When I learned of the behavior of a relatively small group of young men at the Kosel on Rosh Chodesh Sivan handing a public relations victory to those seeking to undermine the sanctity of that site I was struck by the contrast with what transpired over a decade ago when the Torah community held a massive prayer rally in response to the antireligious bias of the Israeli Supreme Court.
I’m sure some reporters were traumatized by that event — imagine between 500000 and a million frum Jews gathered just for heartfelt prayer and not so much as a summons for littering to report on or even fabricate. Let’s just say that doesn’t happen at gatherings of that size anywhere else in the world.
But more: at one point a secular immodestly dressed couple brazenly made their way straight through the heart of the throng in an explicit attempt at provocation. They failed to get the slightest rise out of those present. What strength of character that took and how beautifully that ma’amad reflected on us as people whom the Torah trains to be in control of themselves. In stark contrast those misbehaving at the Kosel didn’t need any provocation and when the other side did bait them they took it like so many little fish hungry for a morsel of attention only to be skewered and then filleted by the waiting media fishmongers.
But there is something particularly galling about these hooligans getting abusive and violent when the WOWniks do their thing as I’ll explain. There’s so much about this entire Women of the Wall controversy that’s hypocritical and contrived that it would be quite laughable if it weren’t so serious in the damage it does to the kedushah of the place and to our ability to daven there. I’ve pointed out many of these inanities here before often in a sarcastic vein which it’s hard not to employ when confronted with such transparent dissembling. There’s the sudden fervor of Reform activists for mitzvas tefillin and for the last vestige of a Beis HaMikdash they’ve rejected for two centuries now; the exceedingly paternalistic attempt to “free Orthodox women from the shackles of their lifestyle ” over the outraged protestations of those very women; the pathetically symbiotic relationship between the activists on the one hand who use the media as tools to play the public for fools and the latter two groups on the other who allow themselves to be so used and played.
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