A Skvere hasidic rabbi who teaches in a Skvere yeshiva gave a lecture in Yiddish in which he claims that the Skvere Rebbe is a "piece of Divinity" and Aron Rottenberg, the New Square dissident who was almost burned to death along with his family in an arson attack last year carried out by the Skvere Rebbe's butler (hus bucher), is at fault for the attack (because he defied the Skvere Rebbe's will).
The Skvere Rebbe, David Twersky
A reader writes:
Hi Shmaria,
[Hirshel Tzig] posted the attached yiddish clip [apparently recorded from a haredi hotline] of a Rabbi (Magid Shiur) in Skver Yeshiva who explains that the Skver Rebbe is a "piece of divinity" while Aaron Rottenberg is "tamei" (defiled) and is waging war against the holiness of the holy New Square and therefore deserved whatever he got, and that any of the shvatim (the biblical Jacob's sons) would have killed such a person.
Please click the gray bar to listen:
Update 4-29-2012 at 2:00 am CDT – The reader who sent the above summary has sent a more extensive summary of what the rabbi said:
… Some people don’t know how to look at the [Spitzer episode]… They
speculate, was [Spitzer ] a rotzeach [murderer], wasn’t he a
rotzeach… but everybody who pays a little attention and doesn’t lose
himself knows very clear and simple that every place in the
world—Let’s consider Goyim, not Jews, to differentiate one million
differentiations—When this should occur in China Town in Manhattan or
in Amish Town or let it be in Utah, over there where the Christians
live, if an Arab should enter there dressed as an Arab and ridicule
or go against [the local culture], even if this should occur where
there is a place of police as in the whole government of America—Utah
is a state just like New York is—but an Islamic believer should enter
the Christian neighborhood and go against it and break the [religious]
governance of that neighborhood, what would happen to that person? It
would simply happen by nature he would disappear. I don’t know in what
way. By us there is no such sanction as we have earlier discussed
[that violence is utterly intolerable in New Square]. There is no
such sanction whatsoever. I am not comparing the two situations. I am
only bringing out what occurred. Every place in the world where there
is a [cultural] governance—Every goy has respect for Amish Town. Every
goy who lives two blocks away from China Town in Manhattan, who enters
those stores, the language and the banks and the embassy, everything
is China, even though it’s not China. China is on the other side of
the world. But in this neighborhood everyone acts like there [China].
The same thing is—to differentiate—the opposite when a Christian
enters an Islamic neighborhood. Even a goyish mind understands that if
one enters a place or if one lives in a place either you go along with
the place or you leave the place. You can’t stay in the place and go
against it, because if you stay in a place and go against it the
people get angry. It causes things to happen. You are igniting a fire
on yourself. You are harming yourself. This is the reality of the
nature of a person that [the actions of such a person] brings out the
pain of thousands of people that want to live a certain way. This
is—to differentiate one million differentiations—by a goy… A goy also
has no right to harm, [he] only [has a right] to feel hurt… Every
judge in the world understands that if it happens that someone did
something to someone else [in such a situation] it has to be weighed
totally differently… The [Rottenberg] story doesn’t begin here [at
Spitzer’s crime]—the Yetzer Hara has a way of blinding the eyes—the
story began from earlier. This is the foundation of the story. And
even the judges, the goyim or secular Jews, would have known the truth
of the foundation of the story they would have judged differently, but
Heaven wanted differently. The foundation was that just as a person
enters Amish Town or a person enters a foreign city and goes against
the spirit of the place then every judge would say, be well, pick
yourself up and get yourself out and finished! Go away, move, live
somewhere else! Here it didn’t [even] go this way. We were ready to
pay….
…Everyone who lives here and has a connection of faith in the Rebbe
may he be healthy and strong sleeps differently at night. He is
relaxed that for any crisis that shouldn’t come he has where to go. He
has a listening ear. He could go to the Rebbe, and he knows that when
ones enters in to the Rebbe one enters inside into the holiness. He is
in the holiness of the holies, and he can beseech and get helped. And
we see open [miracles]. I was just involved in a case where a young
man needed a yeshua [a cure] and he was healed completely against the
way of nature. And the like. Constantly see such things happen. There
[exists] an amazing [passage of] the Be’er Maim: A regular person who
wants to do a favor for another, when he wants to repay another he
will never repay him to make him like himself. For example, a king who
wants to appoint a second to the thrown will not make that the second
to the thrown should be the king himself—if he does he no longer
king—but God, if He takes someone who holifies and purifies himself
and makes God rule on all the organs of his body, God takes that
person and makes him like Himself and even more than Himself. This
refers to tzadikim if they holify and purify themselves he gives them
such powers that they are like God, and He even makes the tzadik rule
over God. The Or Lashamaim brings this multiple times. I am only
saying this regarding the thing—the heavenly power that we have here,
that we have the privilege that we can live here together with the
Rebbe, together such Shabboses and Yomtovs, everyone according to his
strength, but everyone who has brains and goes along knows that he is
standing near a true tzadik who [his father] the [late] Rebbe of
blessed memory said about him that no one has such a holiness of
“yesod” [purity in sexual issues] like him. And we are not even
talking about what was when the [late] Rebbe of blessed memory was
still alive. From then until now everything that passed [in the life
of] the Rebbe. We cannot fathom how tzadikim proceed every day and go
forth [to new levels of greatness]. There is a concept of “tzadik
moshel yiras elokim.” When we feel that it’s true tzadikim we feel it.
When we learn Chassidic books we don’t have to contend—When we learn
Chassidic books that we have to be connected to tzadikim we feel that
this goes in one with the Rebbe. For example when it says in Meor
Einaim that when we say [the prayer of] Keser we become elevated only
when we are connected to a tzadik whoever hears a Keser from the rebbe
feels it. …or simply to stand and look simply at the Rebbe… and
everything we have here this is Jerusalem of America or of the entire
[world] outside of Israel. We have a merit to live here… But someone
who is nebach burned from the goyish world and he looked so much at
things that are forbidden and did so much himself and with his kids
things that are forbidden, spoke so much that even his friends
themselves became shaken up how this man can talk so much forbidden
things… then it is self-evident that it enters in such a person an
opposition to holiness. He can’t tolerate holiness. Then from this
comes out the foundation of [what happened]. This is the foundation of
the whole problem. The foundation of the whole problem is one thing,
as we have discussed here that [New Square] has a governance, and the
governance is holiness itself or divinity. This was the [late] Rebbe
of blessed memory: A piece of elokus [divinity]. And is the Rebbe, may
he be healthy and strong to long good and blessed years, a piece of
elokus [divinity]. He has nothing else in his head that burns him,
only one thing: the will of God… and the will of his holy father [the
late rebbe] which is the will of God… …the well-known [passage of
the] holy Or Hachaim which he brings the story of Korach as at the
time they were fighting there. Moshe our teacher was fighting
with—Dasan and Avirom were fighting with Moshe our teacher. And the
holy Or Hachaim asks what did Moshe ever do to them [that they should
be fighting with him]… and he explains “there is no reason for their
hate except that they are part of absolute evil for the nature of evil
is to hate the good a strong and natural hate without reason.” [end of
passage of the Or Hachaim]. When we see someone going out against the
tzadikim of the generation—and we find other instances like this where
someone went out against one of the tzadikim of the generation—they
looked into it and it was because of this reason that holy Or Hachaim
reveals here… This is the nature that God put in—that is: holiness and
tumah [defilement] hate each other a strong natural hate which cannot
be changed… When a person nebach comes so far, he should be so
strongly fallen—this doesn’t happen from [sinning] one time or from
two times—but there comes a time that when a person holds there
nebachhe is already on the way that the story that occurred here
occurred. …but if a person sins himself in a very severe manor and
went farther and farther, as the holy Or Hachaim brings that he became
a concept of evil then he can’t see any good. He looks entirely
different at everything. Everything from holiness he hates. So it
gets switched to other issues. He can’t come out and say that he is
evil… so [such] people make up certain opinions [to preach]. And
sometimes when it is yet necessary they take out some books about
fearing God and they yet make themselves look religious with certain
things… It says in Tiferes Shlomo… taken from the Maor Vashemesh that
if a person learns books about fearing God but he doesn’t go tzadikim
the holy Baal Shem Tov revealed that “this is nothing.” It is merely
fooling the eyes. He doesn’t want to have to serve God with the entire
excitement… So he makes certain religiosities. He prays piously or the
like. He makes an appearance. The prayer doesn’t go anywhere. The
whole thing is a waste. It comes from the side of tumah [defilement].
A person who comes out against a Jewish leader, even if it is not such
a high place like here, any place in the world, a Jew who goes against
a leader of thousands of Jews is from the side of tumah. There is no
doubt…
The bachur [spitzer] has not done anything! It is an outburst of the
fact that a few select individuals came out against the whole place.
Everyone who is here is Skver is a chasid of the Rebbe… there is a
famous vort that I have already previously repeated that [the sages
say], “one who doubts his rabbi is like one who doubts God.” Someone
thought to himself, perhaps he [his Rebbe] is not my rabbi maybe that
other rebbe is my rabbi. So he answered [that the passage of the sages
can be read and interpreted differently]: “One who thinks the other is
his rabbi [is like one who doubts God]”…
The same head that is full of internet, the same head that is full of
nivul peh [obscene speech], the same head that is full of disregarding
the opinion of tzadikim, this head will tell how to lead Jews…This day
that just occurred [Spitzer’s sentence] is all their [the dissidents]
workings, from beginning to end! From inciting the oilam [residents of
New Square] to the mesirah [handing over Spitzer to the government],
to putting the bachur [Spitzer] in jail. And then they will come say
that this came because of your [the establishment’s] deeds… They hide
that they caused the entire thing that the people got so angry what
even a goyishe city would understand this way and even any judge would
understand that this is what has to be done, and it’s quite normal
that such a thing happened. Every place—this they will hide, but now I
will say that we have to strengthen ourselves…