The powerful urge for young Israelis severed from their
Jewish roots to engage in idolatrous rituals and join mystic
cults of the Far East, is common today and almost considered
accepted in some circles. Lately we have even heard of a
novel idea which boosts this strange state of affairs to new
heights: A young man who traveled to the Far East and paid
homage to the local idolatry has himself become a spiritual
leader, a guru, with hundreds of simpletons following
him.
An article printed in an Israeli newspaper described the
"initiation ceremonies" for those wanting to convert to this
brand new form of idolatry. During the solemn ceremony the
teachers award the neophytes new names and perform bizarre
acts of "transferring cosmic energy." This is all in keeping
with the tradition handed to the new guru by his mentors.
Many young intellectuals have within the last four years
become disciples of that born in Israel guru despite his
lack of any higher education nor concern for it. His Hebrew
and English are primitive. He occasionally relies on past
knowledge. It is totally impossible to conduct an
intellectual philosophical conversation with him. On the
contrary, if someone sitting opposite him voices deep
thoughts, including spiritual thoughts, he becomes restless.
Hundreds of young people worship him and he has founded an
international association that intends to purchase a
thousand dunams of land in the rain forests of Costa Rica
and set up an international center and "permanent energy
field."
One line in that article describes vividly the spread of Far
Eastern cults among Israeli youth. The paper regarding that
young Tel Aviv guru writes: "He has passed through drugs,
through Goa and through Poona" (popular sites in India and
the Far East for Israeli tourists). These locations are
defined by Ha'aretz, a popular Israeli daily, as
being "[mystical cult] stopovers that have become neo-
Zionism."
The newspaper summarizes the essence of the new guru's power
and his stature among other Far Eastern cults. "The guru is
an expert in nothing and was never trained for anything. He
does not train himself and has no special way through which
he has become what he is. He is simply a person who has
experienced an `inspiration' and this `inspiration' has
awarded him another quality of life, a total and free
quality of life, one without any conflicts. The guru is
simply someone who has found himself."
The masses cling to such follies and superstitions. "The
neophytes deliver themselves completely to the guru. The
trainee is neither commanded to think logically nor to try
to understand the guru. His mission is to jump into the
unknown, and one needs only faith."
Young Israelis are rashly following such absurd beliefs.
Young Jewish men and women, despite having been
indoctrinated with heresy from childhood and taught to be
cynical, critical, and sardonic of their ancestor's faith,
are willingly adopting all these senseless faiths. Although
full to the brim with arguments against Torah-observant
behavior, they clutch the fantasies of the various weird
cults.
Many young people throughout the world are searching for a
life of spiritual satisfaction. Many wander confusedly among
the idol worshipers of far-off India. It is no secret that
in the pagan mystical centers of the Far East one can
discern an increased presence of Israeli youth far above
their percentage in the international population. The local
non-kosher restaurants even display signs in Hebrew inviting
Israelis.
As noted previously, the situation has deteriorated to such
a degree that an Israeli newspaper has called visiting these
places "neo-Zionism." The Jewish Nation that was unique in
its distinction from avodoh zorah and cults of idol
worshipers, has raised a generation which has totally lost
its way and is worshiping idols more than any other nation.
More and more Israelis take part in the cults' repulsive
mystical ceremonies and other evils. We see in all this the
fulfillment of the posuk in the shirah of
parshas Ha'azinu: "They sacrificed to powerless
spirits; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came
newly up, whom your fathers feared not" (Devorim
32:17). "Even if the nations were not accustomed to them. A
non-Jew who would see them would say: `This is a Jewish
idol' " (Rashi, ibid.).
On a parallel, foremost secular spokesmen express deep
concern about the deterioration of two particular ideologies
that were embraced by those who abandoned the Torah in the
last generation: Zionism and Enlightenment.
Amnon Rubinstein warns against the widespread tendency among
the "new historians" of Leftist circles to undermine the
principles of Zionism and question Israel's right to
existence as a "colonialist" country responsible for the
"Palestinian tragedy." He laments that today "every nonsense
that professes to slaughter the sacred cow of Zionism is
acceptable," but returning to the "Zionist belief" is just
not in style.
The writer Amos Oz said at the President's Home: "Hebrew
literature is facing a great danger, perhaps a mortal
danger." The central vessel of the secular Enlightenment
Movement is steadily losing its stature, according to Oz,
not only because of the spreading "global infantilization"
but because of the "grave occurrence of erasing diskettes,
of deleting collective memory." These occurrences are, in
his opinion, the "two most terrifying dangers for the
existence of Israel and the Jewish Nation."
Amnon Rubinstein and Amos Oz are the disciples' disciples of
the heads of Zionism and Enlightenment. Those leaders wanted
to create a model of the "new Jew," and while doing so to
turn their backs on their fathers' tradition. They tried to
throw off the yoke of Torah and mitzvos from am
Yisroel by offering ideological substitutes. Today, when
the new generation degrades all nationalist values and does
not take interest in Enlightenment literature, the followers
of the original Zionists and first "Enlightened" Jews feel
totally forlorn.
What is happening to them was foretold in Pirkei Ovos
(2:6): "Because you drowned others they drowned you and
those who drowned you will be drowned eventually." After the
protagonists of Enlightenment and Zionism kicked aside the
Jewish Nation's splendid past, the new generation deleted
their collective memory with regard to the "New Judaism"
bequeathed to them by those who rebelled against Judaism.
It seems however that even after the corrosion of these new
ideologies young people are not allowed to be introduced to
Judaism. All openness and broad-mindedness come to a sharp
stop when faced with the option of traditional Judaism.
Interest in this channel is "illegitimate," even as a mere
possibility, in the eyes of the various democrats and
pluralists. Secular parents allow their children to engage
in every passing madness and do not prevent them from
becoming acquainted with any avodoh zorah in the
world, but to let them attend Torah classes -- chas
vesholom!
"And bnei Yisroel continued to do evil in the sight
of Hashem and served the Baalim and the Ashtaros and the
gods of Aram, and the gods of Tzidon, and the gods of Mo'av,
and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the
Pelishtim, and forsook Hashem, and served Him not"
(Shofetim 10:6). The gemora (Beitzah
25) asks: "If they have forsaken Hashem does that not
include their not serving Him?" Chazal explain that in these
words we can see the harshness of Hashem's rebuke. Even
after they have worshiped all the seven idols enumerated in
the posuk they have still refused to worship Hashem.
"HaKodosh Boruch Hu said: `Even like this
turmos that is cooked seven times and eaten as a
dessert, My sons did not make me." Rashi explains
(ibid.) that "they have teased Me seven times like
the cooking of a turmos and after all this I was
still not considered important by them."
Jews abandon their glorious past and tradition and pasture
in alien fields, worship avodoh zorah and cling to
mystical cults, bow down to diverse foreign ideologies, and
after all this are still not prepared to even check the
option of Torah, for which their fathers sacrificed their
lives. Not only do they not see the Jewish faith as their
first and natural possibility, they do not even recognize it
as having equal status, to be found on their list of
religions to be looked into as a "dessert" after being
satiated with different types of idolatry.
@Big Let Body=The sad fact that so many young Jews are being
attracted to cults and mystical rituals testifies to a great
spiritual disaster. The positive aspect in this is that it
shows they are still searching for the truth. The power that
motivates young men and women to fly to the Far East shows
they have a spiritual thirst that has not yet been
satisfied.
R' Shlomoh Ibn Gabirol in Keser Malchus writes in a
poem that even idol worshipers are subconsciously seeking
the way to come closer to their Creator and cling to Him but
unfortunately stray in their way.
"All of the creations are Your servants and serve You. It
will not lack any honor for You because of their worshiping
others since everyone actually intends to reach You. They
are, however, like blind people. Their aim is to go on the
road to the King but they have strayed from the path.
Although one has sunk in beer shachas, and the other
has fallen in pachas, they all think they have
reached their desire but have labored in vain."
We must thank HaKodosh Boruch Hu for separating us
from those who have strayed, as R' Shlomoh Ibn Gabirol
concludes: "But Your servants see well and go in the right
way. They will go aside neither to the right nor to the left
of the way until they come to the King's courtyard."
Only the Torah-observant who have fulfilled "Go your way
forth in the footsteps of the flock" (Shir HaShirim
1:8), who march in the paved way of our fathers have never
even for a short time strayed right nor left. They are the
ones who arrive at the King's courtyard, the King of the
World.
