Blogs and News

It is said that both temples were destroyed because of sinat chinam. Sinat chinam means groundless hatred. (The verb soneh means to hate, as in the command lo tisnah at ahicha blevavecha, do not hate your brother in your heart, Leviticus19:17)

Chinam comes from chen, grace. Sinat chinam is therefore hatred that is gratis. It refers to the internecine strife which is unfortunately too common in Jewish communities, whether between Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Orthodox, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, personalities with the synagogues such as the Rabbi and the Cantor, the President and the board.

Recently I experienced an example of baseless hatred. While building this site, https://tikuntorah.com, I was looking to work with various people on providing recordings of the Aliyot. I was looking for several different voices, male, female, someone to record the full readings, someone else to record the Triennial version of the readings, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, etc. I was happy to pay for their time and expertise - I mean chanting Torah correctly is an art and there was no reason why anyone should not be compensated for their talent.

During my search I came across a nice young man who resides in Israel and was very talented in reading Torah. We started chatting on WhatsApp and struck up a good conversation. Obviously the conversation sidetracked to find common aquaintencies and other personal background facts that connected us in one way or another - needless to say we found plenty of common ground.

At first this gentleman was very excited to be involved in the project, he reviewed the site in detail and was very impressed with the capabilities and even went as far as to say that what I've built is a blessing and "avodat Ha'shem" - G-d's work.

During one of our conversations I casually mentioned that many groups such as Conservatives use the Triennial system of Torah reading and I need to support that as well as custom readings. He asked me, "will this site be used by non-orthodox people?". I answered, "yes, of course, conservative and reform congregations make up the largest denominations in the US and probably the world, I can't ignore those groups".

At first, his response shocked me but almost at the same time it didn't. Having lived in Israel for many years and been involved with the orthodox community, I was aware that they hold other Jewish denominations in great disdain and even go as far to consider them non-Jewish. 

He replied to me, "I don't want non-orthodox people to hear my voice". I kept my calm and responded, "but your voice recordings are published on YouTube where everyone, orthodox, conservative, reform and even Christian can listen to them!".

"Yes", he replied, "however, YouTube isn't owned by Jews, your site is purely a Jewish site, owned by Jews". Now, I'm sure there's some Gamarra explanation somewhere that differentiates between Jewish owned businesses and non-Jewish owned ones and what is and isn't permissible. Oy- vey!!! If only he knew that my wife is part owner and she's not Jewish - but maybe, by his logic, that would have made it alright!

I continued with my argument, "In the end we're all Jews and we are all just trying to spread Mitzvot and Tikun Olam". He thought about what I said for a while and then responded, "you make a good point. I need to ask my Rabbi and think about this".

I knew what his response was going to be and at this point I continued my search for alternative voices to record for my site. I did hear back from him, but it took him over 4 months, eventually he said that he wasn't comfortable having his voice listened to by people who he considers not Jewish.

When I think about this episode, there is nothing that demonstrates baseless hate more than the disdain that this person showed to his fellow Jew - just based upon the fact that they practice their religion a little differently than he does.  What is the difference between this orthodox man's point of view and that of Catholics burning protestants because their beliefs were against the religion? with one sweeping gesture, this person reduced the members of his religion to those who think and believe just like him.

Obviously we see many more examples of this both inside Israel and outside. Orthodox protests against The women of the wall, attacks on conservative prayer at the western wall. Even locally, here in the US, at our interfaith service, we get together with the Protestants , Catholics, the Muslims, everyone is represented with the exception of the Jewish orthodox community who does not consider us Jewish enough for them and won't even set foot in our sanctuary.

Do we deserve redemption, do we deserve the coming of the Messiah and the rebuilding of the third Temple? I think that the answer to that is clear, a resounding No, we have learnt very little from 2,000 years of exile. We harbor hate for our fellow Jew, baseless, groundless hate - pure Sinat Chinam.