see and is just empty clay.
Idolatry has a different, more subtle expression. Hashem is transformed in one's mind into a god of clay because He doesn't really exist as perceived. This is intellectual idolatry. The cause of this is remaining with one's childish, immature, primitive perceptions of Hashem and never advancing and becoming more sophisticated in one's approach.
The older and more sophisticated we become, the more we must take care that our perception of Divinity also develop into something more profound.
Kefira HAS A PURPOSE. It is supposed to help rid oneself of incorrect beliefs and perception. One must be a kofer! Even the Chofetz Chaim was a kofer. He denied FALSE ASSUMPTIONS about G-d. Once you remove all of the dross, then you get to the כביכול in a more pure way. It is true, that לית מחשבה תפיסא ביה כלל - We can never fully perceive G-d and לא יראני האדם וחי, we cannot see G-d and live but it is imperative that we undo any childish and incorrect understandings about the nature of Hashem כביכול.
When one does this he sweetens the kefirah and returns it to its holy source.
I hope I was clear and that my understanding of Maran's words were accurate.
Let us work on constantly strengthening our faith in this world filled with נסיונות in Emunah.
וה' יצלנו משגיאות ומתורתו יראני נפלאות ונזכה לאמונה שלימה ובהירה לטוב לנו כל הימים
באהבה
המצפה לשלומכם הטוב
אני:)
