new driver

About Shabtai Kor's new book "New Driver", and the first chapter of the book

A special introduction to the site of knowledge by the author Shabtai Kor

"Rabbi Eliezer Menachem of Shech Rosh yeshiva of Ponivage is not wrong. And it's not just him, mind you. In general, all the great men of Israel are not wrong. They just don't. They can never be worked on either - never. They are holy and pure, understand that is something completely different, they are not ordinary people, like me like you, they are angels. Higher angels".

Rabbi Shech once asked Rabbi Mabrisk how it was that we were commanded to believe that "I am the Lord your God" - if we were commanded to believe, then there would necessarily be a possibility of frost - how is that? Rabbi Shech asked - could a person be able to believe that the world was created without a creator? For what will the believer receive his reward, for not being a fool?

When the Rabbi of Brisk heard this question coming out of Rabbi Shech's mouth, his face lit up, "I also had a hard time with this question," he said happily, I offered it to the late Rabbi Chaim of Brisk and he answered with all his holiness that the mitzvah is to "live" the faith - not to know that there is a Creator For the world, it is clear, this is what every rational person knows, to live means to be in a state of accumulation of a believer. Remember the faith. The more time she spends in the mind, the greater the reward in heaven.

Near Rabbi Shech's house, at the Ponivage Yeshiva, one of the disciples recited the same mitzvah, and asked the same question. "I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other God before me" How were we even commanded to believe, the guy asked? How can I be punished for a mitzvah that I cannot fulfill - I cannot. I can appreciate, hope, want very much to believe there is a God - but to be XNUMX percent sure? How is that possible? I am a skeptic by nature…

In Rabbi Shech's house, whoever asked asked. Wait, if it is so clear that there is a God, how is it that there are still unbelieving sages? Ask and answer "to teach you what the power of lust is" People are able by the power of lust to lie to themselves in the face and deny with a determined forehead the darkest truth in the world, which all means honor - God. (Then rumors began, maybe the reward is for rejecting lust, etc. This is not the place to extend)

in the room of the nearby infidel. The same question was asked. Such a deceptive mind we have. We are so aware of his delusions. After all, we live and argue from his delusions. One day they think one way and another tomorrow. The issue shines a light on us from one direction and tomorrow from the other. Seventy faces are to the Torah. Such a deceptive mind, how can one trust its conclusions one hundred percent? How is it that there are smart and good Haredim who believe.

Here their answers merged - he was also an unbeliever, he replied to himself "To teach you what the power of lust is, they are so eager to believe, so need God to listen to them, so afraid of losing him, so absorbed are they in their studies that they are prevented from casting doubt.

Here I leave it to your imagination to draw for you a meeting between your rabbi and the unbeliever - they will bicker and bicker. He will ask a cry and he will answer him a cry and so on - the equal of them both say one to the other, you are guided by your desires.

I was there, in Rabbi Shech's place. And I was there, in the place of the heretic. The transition from Rabbi Shech's side to the unbeliever's side involved internal struggles - describe the moment of the meeting, when both forces worked in me with equal strength - on the one hand Rabbi Shech and on the other the unbeliever - how I felt, how big the tear was.

Now I am far away - looking at these and those with a little longing.

From the distant and missed place I wrote my book, "New Driver" which tells the story of my departure from Shala. We are familiar with the feeling of identification with a bad hero in a good book. The story brings us the hero in the right dose and immerses us in his character. It is difficult to penetrate the character of Rabbi Shech like the character of the apostate. Both have a burning position. The story succeeds, and that is the power of a story.

Here is the first episode.

Dusk, Friday. The last moments of calm, after the storm of energetic preparations and before Shabbat begins. When peace enveloped me like a blanket, I walked to the synagogue. Just this week I turned thirteen, an age that qualified me to complete a minyan and receive financial compensation for the prayer. For many months I envied my friends who pray in an abandoned synagogue, complete a minyan and each of them receives a payment of fifty shekels Tabin and Tekilin for participating in Shabbat prayers. I walked down Rashi Street in the "Mokor Baruch" neighborhood in Jerusalem, crossed Jaffa Street near the old "Shaari Tzedek" hospital and got off at Agrippa Street. I still haven't adjusted to the "Yeshiva Bocher" look that the suit and the wide-brimmed Borsalino hat gave me, and the limitations involved. This was the second time in total that I showed off my new havarch clothes, and every suspicious passer-by was seen by me as someone who was testing how appropriate the marks of matriculation were on me.

"Satan's emissary" was fleshy and gigantic. While he rolled up the windows of his car and locked it in the parking lot of the "Shok Kenyon", he sang loudly and looked at me ironically as I crossed the street diagonally. It seems a bit childish to me to play "downloads" with my eyes, that's why I looked at him.

"Hey young rabbi," he called out to me teasingly, "where are you going? To a synagogue? What do you have from synagogue? What do you think, that God hears you? that he cares about you?"

I did not know my soul from confusion. "Do you think yours cares more about me than him?" I asked.

"It's not that I care, it just hurts me, that you're just wasting time in idle confusions, that you won't get anything out of, I also have a tassel," he said while lifting the hem of his shirt and pulling out his tassels. "It's not that I'm an infidel or anything, I have faith, but I know how to set the limit. I'm not stupid, I don't take religion seriously."

The fence between us. He found a hole in it, passed through it, and approached me. I was a little scared. "Well," I said, "I am me, and you are you. I grew up and was brought up on the knees of religion, and I have no intention of changing my customs. I'm sorry that you care about me... Sorry, you don't care, it just hurts... Shabbat Shalom."

For a moment, I felt angry at the man. What exactly does he think to himself, that all the sages of Israel were wrong when they believed there was a God? What does "not taking religion seriously" mean? Is this something that is subject to our discretion? But unwittingly, and without meaning to, an unruly thought popped into my mind that I couldn't tame and couldn't push to the edge of my consciousness: maybe everything is really just a lie and a lie? Maybe my faith is just a product of a dogmatic upbringing? Maybe there is no afterlife at all, heaven and hell and I'm just a baby caught? Something in me shook. I arrived upset at the synagogue, I unfolded the story to my friends ("He told me that God doesn't care about me!"), but they looked at me mockingly. One of them even suggested, with feigned seriousness: "Let's go beat him, is he still there?"

We prayed in Arabic. Being slightly distracted, I muttered the prayer quickly, praying that it would be over already and I could go home and forget about everything. Indeed, the disturbing thought subsided when I got home, but it returned and bothered me more and more later, especially at moments when I did not expect it at all, especially in the middle of the prayers, which I tried to say with the utmost devotion.

The days of the exams for "small yeshivas" have arrived. It was important for me to be admitted to a successful yeshiva, so I spent most of my hours memorizing the material for the exams. The pressure and the drive to succeed made me forget all the annoyances. I passed the tests successfully, was accepted to a number of yeshiva and on the advice of the supervisor of the "Talmud Torah" I chose to go to the "Mishkan Zion" yeshiva which was built on the purity of the traditional Sephardic learning method which Rabbi Ben Zion Abba Shaul ztzel passed on to his son Rabbi Eliyahu who was the head of the yeshiva. All I had to do was prepare myself for the long journey of studying in a yeshiva. At school I excelled in sacred studies, which took up the first part of the day, and I was a bad student in the mundane subjects. Day and night I dreamed of a full day of Gemara study, without boring week studies, so that I would have the opportunity to excel throughout the day.

The fervor grew stronger and accompanied me throughout the "between times" period. I already knew the first page of the tractate "Gittin", which we were supposed to study in the "small yeshiva", in Alfafa a week before the beginning of the studies in the yeshiva. On the first day of school, the students all gathered in the yeshiva hall, being careful not to attract too much attention. The head of the yeshiva, the overseer and the two teaching rabbis sat at the front of the hall. The educator rabbi briefly explained how important the first academic year in the yeshiva is, and invited the head of the yeshiva to deliver his words. The silence of God reigned in the hall. The head of the yeshiva spoke about the unique nature of the yeshiva he heads, and about the great privilege we had to be a part of it.

After that the overseer spoke. The overseer, we all knew, is a true tzaddik. "I can't believe that there is a student sitting here who doesn't want to be the next generation's 'rabbi,'" he began. "Everyone wants it, but there is only one 'rabbi of yours' in each generation. Why? Because the initial ardor fades. The trick is to preserve the enthusiasm, to understand that we are subject to a daily war, which succeeds in sacrificing thousands of your 'rabbi' every day and turning you into ordinary people. Don't allow yourselves to die in the war you are just starting. In this war whoever wants wins and becomes the greatest of the generation. Being Yeshiva students is a privilege that we must bless every day: 'Blessed be our God who created us for His glory and set us apart from the lost.'" And so he continued to enthuse us until it was time for prayer.

When we left the Beit Midrash, on our way to the racks of hats and suits, I felt great happiness and it seemed to me that the whole world was surrounded by an atmosphere of holiness. I got on the bus, with a book of laws in my hand, and sat down to read. The driver turned on the radio receiver. Rabbi Amnon Yitzchak's voice was carried at a high level. "I give many lectures," said the rabbi, "and in every lecture, I repeat the same question and no one is able to answer. The question is why you came into the world. I want to hear a secular answer."

The rabbi brought the microphone closer to a number of seculars who gave confused answers ("to bring children into the world", "for the sake of living", etc.), which ended with the rabbi's disdainful concluding words: "Everyone understands that there cannot be a secular answer to this question, because if you came into the world to live , then why do you die, and if you came into the world to die, why do you live?" The rabbi concluded and burst into loud laughter.

His laugh managed to wake me up. Does he believe that laughter can cover up a superficial argument? Who said there should be a "secular answer" to this question? I failed to grasp how a person like Rabbi Yitzchak, who does not understand so many areas, is able to prove "something" due to his lack of understanding. Shimo came out in public as the leader of "massive" people, and perhaps because of this, because of the need I had to shake off this mass, his words so upset me.

When I got off the bus and walked to my house, thoughts of heresy began to nest in me again. God, I asked, please don't try me now. I just started the AL lesson. I know God, that I must prove the truth of your existence by myself, but I am not able now. Please, have faith in me, I begged. I remembered that when I was in the middle of rehearsing for exams, and thoughts of heresy began knocking on the walls of my thoughts, I asked God to heal me of thoughts of heresy at least until I finished the exams. Only after that, I promised him, would I turn to prove beyond any doubt the reality of his existence. But here things turned out for them in such a way that already on the first day of school I heard R. Amnon Yitzchak. The Almighty, in his great grace, waited patiently until the end of the first day of studies at the yeshiva, and knowing that I had no intention of keeping my promise, sent me the temptation again in the form of Amnon Yitzchak. By the time I got home I decided to put an end to my doubts and find a solid foundation for my faith. I told my parents about the wonderful day I experienced in the yeshiva.

The next day, after morning prayer, I took out a sheet of paper and a pen, with the aim of writing down difficulties that I must find out for myself. But see it's a miracle - I tried to raise more and more questions, and they all seemed stupid to me. The central question that required proof of God's existence was solved by Hiskel. I, the questioner, became living proof, for I felt beyond all doubt that there was a God in heaven. I also felt that he conducts a kind of dialogue with me, watches over me, infuses me with unlimited strength to learn Torah and keeps my mind from being distracted during prayer. I felt that I just love my God, and He really loves me. I wanted to hug him but I only hugged myself, while I was engulfed in the depths of the divine being.

The yeshiva where I studied, on the outskirts of Mea Shearim, was next to the monastery. Some of the students of the Yeshiva used to plug the holes in the locks of the monastery with toothpicks, so that the inscription "Mishnaich Hashem - Ashna" would be in them. An elderly Christian woman knocked on the yeshiva gate one morning and scolded us loudly, without anyone understanding her words. One of the staff members tried to calm us down, and then talked to us about the importance of "peaceful ways", but the yeshiva students continued their harassment of the monastery. I was not one of them. vice versa. The monastery piqued my curiosity, and I was thirsty to know what was going on inside. I was afraid that they would molest me in turn (I had nightmares of them catching me, imprisoning me in a monastery and offering me there as a sacrifice), so I contented myself with a glimpse through its windows. One day I saw through the window a monk kneeling in prayer. The thought flashed through me, that he prays just like me, and I asked myself, what would have happened if I had switched with him - he would have studied in the yeshiva in my place, and I would have become a monk. Would I then have been able to decipher the counterfeit in Christianity? Would I have remained a Christian for the rest of my life? After all, there are Christians in the world smarter than me who fail to discover the light of Judaism. I began to question myself, do Christians also have their own Rambam, and who is the wiser Rambam, and which is the false religion and which is the true religion? After all, there are three main religions, two of which are false, obviously. The world blurred before my eyes, when I thought for a moment about the possibility that maybe all of us - Jews, Christians and Muslims - are wrong and there is no God.

It is told about a righteous rabbi who was asked: "After all, most of the world are Gentiles, and it is well known that they follow the majority, and why don't we convert to our religion?" The rabbi replied: "The majority rules only where there is doubt, and Judaism is not in doubt." As for me, I thought, Judaism is questionable. Will I be allowed to follow the majority and do as I please?