The Limits Of Tolerance

Imagine the scene:

A teenage boy is listening to his really loud music at 12:30am. His father comes into his room and says "Moshe, can you please lower the music. Your mother and I are trying to sleep."

The boy looks with contempt at his father and says "My name is Mark and I am not turning the volume down. I like it the way it is."

The father takes things into his own hands and lowers the volume himself. Next thing he knows he finds himself face down on the floor with his son on top of him breathing down heavily on his neck and the boy says "If you EVER touch my stuff again, I will hospitalize you". [There are such kids around רח"ל]

Would we expect the father to tolerate such behavior? Of course not. Why not? Tolerance is such a prime value in the mind of the Westerner! The answer is that there are limits to the boundaries of tolerance. Not EVERYTHING can be tolerated.

Even the tolerant, open minded people understand this. That may be why so many of them are so intolerant of Charedim... They tolerate gays, lesbians, transgender, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu etc. etc. But they harbor tremendous antipathy for men learning in Kollel, whom they term "parasites" עפ"ל. Why don't we see the same understanding for people who have chosen to dedicate their lives to complete devotion to spiritual pursuits as we do for deviants?

There is a danger in being too open minded and accepting. That allows the seeds of evil and impurity to take root in our midst. אוהבי השם שנאו רע - Those who are holy and pure and love Hashem, HATE evil. It can't be anything less. If someone tolerates Nazis or rapists or pedophiles, he is giving license for acts of irreversible evil to be perpetrated. Pinchas wasn't tolerant. Hashem gave him the greatest level of validation. Today, he would be condemned by the UN, Obama would lash out against him and the blogs would be filled with Jewish people castigating Pinchas for his intolerance. "Frum" blogs and websites would then link you to all of the critics to make sure that the words of blasphemy receive a broad audience.

We all have the capacity to love and to hate. Each quality must be used to the fullest. We must hate evil - even evil people when necessary [see Tanya Chapter 32]. We also must LOVE everyone else with all of our hearts. The GREATEST love should be reserved for talmidei chachomim and tzadikim and everyone else is worthy of this love based in his essential being and good deeds.

Big avoda.