Rabbis Need to Start Advising Responsibly

Here is a big issue: Rabbis who do not advise responsibly. While making the choice to follow a rabbi's advice is solely in the purview of the person seeking that advice, rabbis, knowing many will follow their advice unquestioningly, need to learn to advise responsibly, especially in a "frum" society in which not following your rav's advice is practically considered an aveira, or at the very least, very bad mojo.

There was a time when I, like many, followed a rabbi blindly, unquestioningly, and was considered to be his closest talmid. I told him I wanted to go back to Yeshiva (this was while I was still single). He sent me to his Yeshiva. I spent two years there, learned a lot. Then, at the beginning of the third year, I got married. Before the wedding, my future wife and I went to this rabbi with financial concerns about me being in yeshiva. Where would the income come from when my wife had a baby? How would we be able to afford living on one income? His answer: "Have Emunah and Bitachon. Somehow, my wife and I got by. I don't know how we made it, but we did." Great! We went, despite my wife's reservations. (By the way, the rabbi and his wife got by because both her parents and his mother supported them! He just didn't know it.)

Well, I learned the hard way that Emunah and Bitachon are sometimes just not enough. We didn't have parents who could afford to pay our way. I took a job at a new high school in the same location where I spent my first year in Yeshiva (a branch of the main yeshiva). I was supposed to be paid about $6,000 for the semester. I got paid $3,000. The head of the school never actually paid me the other half of what he owed me. Ever. He found himself a way out of it! Great way for a guy in a black hat and suit to act, huh?

Well, came June of that year. My wife was due in August. I called my rabbi and told him were needed to come back home so I could go to work. He gave me a long argument about he is hesistant to allow me to leave a Makom Torah. I explained to him that once my wife had the baby, I wouldn't be in Yeshiva anyway as I would be working and therefore, it would not really be a Makom Torah for me. We went round and round until he finally had me call the Rosh Kollel, who, after hearing what was going on, basically said "What the heck are you still doing here?!" Look at that, someone in the Yeshiva world with common sense.

A series of events continued to unfold over the next five years that have led us to the present, where we are terribly in debt and in great resentment. It all traces back to the advice this rabbi gave. It was bad advice. Rabbis do not know everything, and this person's ego wouldn't allow him to tell me in the first place to go get a job and be a responsible adult. His ego would have been damamged if his star student dropped out of yeshiva before getting semicha. Guess what? My wife and I believe this person a complete fool. I finally walked out of his shul one shabbos and never came back when he called me a Choteh Plili.

Now, was it my reponsibility when I made the decision to go back? Yes. I accept that responsibility. I'm a thinking human being who decided not to think something through. However, knowing I would follow and advice he gave, this rabbi should have known better, put his ego aside, and give proper advice, not based on his emotions or his ego, but based on facts and concerns of the party to whom he is imparting that advice. Just because something worked for him, doesn't mean it'll work for someone else.

This person's Rosh Yeshiva was once asked why bochurim had to go through so many years of learning to get semicha and go out to be a rabbi of a shul or do kiruv. His answer: "When a person goes through four years of medical school, and assorted years of internship and residency, and then you put a scalpel in his hand, he is called a surgeon. When a person doesn't and you put a scalpel in his hand, he is called a butcher. The same goes for being a rabbi and doing kiruv. You have to know what you are doing, otherwise a person just ends up a butcher of souls." A beautiful saying, except that this yeshiva has ceased teaching its talmidim how to be surgeons and is sending out butchers in droves! of the over 250 people I know there, I only know of one who really took his learning to heart, internalized his Torah, and truly came out a Ben-Torah, Yarei Shamayim, and a surgeon. One person. The rest are butchers. It's unfortunate, but true.

RABBIS: LEARN TO GIVE RESPONSIBLE ADVICE! OTHERWISE YOU'RE JUST A BUTCHER WHO HAS THE POWER TO RUIN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVE!!

Next up: "Ki Karov Eilecha Hadavar Meod..." - Why is it so difficult and costly t be a frum Jew?