Stamps please

A local yeshiva is sending out Succah decorations to its donors, most of whom live in America. The only donors here are a few Americans. Israelis don’t give. So the staff stuffed 300 envelopes and took them to the post office, after making an appointment as is required and waiting three days. Guess what? The post office which is located in one of those so-called Anglo communities only had thirty international stamps, each of which needed to be licked. There were no self-adhesive sticker stamps

So now the yeshiva clerk must make a new appointment for when the stamps that were ordered come in. Who knows if that will happen before Succos.

I asked the woman who is handling all this for the yeshiva what her view is of Hershel Schachter's declaration that Israel has "all the modern inventions."

She said the following:

"It's ridiculous."

I asked, "Why does he say it?"

She thought a moment and said tentatively, "He wants it to be true, maybe. But it isn't true. Israel is a second world country. He has to tell people that. He has children here. He needs to talk to them. He has students. He needs to talk to them and find out what it's like. He has to tell them that you wait many months for an appointment with a surgeon. Even if he deems it a mitzvah to live in Israel, he has to tell people that it's a second world country."

I said, "Interesting isn't it, that a guy who knows so much Gemara can be so off the mark?"

She said, "Maybe he knows Gemara and he should stick to that. But he doesn't know what's going in the real world."

Is that the way we should think of Talmidei Chochamim? Well, when Hershel Schachter goes on his aliyah campaign, which he seems to do every time he speaks publicly, he is causing us to doubt Talmidei Chochamim. They know books, not people, not life, not the real world. That's what we start to think. RHS disgraces the rabbinate with his rabid Zionism and his promotion of aliyah for which he'll say anything, anything for the cause.