Conversion, Jewish Blood, Kohanim - Being Honest and having Confidant know your Family

i i want i want to begin with uh with this it's a story but it's not really a story it's it it really got me all revved up uh yet yesterday and still my head's reeling from it and it points to the the world we live in today it's not going to be something that's a comfortable issue so hold your loins please okay coins are comments your comments as well and and if i say anything that's offensive to anyone uh you'll send me later a private note chastising me okay but you know i i this is the one time of day where i get to express myself so i'm i'm finishing a book now on the reba and doctors you know i wrote a book several months ago i put together it's really a compilation that that's why you guys are wondering how do you put out all these books so quickly you know i there's so much available today on the internet and together with people's input that you know just a matter if you have the time to put things together it it it gets done you know the book i wrote a a an orthodoxy that was you know well researched and endorsed by professor sanra of brandeis uh in boston and that was you know that was hard that was hard work you know and it's really uh not even finished although i published it but it you know that was a lot of research chicago the bronx you got to get to people who are you know live there until you get them on the phone and is their memory working are they making mistakes it it's it's a whole production but this book rapping professors was uh you know i contacted some leading professors some that already passed on but we have their writings and the letters that the rubber wrote to them and i put it into a book so now i'm doing something similar i'm doctors how about already 32 or 34 doctors should be and i and i had mostly men and i said you know that's not fair i want to show some women because there are have been women doctors associated with the cabarru the rebbe over the years and it's important for today's generation to see that so i started to think about which doctors which women do i know and you know the over the years and i came up with a few you know and then i started to look at the at the internet and i came across a few interesting articles uh about people and one in particular caught my attention i can't say much because it's sensitive stuff but basically basically honesty is so important is so important and over and over over my 40 years in the rabbinat and doing this type of work i have had times when people lied to me and fooled me when it came to important information that was relative to judaism i'm speaking very general because i have to be careful and in today's world after you hear stories of orthodox people who dressed like orthodox people and then they were caught to be missionaries or people who you know tell their rabbis that they are kohanim and they're not kohanim and things like that this is something that that um we have to be very careful of and it's become just more and more and why and and what do people do they move around the country they move to place to place they put on new names on themselves and new identities so that people shouldn't catch them well good researchers like myself can catch these people if i'm put on the job and that's not about catching people it's about you know knowing the truth and being honest so people aren't misled i remember the 1970s when the rebber spoke about who is a jew me hoodie and rebel was the only rabbit and the only godo and the only rabbi who spoke about it almost every fabregan screamed about it was livid it all in a respectful way not not involving you know russian horror he never said names but i i recall as a as a as a teenager standing at these fabranians and he i didn't really understand the details because i i wasn't uh you know i wasn't involved with israeli politics and the reb would say over and over that all they're looking for is a bankhold a bankroll is the yiddish word for a chair they want to have a chair in the knesset they want to have a vote and they they they will vote and and and say things that are contrary to halacha and as long as they could get another seat for their party i mean i remember such you know anyway and and i'm telling you there were brains when the river could speak a half an hour to an hour you know about this and like my friends and i and and many many others like we didn't really relate to it we didn't understand like what's going on over here but he was in such pain of these issues and what did it bring and what was another thing that he said he said that the who is that you issue if not corrected will impact children of russia yeshiva i remember there was saying that where they will meet you know um all kinds of people and they'll want to get and they want to get married and they'll get married and later on it'll be revealed that they they didn't have a proper jewish conversion an orthodox conversion and if you think the rabbit was pipe dreaming he wasn't because it happened back already in the 70s and the 80s and i i don't remember the name but we know there was a rash of shiva whose son or daughter married someone like that and there was that issue i myself when i was in marin county on schlitz over there i'll never forget someone who started to come to shoe he jogged to shul on the highway on the 101 in california it's a four it's an eight lane highway he jogged for i think eight miles or 12 miles a job and i asked a halal question by a rava pasek and he said that you need to trust him that he says he came he came shabbos he came friday he dropped off his sharpest clothing in the cupboard house he jogged shabbos was sweaty and then he changed okay the valdic right how many people could do that very few of them what no no not really because there was there was there was houses all along the side anyway he tells me he's a korean okay i'm very happy i didn't have any clay on them to have a coin that's beautiful i give i can give him an alia well i shortly found out that his wife isn't jewish i'm a from guy i try to keep the halacha i'm from the old stock uh what am i going to do here well after much uh discussion with other rabonim and this and that there's no uh there's no way out except in a nice way say i can't give you a ali anymore because as a client you're living with a non-jew you know it's your decision but i'm bound by halal i can't give you an alia and i can't let you have do dukhning to bless the people i'm jumped in when we do beer you know i would love to uh he was very upset about that but he understood he comes back to me and he says his kahuna is invalid i said why is your kahuna status why is your status as a cohen invalid it says because he invalidated it years ago making a decision that he's marrying this lady knowing that she's not jewish and he has a right to invalidate his kahuna and this is a very big question feinstein that we discussed yesterday has a chuva has a response on this and several and many other abundant and it's uh it's a big question it's a big question and at the end i believe they say that you you if indeed you could invalidate your kahuna okay it's if you invalidate your kahuna but you're not a client so you're not a client no problem anyway why am i telling you this because he didn't wasn't an interesting guy what he sounds like a very interesting guy yeah yeah he he he he was and i think he's now in israel and and and he is but he tried misleading me like why are you misleading me why are you misleading me what what are you hucking at china you know let's have an open conversation is of course people you're uncomfortable i but the rabbi you tell them privacy the rabbi is not going to embarrass you god forbid he's going to on the contrary protect you and your family years later and this is what i say by by divulging to a a rabbi or a leader this important information it protects your family your children grandchildren later on whatever the issue is you know whether it's divorce or conversion and you know abuse there's all kinds of issues but what i'm finding is today more and more people i mean i had some experiences i'm not going to go into it in bet chemise i had one major experience there that i was the one who blew the whistle on and put it all together whilst the rabbis over there of you guys didn't know what's going on and i as a visitor i i smelled coffee and missionaries no not missionaries not missionaries no i'm like again i don't want it you know it's private things i can't say much but what i'm saying is that you know we live today in a world that um it people are hiding things and it's so easy today to move from place to place to change your names to get a new identity and you have no idea who the person is and what's going on and it's a balagan so i i share this with you not just to get it off my chest which is also helpful but but also you know to to bring to the attention that in in a in a respectful way without busha without embarrassing people and lush and her and gossip and all that you know we have to you know sit with people and and explain that it's in your best interest to share with someone the the the real information so that we could you know build a healthy community i mean with missionaries it's not even a question that's that's out of the pale you know that's that's beyond the pale that's so you know you know go to your people and go you know that that but i'm saying other issues of conversion and divorces and abuse and and on and on um i i i i heard some i'm telling you when i was there in betraymesh i heard some things besides these other things and it's like it's like wow wow wow maisha and i have discussed it you know how not names just the idea where we discussed you know how how people come territorial and and and and and they and they create a new life but yet there's there's issues so okay we all have issues we understand that but but be careful not to allow that to to hurt other people so what that how that's relevant to the mimer i don't really know except that it's comets this is hummus it's the night of the fifth the 14th you have to search for comments searching for comments is searching in your own heart of hearts what's going on you already one minute and then we got to start learning go ahead yeah really no i'm only bringing this up because you brought it up and he specifically men mentioned bay chambers so can tell you here in beijing two cases that what you're talking about i'm aware of um it's a very big problem when you have a lot of people coming from all over and you don't you you can't you can't check the background it's very very hard to check the background of people where they're coming from especially when people who are not religious and then all of a sudden come to israel in the religious so very difficult to find uh you know if you need to find out for certain reasons and i found out one time fbi came in the middle of the night and did a raid in in one of the neighborhoods here in ramaphe chemist in the middle of the night the guy was arrested by the fbi in fbi suits they came that's how he knew his fbi and uh this is a guy in the car box show you know and and it was uh it was you know he wasn't there long he had actually dominated a few places um but that was one case and then we had this case of the uh you know the missionary the the guy that was in jerusalem oh yeah one of you one of his disciples uh wound up in our shul for a little bit and uh yeah i mean the way that we caught him was at a seder he came to a pace of seder and one of the guys in the show hosted him and he said something was really off about it and him and his wife looked at each other and said something is off and that's how you know they had other organizations that are looking into it but it's a very very big problem because on one hand you want to be accepting of everybody on the other hand if you're too accepting then you know you you don't know like you know you don't know what to do you don't know if to accept the person i gave this guy an aliyah like this guy he said he was the lady i gave him a lady and he knew how to say the brachas and everything yeah i mean yeah exactly what you're saying right right and and you know it's impossible to to know everything but captain i've shared this with you for years this talmudic statement respect them but suspect them dale from the word kavod day of the word you know in you have to be alert you have to be very very alert and not for the purpose of of hurting someone but not allowing yourself and your community and your family your friends to be hurt okay and um that's it that's it so yes it is like you say how do you balance the two you know trusting inviting and yet you know being standoffish a little bit um and and it's it's in the news i'm sure after this last uh fiasco with uh that uh writer in arches role who wrote books and all that uh i'm sure everyone's antennas are are up so there's there's a lot of issues that's all that's all i'm doing all just just you know when when it when it comes to you again again it's like fresh you know and then it dies down you go back to what you're doing and and you go on but it just happened to to to come to my uh to my research yesterday and um you know so that's why uh i i mentioned it and it brought back things from i remember with conversions in marin county you know it's it's it's a tough it's a tough one it's a tough one it's a tough business the conversion business is a very tough business in the sense that i don't mean business i mean you know people give you their words and then they don't live live it and and i understand there are new challenges and issues you know i mean just one more verse and then i want to really go back to the mimer i got a call about 10 10 15 years ago from a chabad rabbi and an old time khabad rabbi and a good guy and he says i need you for a besden as part of the three i said who's the third person one of the rabonim of crown heights i mean you can't get better than that so here we are a trio you know all kind of you know in one league and all that and then he asks me to learn with this uh this com this potential woman convert and what and i agreed that my wife said at that time you know she didn't understand she should be learning with a woman why is he asking me but i did it and that was in hindsight a mistake um and then and i they got married and here in borough park you know the hasidic maybe i'm sure you have it in arita's world too uh the polish hungarian has seen them especially those that have quite a bit of money they like these projects where they they marry you off and they dress you and they buy your tribal they buy you a becker shirt and i mean they become like your uh what's the word um a father what do they call them uh um a godfather right and and i came to the wedding in a hasidic school here and and i could see they're all coming the whole all the show members because they're kind of showing off that they did the mitzvah of of marrying off one of their members kids who had some issues with this convert who seemed to be had didn't have issues but you know she's a convert and they found and put the two together whether it made sense or it didn't make sense that was beyond me right you know you know i i i knew that it it didn't smell great you know but that wasn't my decision after a few years or shortly they divorced never heard from her and i and i spent so much time you know just say thank you how you doing nothing 10 years later oh actually last year i get a call a rabbi dolphin i have to apologize to you for cutting you off and not talking with you and all that what did i find out someone that called me actually from baltimore who was who was who was introduced to this lady so she called me you understand together on my good side so i would say some good words to him i'm just this this is what you're dealing with this is what you're dealing with you know so it's it's it's a tough business it's it's a tough business and um if you learn and you're really want to be a yeresha mayam you you find a way of of you know being honest and and again i'm not saying you should go to every single show member tell them i'm a convert or tell me at this or that that's no no no but you have a person or two who you're as you're confidant and you could work together with and you could be honest and people can and then you know someone once gave me a file of his um grandmother proving that his grandmother was jewish in poland and i have it in my file till today now this person has many kids and they're going to marry off maybe one day someone's going to say how do i know because his father isn't jewish name his family name isn't jewish how do you know they're jewish that he's that he's jewish i have it in my file he gave it to me okay um i'm just saying you know and i'm not the rabbi marrying off his kids you know what i'm saying but at least there is a source i remember another case actually with uh kyrie at arba someone comes to me and says um my son is is is is looking to marry a girl uh and and her parents were from here to scroll uh i think russians who immigrated years ago and the rabbi there converted oh really well can you give a letter i said i can't give a letter till i find the proof i have to call what's the famous rabbi i think he's still alive and curious or maybe just passed away forget his name now what most eleven girl uh i think that moshe eleven right think i think and and i asked him and he said yes so you know and it's come up since because a son of this couple um went to yeshiva narcissa and they questioned the jewishness of this boy and it so it came back to me you understand and i and i and i and i said to to the wrote that well i could tell you that i heard from reverend levin that this and this you the rest is up to you you want to believe me you don't want to believe them that's you know i don't do a marriage until i investigate and i verify if someone lied to me and i didn't catch the lie i'm sorry you know just like yoni giving the aliyah to someone who's never you know not even jewish but based on my conversation with him so it's it's it's a it's very important to to to identify uh these things and you should all know and you probably know this is not just now with bali chuva this is now with ffb's all over because the the jewish world is so much smaller and people are marrying especially in the chabad world you know where once upon a time in the 60s 70s you know you didn't have you didn't have balichuva yet from the mid 60s on but then there was 20 years kind of they didn't marry with each other and now that's kind that's really not to say completely but it did this you know it's it's it's a different situation so so there there there are these issues too i do want to say also that the rebber the rebbe had a very very obvious role attitude on this thing two examples a relative of mine was concerned that the person uh they proposed for their child to marry was a child of a pair of a mother who didn't go to the mikvah if you look into the holy zoa zayara kodesh it says some very very unpleasant things about that so the person was so religious he was a chabad nikola baba he wrote to the rapper like maybe maybe there's an issue here and he quoted the zoar the rebel you know would would answer with a pencil and the rubber took his pencil and he put a big x over it meaning stop with your nonsense and this man who wrote was a a rabbi of the rebel he was a senior man a great scholar i mean you know and the rebel was teaching him they did shuver you let god worry about the mikvah they are kosher that's it that's there's a there's a sort of a ramosha feinstein similar about the question on the shidduch and uh i forget which priority it was came from a family that wasn't religious yeah and the question was that the i believe it was the gemara says that somebody who's a the result of a relationship where the woman wasn't uh who would have bad vetoes yes something like that and so ramosha said how are their midos mido's very good very very fine she says obviously she must have gone swimming at some point and the arisa she she traveled and it might not have been they the revolving but it was the raisa and if the outcome is that the that the prospective uh shoulda has good vetoes what are you talking about so you mentioned the the the swimming sixty four l uh um um o'connor the the the bishop o'connor the of new york of the the famous you know the big church over there it was known of bishop o'connor here uh because of different issues he gave a a ruling that all the beaches should be closed i think 1963 or 64. you could look it up online the rebecca asked rabbi mandel he's already passed on something but he was an activist an orthodox rabbi you know that asked him who he had a relationship with this uh o'connor to influence o'connor to keep the beaches open because a woman who goes swimming there it is madaraisa pure and it's kosher i heard this from a brother-in-law of this rabbi mandel yeah could you imagine i said that's my team to what ramosha was saying but but what i'm saying is that um that uh you know the rebber you know didn't didn't buy into these you know into these things again there's a difference between that and and calling up you know a cohen who's invalid for an alley or someone is not jewish finally it's two separate things in other words a person who says they're jewish according to jewish law has a huskas of kosher now today there are bonding are dealing with it i'm sure you're aware of this because of the situation everything i've said and so much more what if there is a khazaka contrary to that because of a given situation in the community so that that's where the shiloh begins in other words when do you trust someone on the kazakh when everything is parish when everything is neutral but when you're in a situation when you know contrary to that so the kazakh doesn't apply this this is the back and forth anyone have something else they would like to say because i see the time is up it's interesting that recently there was this issue that happened in um it was in new york with the syrians that there was this that the there was this guy who um he uh posed to someone who would become moves about juva oh yes in the end uh nobody there was a miscommunication and nobody ended up checking out like what his story was turns out he wasn't jewish right well he had married he'd married he was he was engaged i don't think he was engaged to to a from girl yeah oh no no they married they married married married and then during the shaver brothers the father the syrian for some reason only then he started to investigate and then they found during the shaver buckles that he was a a lebanese uh right right lebanese yeah but yeah yeah so much what were you saying i'm just saying that like you know this is uh this is just like you know it these i guess these things that they they they occur you know and it's like what yoni said before you know you like what we've just been speaking about you know you want to welcome people in but at the same time you have to you know i don't know there has to be some sort of a balance yeah yeah and with a good gaba and a good rabbi and some good congregants you could you can make heads and tails of it you know um i'm sorry you have two you have to you're not two of the best in town in this couple i'm sorry we didn't learn inside but i i hope that what we discussed you know was where are you holding so i can catch up okay um we're holding on page one motion 164 right my shirt oh yeah okay hello we're like in the in the in the top paragraph on 165. okay good i'll i'll bring myself up yeah yeah but tomorrow we will we will get we'll get to this and i'm sorry that i kind of you know took the time to do a little therapy time today doesn't matter who you are yeah what's the background there in my territory the buster i don't got to have it back and walk in where's down 49th street or something no well that was sold years ago the new basement is on uh uh 17 and 47. oh it's only two blocks from where i live i'm talking from you i'm talking to you from 17th or 45th yeah okay have a great day nice talking i will talk to you tomorrow as i get some bye