Rosh Hashanah Message from the Tolna Rebbe

 

HRHG Yitzchak Menachem Weinberg, Shlita is the Tolna Rebbe in Yerushalayim.

As he often does, he sent a Rosh Hashana message to members of his Kehila. I am on their list.

In his message, he noted that the abbreviation for the coming year, תשפז (5787), are the last two digits – פז (87). The word  פז (paz) in Hebrew means high-grade gold. Here in Israel it means gasoline which costs about the same.

The Rebbe noted that this word is mentioned in the following pasuk in Shir HaShirim (5:15): 

שוקיו עמודי שש, מיסדים על אדני פז. 

His (my Beloved’s) calves are like pillars of marble, bolstered on bases of fine gold. 

He says that there is a Targum for this pasuk. The Targum says:

“These refer to words of Torah that Clal Yisrael busies itself with…whereupon HKBH (our Beloved) is filled with compassion upon us and whitens the sins of the people of Israel people like snow.”

The Rebbe sees this as a sign that our success for the upcoming year is dependent on our commitment to learning Torah. As such, he encourages everybody in his Kehila to rev it up a notch and to assist others in this venture. 

The pasuk in Parshas Bechukosai (Vayikra 26:3) tells us that ameilus b’Torah is the sole key to success, prosperity, and peace.

With this, I want to say Thank You to all the readers I have left. And to wish everybody a

כתיבה וחתימה טובה

שנת שלום וברכה והצלחה, בריאות, בני חיי ומזוני וכל מילי דמיטב

And lower gasoline prices.

Sinas Chinam VIII(b) – Innocence Found

 

As we left off in our previous post, we were hearing a fascinating story from the mouth of Zvi Gluck. This was right after he claimed that Rav Elyashiv, ZTL, said "in my presence" (i.e., he was talking to somebody else, not to Zvi) that one should let the police decide if “the person” is lying. Here is the entire story (1:28:11):

 

Now I'm going to share a story if I may, just to prove that point. Many, many years ago, not so many because Amudim was open already, a person who I knew growing up came to me and said, "I need your help. I was falsely accused of molesting somebody." I looked at him. I said, "You need my help. I'm the wrong guy for this." And he says, "No, you're the right guy for this because I firmly believe you look for the truth and not for an agenda."

He says, "I was accused of molesting somebody. I was an employee at a school. The school fired me. My wife doesn't believe me. She left me. I can't get another job. My whole life fell apart. I need you to help prove my innocence." And I remember telling him, "I don't know if I can prove your innocence, but if I find out you're guilty, I'm going to be the one to bury you." And I remember saying it like it was yesterday. And he said, "Game on. Anything you could do."

Make a long story short, this person was a bus driver. The accusation came from a parent on the bus that he molested a child on the bus. I reached out to the school and the school said to me, "What do you mean? You should be so happy we fired him as soon as we heard it." I said, "Firing someone and putting them on a leave of absence till it can be investigated is two different things.”

“Did you go to the police?" No, of course not. “Why not? Well, so how do you know that anything's even true?” Well, we believe the parent. I said, “You know what? I gave my word. Either I'll have to go after this guy or not, but can you, uh, can I speak to the parent that spoke to you?” Of course.

The parent gets in touch with me and tells me, "Oh, wow. It's so nice. You're finally taking it seriously. Someone's taking this seriously." My daughter came home and told me that she saw the bus driver molest another kid on the bus. “Did you call that other parent?” Yeah. “And what did they say?” They said, "I'm crazy and it's not true." Okay. I asked the school, "Can you share with me who the other parent is or have the other parent talk to me?" And the other parent got in touch with me and said, "Listen, we took my daughter to a therapist. We wanted to just be safe, but it came out that nothing was true and we don't know what this other mother was. And we told the school that they need to stop it.”

So, I asked the school, I said, "Is it?" And I don't know. I promise you, I'm not a detective. I'm not an investigator until today. I have no idea why this thought came into my head. But I asked the school specifically in this case, can the bus driver take the bus at night with me and drive the route that he did with these students? I could try to figure out what happened.

I will say to the credit of the school, they never told the bus driver who made the accusations. By the way, bus driver gets on the bus with me. It was a small bus, a mini bus. So, the driver's door, the driver would get in from that door and the students would get in from the other side. My mazal, it was pouring that night and the bus driver starts driving and I'm looking at the route and I see the names and I see in one place he drives on the wrong side of the street. Like, just interesting things happening, and at one point, by a dead end, he cuts the curb and opens up the driver's door.

I said “What's going on here?” He says, “Oh, when it's raining, this family, it's a single mother. She has a bunch of kids in the house. The father, the husband passed away and I basically passed the child to the mother through my door so she shouldn't have to come around the bus.” It was the next stop of the child who complained to her mother ‘cuz I don't get a ride on the bus driver's lap like my friend Chani.

I can promise you if this case went to the police, there would have been no arrest. It would have been investigated properly and this guy's life wouldn't have been destroyed. There is a system that works. If we utilize the system, it will be beneficial to everybody. But this school was so proud of themselves. We fired him right away. You should be happy. No, you destroyed a family. You destroyed a person's life for no reason. So, to answer that question, what if the person's lying? That's for the police to decide. And I stick to that all the time.

Zvi Gluck claims that the purpose of telling this story is to prove a point about letting the police decide whether a “person” (which person???) is lying. He closes the story by saying “So, to answer that question, ‘what if the person's lying?’ That's for the police to decide. And I stick to that all the time.”

I’m sorry to hear that. I think his closing statement is wrong. Moreover, I don’t see how this story even proves his point. We’ll get to this later. But this story does indeed prove other points.

Firstly, it proves that false accusations happen. Most Child Abuse Advocates do not believe that they do. It tells us, contrary to Zvi Gluck’s entire misguided philosophy, that there is such a thing as an “alleged” abuser. Secondly, it shows that false accusations are totally devastating. And that well-meaning people tend to jump to conclusions. It also tells us that the accusers may not actually be “lying” or may not think that they are lying, yet the accusations can still be false.

His remark that “firing someone and putting them on a leave of absence until it can be investigated are two different things” is also very revealing, although he doesn’t see it. What he is saying is that we need to distinguish between what needs to be done to protect potential victims, which is essential, and what “needs” to be done to punish suspected offenders, which is not. I have been preaching this for years (HERE) but nobody cares. Here comes Zvi Gluck and blurts it out as if it means something to him. But this is not what he preaches and certainly not what he practices. 

Zvi conceded that he was trying to "make a long story short". Sometimes this is a service to the listener and sometimes a disservice. For me, it was the latter. There are several gaps in the story due to details he left out.

As I mentioned, I have had personal experience with these types of stories, so I needed to know some of the missing pieces. I also wanted to challenge some of his assertions, especially his unwavering faith in the police. As such, I emailed Zvi Gluck with a list of questions.  The email is dated April 20, 2026 and the subject line was Please End this Sinas Chinam.

Here is the email in its entirety (note - in case this embedded file does not display in the blog email versions, the email can be accessed HERE):

As you can see, I asked 15 questions. I think the questions and their intent are self-explanatory. They were all honest and sincere questions and I really wanted to know the answers. I still do. They are not “shtuch” questions.

15 questions may be a bit heavy and I said as much, so I listed the 5 questions that I thought were the most important.

Zvi Gluck never responded to me. He did not answer the 15 questions and not even the 5 preferred questions. He did not answer a single question. What’s more reprehensible is that he did not even acknowledge the email at all. Not even to politely blow me off and say, “Dear Mr. Hirshman, Thank you for writing. I appreciate your thoughtful questions. Unfortunately, I am very busy and cannot address your email at this time. Have a nice life.” Or anything remotely close to that.

I think he is afraid to answer the questions. Very sadly, he is not the courageous hero I thought he was.

This email was the first of a series of 5 emails that I sent to him pleading to tone down the sinas chinam that he is perpetuating in public. There are four more to come. (Spoiler alert - None of them were answered or even acknowledged.)

For now, all I can say are to repeat the immortal words of HRHG RavAsher Weiss, Shlita:

I came to the conclusion you can't even have a dialogue with these people. They are so bent on what they believe.

 

Sinas Chinam VIII(a) – Innocence Lost

 

Also see this previous post:  Sinas Chinam III - Surviving Malka Leifer

I generally prefer to not expose correspondence that happens behind the scenes, but this is much too important. It’s Kalman again. Kalman sent me another email. He writes:

In all seriousness , I strongly suspect that you are a sexual abuser 

I took your posts and entered them in a psychological profile data bank and it came up that you are very disturbed individual and a probable abuser

I suggest you get help asap 

 

I am totally amazed at the extent that he echoes Reb Yid from my post in 2018. Reb Yid also had similar suspicions. I doubt Reb Yid entered my posts into a psychological profile data bank, but to be frank, I highly doubt that Kalman did it either. Where does one obtain a psychological profile data bank anyway?

The similarity between them is uncanny, to the extent that I wonder if they may even be the same person. I went so far as to ask Kalman if he was ever abused (like Reb Yid was) and he wouldn’t answer me. Let’s review what Reb Yid wrote in 2018.

I have very serious doubts and suspicions of what it is you are hiding from, avoiding and trying to cover up, Hashem Yeracheim. Perhaps the time has come to open an investigation into your past and history.

My response to him at the time:

Sorry to disappoint you. Go ahead if you like. Start with the autobiography in my book. Rated PG (for Holocaust stories and a few violent incidents in Eretz Yisrael).

This response works for Kalman, as well. Nothing much has changed in eight years.

That said, I can agree with Kalman’s data bank about one thing. This is the claim that I am: “[a] very disturbed individual”. There is truth to this but not the way he means. I responded to Kalman:

It is right about one thing, though. I am very disturbed about a lot of things. As I have written.

What am I disturbed about? Why am I so outraged about the players in this episode?

We can start with all the sinas chinam, zilzul Eretz Yisrael, mesira, nekama, and chillul Hashem. That ought to do it right there. But there is something else that I have complained about post after post after post. This is the blood lust, lynch-mob mentality, and universal automatic presumption of guilt that almost everyone on Earth seems to suffer from.

In one of my earliest posts, I wrote that this is because the Human being craves drama. It’s very easy to accuse people of doing nasty things, and a lot of fun to boot. And, since it happens so often, it must always be true. It’s so standard that even Reb Yid and Kalman can level “suspicions” at someone they have never met. This is because everyone seems to carry around their handy-dandy psychological profile data bank. It’s science, how can it be wrong?

Of course, these guys don’t know, or don’t care to know, where I am coming from. I mentioned it sparingly in a few of my posts, notably this one (HERE), but it hasn’t sunk in. So, I will say it again more directly.

I have never molested anybody and I have never been molested, but I have been where very few others claim to have been. And no one who hasn't been there can understand it. I have been in the thick of a case of false accusation. it doesn't happen all that often, but still, it happens way too often. 

B”H, I was not the one that was falsely accused, but it was somebody I have a very close connection to. It taught me how people who cannot think, think. It taught me how rumors fly and how the lynch-mob works. It taught me everything I need to know about how much to trust accusations in general.

The case in point happened over 35 years ago. But since then, I have seen a number of similar incidents. Once you pick up the pattern, it becomes easy to recognize.

There are two levels of false accusations – total and partial. A totally false accusation is exactly as it sounds. The “crime” never happened at all or it did not happen at the hands of the accused. The accused is totally innocent.

A partial false accusation means that a minor event is being overblown into a major event. The accused may not be totally innocent but is not as guilty as they are being made out to be. In all cases the accuser is trying to achieve a certain goal and they are aware that being truthful is not the way to get there. So, they resort to bending and stretching the facts. I see such patterns in the Malka Leifer case.

This plague is not only chronic, but it is also contagious. רבים חללים הפילה.The casualties are many. Among those I was distressed to find on the casualty list is Rav Zvi Gluck of Amudim.

I first heard him out on a Halacha Headlines podcast in 2016 – yes, those ten long years – and I was very impressed by his interview. I quoted him in 2016 and sang the praises of the organization. I did it again in this post in 2022. I wrote:

 

Amudim looks to be an upstanding and dedicated Jewish organization that specializes in crisis intervention and case management. From their website, it looks like they deal with all types of traumatic situations including domestic abuse, substance abuse, other addictions, depression, eating disorders, self-harm, mental health issues, and of course, sexual abuse…Clearly, their goal is to help individual people deal with their problems. They are not interested in “changing the world” and saving it from wicked people. They seem to understand that “wicked” people are created by the same G-d who created the righteous ones – for whatever reasons. We need to coexist with them.

I was trying to say that I did not see the vigilante lynch-mob mentality in Amudim. In his March 15 interview in The Struggle, Zvi Gluck said what I wanted to hear. He said (14:26):

I'm very much in the sense that my focus is more on the victims, helping them, getting them the proper help. Right? I'm very anti-abuse, don't get me wrong. I'll do whatever it takes to stop it, but our focus isn't the abuser. Our focus is the victim. Very often by dealing with the victim you're dealing with the abuser and you have to take a stand which I have no problem doing but that's not our focus.

I took this to mean that he is a “champion of victims”, to do what he can to help them. Okay, if he needs to deal with an abuser to “stop it”, it’s part of helping them. But I hoped that he hadn’t crossed the line to be a “crusader of justice” and an “avenging angel” after the fact, when it doesn’t help the [former] “victims”. I thought he was different than the herd.

Until last March.

This is when Zvi Gluck appeared on the two broadcasts and showed me that he is just as vulnerable to the groupthink as are most others. One was his appearance at the Beis Medrash Ohr HaChaim in Monsey on March 8, 2026. The second was his interview with Joe Farkas on his podcast The Struggle exactly a week later on March 15, 2026.

It disturbed me to discover that Zvi Gluck is one of “them”, one of the lynch mob. I always thought better of him. To his credit, he is more moderate and level-headed than some others, but he peddles the same misconceptions that I listed among the consumers in my Kalman the Konsumer post.

But it’s more than that. Zvi Gluck is a very popular, charismatic, sincere, and influential person. He truly does want to do the right thing and his heart is in the right place. Consequently, when someone like him catches the “let’s-destroy-all-the-perps” sinas chinam disease, he doesn’t just succumb to it, he also spreads it around.

Case in point, throughout both his talks, he uses two terms with complete finality - abusers and victims. In both talks, there is one word that never came out of his mouth: alleged.  Not once did he utter the word alleged. In his world, every abuser is a total confirmed abuser from start to finish. Every victim is a total confirmed victim from start to finish. In his world, there is no such thing as an alleged abuser and no such thing as an alleged victim.

This is how Zvi Gluck can so cynically pronounce (19:00): 

the number one tool used to silence victims is the Torah.

Sounds pretty damning, no?

But let’s revise it just a bit:

the number one tool used to silence alleged victims – or, those who claim to be victims - is the Torah.

Owing to the fact that this situation (non-confirmed accusations) is what is happening in most cases that Zvi Gluck is complaining about, it is not nearly as damning. The abuser may not really be an abuser and the victim may not really be a victim. Shouldn't we turn to the Torah for guidance?

Zvi Gluck doesn't think so. And here is something that I am convinced Zvi Gluck would never admit to. 

It’s a two-way street.

Let’s go back one minute earlier in his talk (18:04). Zvi Gluck said as follows:

But what made it even more complex, more difficult, and even worse in some ways is the communal failure. The collective communal failure, quoting the Torah, quoting Rabonim, misquoting Rabanim, misquoting Gamara in an effort to silence people.

I hate to say it, but the number one tool used by advocates such as Zvi Gluck to silence and to mahser accused people (alleged abusers), is also the Torah. Quoting the Torah and misquoting the Gemara and misapplying the concepts such as Lo Taamod, Rodef, and Pikuach Nefesh. Quoting and misquoting and misrepresenting Rabbanim such as Rav Elyashiv (1:27:50) and the Tzitz Eliezer (24:12).

As Zvi said on March 15 (41:25): It's okay for the goose. It's okay for the gander. 

All told, from his own words, there is every indication that he has sold out to the lynch-mob. But, wait!

Toward the end of his talk in Monsey, Zvi tells us a heart-wrenching story which effectively negates everything he was preaching until then. And he doesn’t even realize that he is doing it. Strangely enough, he tells it for all the wrong reasons. He says he is telling the story “to prove a point”. In my opinion, (1) it does not prove his point and (2) it proves several points he was not trying to make. In some ways it redeems him from his misguidedness, but in some ways it doesn’t.

On the side, I was indeed very impressed with how he dealt with the situation and see him as a hero in this particular story. This doesn't make him any less misguided.

I was spellbound by the story because it is so similar to the event that happened over 35 years ago, mentioned above, that “taught me everything I need to know about how much to trust accusations”.

Here is the story (1:28:11):

Now I'm going to share a story, if I may, just to prove that point. Many many years ago, not so many because Amudim was open already, a person who I knew growing up came to me and said, "I need your help. I was falsely accused of molesting somebody."

A false accusation? Really? Is such a thing possible?

Well, there’s a lot more to this story and a lot to unpack from it. I can’t do it in this post. The rest of the story and what it says to us will have to wait for the next post. Stay tuned for it. All I will say now is that we should all be disturbed.

Very disturbed.

To be continued…