HaGaon HaRav Bentzion Mutzafi during a shiur related to cases of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) deaths in Eretz Yisrael. He feels this is the result of mixed weddings, leading to such and other yisurim.
Earlier in the week the rav was asked by one of his talmidim about attending a mixed chasenah, and if one may sit at the meal during such an event while mixed dancing is taking place. (In this case, “mixed” refers to men and women together, without a mechitzah).
The rav responded “How does one dare to permit this Torah prohibition of ‘Don’t go after your heart and after your eyes’ (ולא תתורו אחרי לבבכם ואחרי עיניכם). The Gemara says if there is only one path and one passes a place of pritzus, he is a ‘rosha’, and one should be killed rather than violate this.
The rav said that “this is why there are SIDS deaths and why in the past weeks children have died of stoning, burning, killing and choking (בסקילה, בשריפה, הרג, וחנק) Hashem Save us!”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
29 Responses
wow; another rabbi with an interesting pshat in ki lo machshevosai machshevosaichem. hashem yerachaiym
With all due respects to the Rov and to families who have suffered from Sids. Dr Mayer Eisenstein of blessed memory, said the condition of SIDS should be renamed to VIDS – Vaccine Induced Death Syndrome. He as well as many others have pointed out that many SIDS cases occur within 2 weeks after a routine childhood vaccination and often within 48 hours. The medical industrial complex has been in denial about this for a long time and has done a good job of conditioning the public to dismiss blatant indications of causality. The terminology used to disarm the critical thinking process is “Correlation does not equal Causation”. Often this catch phrase will be repeated with its related Latin Phrase “cum hoc ergo propter hoct” to imbue the English version with a more authoritative sounding gravitas. When most people hear that Latin phrase they think internally,”Well this guy must know what he is talking about”. Kudos to the Vaxxed team for taking their bus around the country and documenting thousands of cases of vaccine correlated (caused) SIDS deaths.
#2 I am confused. If the people at mixed weddings were not vaccinated would their children then be spared SIDS in spite of this Rabbi’s observation?
As is said about people who “predict” when Moshiach will come: Those who don’t know speak, and those who know don’t.” It is very unhelpful to make such statements, especially when demonstrated that this has occurred in very chashuve families. ה׳ ירחם עלינו.
Actually the #1 cause of SIDS is putting a baby to sleep on its stomach. they can suffocate on themselves
babies must always be put to sleep on their backs until they are able to turn over by themselves
To Commenter I.M.
The only thing I can suggest to you is that you mental condition was caused by vaccines! or your mother dropping you as a baby………….moron!
I would be very wary of someone who makes a claim to know something they simply cannot know.
To I.M. #2 – what you wrote is nonsense. Children get most of their vaccines in their first few months, which also happens to be the time when SIDS is most prevalent. Correlation does NOT mean causation. According to your logic, apple sauce causes sides because its not coincidence that most parents start introducing apple sauce to their children around 4-5 months, just when SIDS occurs more frequently!
To ModernGuy: Thanks for the warning about apple sauce.
The level of ignorance and arrogance reflected in the underlying story and several of the comments posted here is breathtaking. Enough of these rabbonim Who attribute tragic outcomes to specific concerns over lack of compliance with Halacha and posters who Spread conspiracy theories about accepted and proven scientific facts. Those who blame the victims of such tragedies are exposing themselves to the same outcomes for spreading search lashon harsh and hateful rhetoric
The Rabbi is correct. Tragedy does not occur in a vacuum. When tragedy strikes we must repent and introspect.When Hashem causes tragedy to strike it is for a reason. Nothing happens without a reason. No one has even said how “mixing” is evil and hated by Hashem!
To Ready Now:
The reason is the parents negligently put the baby into the crib face down and it suffocated. That’s it.
gadolhadorah” that is just a cover.
The reason someone got pneumonia and was nifter is that he forgot to put his socks on when he walked in the snow.
Your efforts at humor with respect to tragedies that sadly befall many young yiddeshe families is contemptible. There are literally dozens of studies showing the cause of SIDs. Are you saying these parents purposesly put their children to sleep in the crib in the wrong position? These are cases where the parents were negligent and didn’t stop to think about the way the baby was positioned. Don’t make them feel guilty that they are being punished by the Ebeshter because the may have gone to a mixed wedding or some other matter the night before the tragic loss of a child.
“For in your hand are the souls of the living and the dead” from the prayer before retiring at night to sleep, safe in the knowledge that ALL is in Hashem’s control.
If you are suggesting that all in not in Hashem’s you are not only incorrect, but you would be committing a huge avera -a sin.
BTW, where is the “humor”? You are the contemptible joker. It is amusing to you, but such are the ways some people go to the next world, has v shalom, as it is these small details that are blamed for the deaths, but I have just said in my previous post that those small things are a cover, for Hashem to test people.Get real or get out!
Parents don’t know about the correct position to put their babies when going to sleep, some do know. That is not the point. The point is babies die in other situations too, and it is a mystery to those who do not have faith.
Of course, these tragedies are heartbreaking, but knowing that Hasj=hem is the true Judge is a comfort that cannot be brought or bought
It is Hashem who is in control, no one else.
We turn our eyes to Heaven, not to “jokers’.
I hope all the advisors here realise that unless they suffered SIDS in the their family like the kaken rabbi their opinion is irrelevant,you are shonda just like the old irrelevant man who calls himself a rabbi,shame on you all.
Insofar as the correlation between SIDS and placing the baby to sleep on the stomach or on the back, yes there were epidemiological studies that demonstrated reduced rates of SIDS in populations of babies that were placed to sleep on their back. However there have also been questions raised about what long term effects forced “back” sleeping may have on the development of the skull and the brain. Also for you youngsters out there, there was a time when it was considered normal and proper to put the baby to sleep on their side or on their stomach. The question that really needs to be asked is did something change in the environment that makes “back” sleeping safer than front sleeping in relation to SIDS. Some have suggested that the additional vaccines that have been added to the childhood schedule and introduced to children in infancy since the late 1980s have contributed to inflammatory responses in the brain that cause sleep apnea or reduce the respiratory reflex just enough to make “back” sleeping neccasary for some infants and toddlers. As with all questions pertaining to vaccine safety, the inclination of the authorities has been to put the blame on the parents and particularly the mothers rather than with the pharmaceutical companies or their regulatory agencies. “Oh that stupid, uncaring, low education, mother must have put her baby to sleep on their stomach instead of their back”. “It could not possibly be the vaccines, after all that is “settled science”. The “Vaxxed” bus has documented thousands of names of babies who died from SIDS after getting vaccinated. The parents all tell a similar story and place the blame on the vaccines, not on improper sleep positioning or on mixed dancing. To ignore this evidence is unwise and dishonest.
The Honorable Rabbi is 100% correct, tragedy springs from twisting Hashem’s commandments, all you ignoramuses. But we still comfort the mourning.
What we are seeing here is the classic attempt to ascribe everything that goes on in the world to God. This whole idea of divine reward and punishment is central to Judaism and most other religions and the reason is quite clear. A huge part of the brainwashing that we undergo, starting as small children, is to have people believe that God metes out consequences for everything that we say and do (and Christianity even includes what we think). This teaching is – aimed at conformity, morality, ethics, tikkun olam and other noble intentions and acts – -but the flip side is that it does so through fostering deception, encouraging deluded thinking, and false teaching. This lunacy is taken to the extreme when religious leaders are unable to explain, why babies, innocent children, and righteous adults are stricken with maladies, caught up in genocides, suffer trauma, etc. So we see an opportunistic, fallacious, and dishonest attempt to ascribe these things to bad behaviors from a previous life! As if any living human being could possibly know this. But hey, it helps keep many people from straying from religion, fills seats in synagogues, churches, and mosques, keep the contributions coming in, and is good job security for these all-knowing rabbis.
Atheistic Zionist , you are guilty of”deception, encouraging deluded thinking, and false teaching” and are an arrant id -ot.
What you have written should be deleted and is totally against Torah, and I am not btringonging in any other religions, because that too is agao=inst Torah, and I have no idea what they preach and I don’t want to enquire of that as that is also against Torah.
Atheistic Zionist , you are guilty of”deception, encouraging deluded thinking, and false teaching” and are an arrant id -ot.
What you have written should be deleted and is totally against Torah, and I am not bringing in any other religions, because that too is against Torah, and I have no idea what they preach and I don’t want to enquire of that as that is also against Torah.
In response to Atheistic Zionist, I wish to say that the greatest gift that HKBH has given to mankind is Freewill. Freewill would be impossible without randomness. So in essence that horrible randomness which results in seemingly inexplicable tragedies is also at the same time a great blessing. If you would like a taste of the curse of a non random, orderly, sensible, scientistic, existence, take a look at the convergence of artificial intelligence, the corporotocracy, and the Internet monopolies that are now dominating mankind and reducing each and every one of us to a neat little predictable, and controllable algorithm.
Yes, I.M. Also: hospital must be killing people because entirely too many people die in hospitals or withing short time after they checked out of the hospital preferring to die at home.
To I.M. and to Atheistic Zionist:
There is no “randomness” in the actions of G-D at all! You are 2 apikorsim.
Humans are tested and their responses are either “yes” or “no” , there is no randomness.
Wake up you misleading sleepers!
Even the molecules of water which appear to move in random directions, even this is according to G-D’s plan, each and every molecule moving according to Hashem’s plan, just as at Yam Suf!
“Randomness” is the term given by scientist to describe the especially directed movements that have been established by Hashem for the movement of water in nature and as we know as directed by Him as well in the splitting of the sea.
Not long ago, members of a family were burned to death on Shabbos when their platter caught on fire.
Imagine if that family had decided not to use the platter and had, instead, gone out to a traife restaurant that evening. There were no reports of anyone, Jew or non-Jew, burning to death that evening while eating ham or shellfish in a restaurant.
I disagree with “ready now” and agree with the Talmud that states that “Olam keminhago holech”: People – whether or not they are zadikim – who cross the road without looking may get run over by a car, faulty platters may catch fire even if their owners are religious, people who don’t look where they are going and step off a cliff will fall towards the ground at the same speed whatever their hashkofa.
I don’t think that bad people are more likely than good people to be struck by lightning. The rule tends to be that people who are outdoors during a lightning storm are more likely to be struck by lightning than people who are indoors. (By the way, I read a statistic that more Mexicans are struck by lightning than any other nationality. Surely they are not the worse people on earth.)
Just be a good person and don’t pretend you are able to read Hashem’s mind.
To Ready Now and I.M – you can call me what you want and resent that I threaten your religious indoctrinations but all that either side can really offer is an opinion. None of it can be proven to be established fact – and that includes the Divine Revelation that is a part of many religions. I enjoy the apikoros charge as it shows that I am capable of critical thinking, demanding of evidence, and brave/strong/discerning enough to break free of religious brainwashing to research the impossibility of its teachings based on clashes with science, inconsistencies, contradictions, and much more.
I did not call you anything. But I see someone called me an Apikorus. I would respond that the hebrew word Mikreh which connotes happenstance or randomness is used to describe the human perception of nature. This is how HKBH created the world. Had HKBH not put this element in nature you would not have free will and there would be no room for Schar Veonesh. I don’t see how this idea is heretical and earns me the title of Apikorus. Of course now that you had the privilege of descending to this world you have the task of choosing to see Hashgacha in the apparent randomness and decide to be a believer or not. Oftentimes there is no clear yes or no in life and If there were it would not be much of a test. Insofar as hospitals and the medical industry having a responsibility for killing people prematurely, unfortunately that is borne out by a variety of studies,statistics and anecdotal evidence. Yes if you are shot by a lunatic gunman I would recommend getting treated in a level one trauma center. However many of the elective medical treatments in use today are often causing more harm than good to patients including death and disability. Vaccination is only one of example of that. We could also talk about routine use of antibiotics for infections that don’t need them and the permanent alteration of the Micro-Biome as a result as well as the creation of deadly,virulent, strains of pathogens due to selection pressures created by overuse of antibiotics in both people and animals. I would be remiss if I did not mention the the psychotropic drug industry and the way we have all been conditioned to think that Adderall, Ritalin, Prozac and the like are completely safe and effective especially for children. I once asked a holocaust survivor how was able to still be frum and not blame HKBH for all his family members being killed. He said he does not blame HKBH, he blames the Nazis and their collaborators. He actually killed a few while fighting as a partisan.
It is amazing that with full access to the internet to be able to find multiple websites where the glowing truth of Torah and Judaism is extolled and explained in detail, the above 3 deviationists still open their human mouths and yep into the WebSphere dumb and completely unfounded “theories” that they have either concocted or have assumed from other detractors.
In Torah, the book of life, is clearly delineated that there is Justice by Hashem and that there are curses and blessings according to the performance or nonperformance of the commandments, the mitzvot by Jewish people.
It surely is unnecessary for me to cite the places where this appears in the Holy Torah.
You 3 are collectively with your heads in the sand.
Avraham Avinu, Abraham our father would have smashed your idolatries, just as he did to his father’s idols in his father’s shop.