The Sceptic Blog

1.  Last week’s Hamodiah carries an indignant out-pouring about the enormities inflicted on the yeshivah world by two Government inspectors who arrived in the middle of a rosh yeshivah’s shiur and attempted to insist on verifying the students at once without waiting for the end of the shiur.  They were ejected by zealous students, the rosh yeshivah complained to the Government, and at least one meeting was organised at which the yeshivah world erupted into a self-righteous hysterical frenzy of scandalised victim-hood.

2.  The Torah-true response to the incident would, of course, have been upon the following lines.

3.  “What a disgrace it is for the Torah world that by the crooked behaviour of a number of so-called yeshivahs in claiming Government grants for non-existent students the Government has entirely reasonably found it necessary to inflict upon us the shame of having our claims verified by inspection of attendances; what a lesson this humiliation should be for us that by purporting to be orthodox and learned Jews our behavour should be beyond reproach or we heap insults on the Torah itself; let us at least try to restore our self-respect as a community, and a perception of decency in the eyes of others, by cooperating with the inspectors in a humble and helpful fashion; and, in particular, let us not waste even more of the public money by keeping the inspectors waiting just because we happen to be in the middle of learning – learning can wait, but reestablishing the honour of the yeshivah community cannot.”

4.  Simples?