"YOU RESTORED MY SOUL"

Over the past three weeks or so, I’ve been receiving notes of support from many readers. This one, however, made me think (dangerous!). I’d love to open a dialogue with y’all over the ideas I wrote here in response.

Yori Yanover

Dear Yori,

Thank you for  your postings on your USAJewish website in defense of R. Hershy Worch, a cyberspace friend of mine as well as a fellow 'fan' of  Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. I also appreciate your attitude toward the  so-called "Awareness center," including your stunning expose of Vicki Polin  & her whole method of anonymous allegations. I have long been very  disturbed by her site, as well as that of JWB. Interesting that you point  out that they may be the same people.

Your accomplishment with Luke Ford [is that his real name? Is he Jewish?]  is also noted. However, under your name the R. Hershy story is left pretty  much as a stalemate, but on his [Luke's] R. Hershy page, the picture is  pretty bleak. He should be prodded into incorporating some of what you've  written into that page as well.

Finally, perhaps it's been your influence that has gotten Vicki Polin to  remove her "board" page, & for Rav Blau to leave her. But I am very disturbed at what she has on this page.

I feel that here, too, there are merely allegations, all based on one  article from the men-hating Lilith [which is a Satanic female in Judaism]  site, which again, attacks him anonymously. They even succeeded, at least  so they claim, to have the desire of Reb Shlomo's family NOT to have a  Manhattan street name changed to Carlebach St.

I am close to many people who knew Reb Shlomo very well, & for many years.  While they admit that there may have been some indiscrete "groping" that  could have occurred, the allegations of sexual relations they feel are  probably someone's imagination or evil intent, which seems to be Vicki  Polin's trademark.

What can be done to remove such garbage from Cyberspace? I would be happy  to work on this together with you. 

best regards,

Yitzchak from Jerusalem

Hi, Yitzhak,

My fear is that the hysteria of the past 20 years over "recovered memories," and the elevation of every inappropriate touch, every slip, every regrettable gesture to "sex abuse" are already chipping into the very fabric of our psyche, as individuals and as a society. It is depriving us of the natural eroticism which is a crucial part of our emotional and spiritual being. Teachers no longer hug their pupils, lest they be named gropers and abusers. Parents are shying from hugging their own children in public.

In the process of fighting to correct abuses, like sexual bigotry, sexual harassment in the workplace and spouse abuse, we’ve also unleashed charlatanistic and power-hungry forces which use the righteousness of these causes to terrorize the culture.

These, and the puritanical spirit which I suspect is deeply embedded in the American psyche, have politicized the sexual, and with that robbed us of the carefree availability of our sexual expression. Making a sexual mistake in this society is the most dangerous thing that can ever happen to you; and so, forget about being able to utilize our sexual feelings in our spiritual work.

Combined, these forces have wrought upon the culture an ascetic pseudo-idealism, which, combined with the hypocrisy of the Consumer society, are dominating our sensations, impulses, and drives into pools of hesitation and self loathing. All boundaries are broken, the private is public and vice versa, the banal is glorified in countless banal ways, virtue is kitchified, and eroticism is the gateway to shame.

And we so fear these forces. This is why crabgrass like Vicki Polin flourished until my blog and others have clipped her. Because so many of us have so much to lose to the forces of shaming. Everyone is coming up short in this trial: Our rabbis are mostly chickenfeed, our journalists are dupes, and cowardice rules the day.

This is why a bottom feeder like Vicki Polin can take a ride on the back of Reb Shlomo; a spiritual giant, and yet no one would stand up and yell out: Stop the stupid noise already, the man is dead 11 years, will you shut up and let us hear the singing?

But I fear that Polin is a mere symptom and not the real problem. We so fear the joy which God is giving us with such abundance, the joy of our own bodies, of our spouses, our children, our friends - that we must retreat into the dark, where no one would catch us staring.

We're a very ill and injured generation; Vicki Polin is merely the puss oozing from our wounds.

YY