The Sentry
Real life stories. Documents. Quotes.
LATE PESACH, EARLY BEDIKAS CHOMETZ
A secular “researcher of chareidim” recently expressed the following; “Walder was a crucial ‘agent of change’ among all the various chareidi groups during the past twenty years. He was successful at deciphering the winning terminology to be able to bring in the modern western spirit in the ‘kosher’ chareidi children books. The next generation and its mentors of the young, developed from his teachings and to a large degree built its character based on the values that Walder expressed in his books. Walder created a revolution not only in the chareidi children’s books but also in the chareidi parents. In his books Walder gave expression to the feelings of children, a concept that had until then not typically pervaded the books of chareidi children, which had only discussed keeping the mitzvos and stories of tzadikim.”
This idea was echoed seven months ago in a letter from the Badatz that says;
“It is well-known how much our leaders in every generation have distanced the writings of maskilim, including those that hid under a mask of righteousness, for the written word is extremely powerful to produce a shoresh in the reader’s heart, particularly the youth…
We therefore feel that we are obligated [after speaking with mechanchim] to decry the writings of Ch. Walder and the like, that are distant from the hashkafah of the world of yirei Hashem. They are stricken with the sickness of accursed haskalah , and they seem to stem from impure sources…
And every father, mother, and mechanech should take care that these writings should not enter his home, and should be firmly distanced…”
Hagaon Rav Moshe Mordechai Shulsinger zt”l was a talmid muvhak of the Chazon Yechezkel and a talmid of the Brisker Rav. He was a tremendous Talmid Chacham and authored the seforim Mishmar HaLevi and the Peninei series featuring many Gedolei Yisroel. Seventeen years ago on Tishah B’Av he publicly expressed the following sharp message about C. Walder. At the time many could not comprehend, however recent events have revealed the einei ha’eidah that he possessed. He said;
“Yicharsimenah chazeer mi’yaar. All parents and melamdim must know that there is a chazeer mi’yaar, chazir mamash. [Truthfully] we must apologize to the chazeer for being compared to him. There hasn’t arisen such a… I can’t find the proper expression, such a destroyer and uprooter of the chinuch Yehudi chareidi as this chazeer…
He is tamei. We must do as in the time of Rav Yehoshua Leib in Yerushalayim, that he sent Rav Chaim Zonnenfeld to go to all the batei knessios and batei medrashos and call out about Michel Pinnes [ed. note; Pinnes wore tallis and tefillin all day and was seen as an extremely devout person], that his hashkafah and his books are tamei. And if we receive blows for it, then so be it. He is the greatest churban to Klal Yisroel, churban mamash. That is his name chazir mi’yaar [ed. note: ya’ar is a forest, and in yiddish a forest is a vald]. This is our true battlefront. He is like a poisonous snake, venom drips out of him. All his writings come from the impure sources of psychology. We should go to each cheder and to each class and proclaim; ‘suru suru tamei.’ He is a powerful person, he has an entire mafia. He buys people with money etc. I have never seen such a klipah in the history of the Yidden. People with beards and payos say his name reverently and don’t realize what a monster he is. I say this with all the achrayus, and I know what awaits me because of this…
He is chashud to transgress the entire Torah, on all the three [cardinal] aveiros. He is a man of evil deeds, he is a rashah mamash. I told this to him a number of times. I told him; ‘I am following you for years and I see that you are destroying all that is taught in the Yeshivos and Beis Yaakovs to raise the true Jewish ruach.’”
Perhaps the recent events should be a general wakeup call for vigilance as to whose ideas we are welcoming into our homes. “You are what you eat”, goes the saying. However, for Torah Jews the more pressing concern is “you are what you read.” The reading material that we take into our mind is what shapes our views and opinions.
And an additional point to ponder; the Mashgiach of Yeshivas Chevron Harav Chaim Yitzchok Kaplan shlita said over from his Rebbi Harav Yonason David shlita [Rosh Yeshiva of Pachad Yitzchok]; “One should not deduce that what has occurred now is an isolated incident, rather it is merely a component of all the absurd events that have been happening in recent years, where we see things disintegrating and decaying before our eyes.”
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