Satmar Rebbe Warns of a ‘Terrible Gap’ Between Grandmothers and Granddaughters
Thousands of Satmar Hasidim, led by the judges and rabbis of the community in Williamsburg, gathered this week at the Eden Palace hall in Williamsburg for the large event “Shmira LeDorot” , an emergency assembly held under the leadership of the Satmar Rebbe and devoted to strengthening the walls of religion, modesty and sanctity in Hasidic homes. As the Rebbe entered the event, the fiery address of his eldest son, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Teitelbaum, Av Beit Din of Satmar Williamsburg, was heard. He had already begun speaking before the Rebbe’s arrival.
The Av Beit Din delivered a sharp and forceful sermon on matters of modesty, expanding on the severity of women’s head coverings and wigs in our time, the problems and pitfalls inherent in modern wigs, the dangers of technology, and several other issues that, in his words, require immediate correction and clear safeguards. “Among us, modesty is an inviolable law.”
The Rebbe then opened with a fiery address of his own. He began with the verse, “When you eat of the bread of the land, you shall set aside a terumah for the Lord.” The Rebbe interpreted, based on the Midrash, that “bread” alludes to a woman, and that Rashi explains “terumah” as separation. From this, the Rebbe stressed that when building a Jewish home, a person must make a clear separation and distance himself and his household from the spirit of the times and from worldly matters.
In his remarks, the Rebbe sharply criticized what is happening in the streets: “We live in Williamsburg alongside various groups and communities that are strict about different stringencies and customs, yet in matters of modesty they are not strict at all. Our fathers and our holy rabbis of blessed memory were meticulous, in both major and minor matters, regarding holiness and modesty, and this was among the most serious issues they raised at the holiest of times. Heaven forbid that any of us should take these matters lightly. We have a clear tradition of how to behave, how to dress and how to educate our children, and this must not change according to the spirit of the time and fashion.”
During the address, the Rebbe recounted a story about the holy Rebbe, author of the Divrei Chaim of Sanz, of blessed memory, who was once asked by one of the greatest Torah authorities about the source in Jewish law for a particular matter, and asked, “Where is this written?” The Sanz Rebbe replied with divine inspiration, “It is written in me, and I am the Torah!”
The Rebbe raised his voice in tears and stirred the crowd: “These things are written and founded in the teachings of our relative, the Vayoel Moshe, of blessed memory, and he is the Torah. Heaven forbid that anyone should come and take lightly the objections and confusion of ‘where is this written.’”
The Rebbe spoke at length, with pain and anguish, about the troubling situation in the streets, where the difference in dress between generations is evident: “The gap in dress between the grandmother and the children and grandchildren is terrible and dreadful. There is a frightening decline from generation to generation. We must act in the spirit of ‘you shall set aside a terumah,’ meaning elevation. A Hasidic Jew must behave with dignity, not follow neighbors and friends, but stand proudly and firmly with the tradition entrusted to us.”
He pointed to the root of the problem, in his view, as sending boys to study outside the Hasidic framework: “A large part of the weakening comes from sending boys to study in foreign yeshivas, where they are exposed to foreign views and become cool toward Hasidism and fear of Heaven, and later they have no objection when their wives take a lenient approach to dress and modesty.”
Later in his remarks, the Rebbe endorsed the words of his son, the community’s Av Beit Din, and said that the sermon he delivered was “words that come from the heart” and would undoubtedly enter both the heart and the mind. The Rebbe addressed everyone present and said, “These words are directed at you personally. Every individual must make sure that in his home, with his children and grandchildren, things are conducted properly and that barriers and safeguards are put in place as much as possible.”
At the conclusion of his address, the Rebbe warmly praised the students of the movement’s Beit Rachel institutions, who in recent weeks had undertaken to cut their long hair, and he encouraged them for their courageous step in the name of holiness in the home. The Rebbe concluded the event with a warm blessing to all the Hasidim that they merit success and the fulfillment of the sacred regulations, and ended with the verse, “In the merit of righteous women our ancestors were redeemed, and in our days too we will be redeemed soon, amen.”