Scandal erupts over Ohr Somayach altering words in Ma’oh Tzur

Scandal erupts over Ohr Somayach altering words in Ma’oh Tzur

 

 

 

By Rabbi Lamech SomayachMeshumad Meshubach

Mashgiach Ruchini Yeshiva Aishes Eish HaTorah

Special to meshumadmeshubach.blogspot.com

 A recent historical revelation about the practices of Ohr Somayach has once again roiled the Orthodox communities around the world with charges of idolatry and revisionism, much to the chagrin of wealthy donors everywhere.

 The scandal surrounds certain rabbis who changed the lyrics to a famous winter holiday tune Ma’oh Tzur to reflect their own glory over the glory of god and sang this song in their prayer hall.

In a recent article about the school in the Haredi rag, the Yated Neeman  they quoted the entire speech by famed Haredi fictionist and speaker, Rabbi Simcha Schorr, son of the famous Rabbi Gedalia Schorr. While the article and all critics agree on some of the rabbis statements, there has been a groundswell over the songs and dancing that followed.

The yeshiva has put up with enough bad students to last forever and now we can deny those lacking sufficient wealth, Schorr said in his speech.  He was referring to a  $12 million payment from Joe Tannenbaum for their fancy study hall. 

But then “the rabbis all got up and started dancing and laughing and screaming and sang Ma’oh Tzur, only they changed the words from talking about the inauguration of the holy temple in Jerusalem to a praise of their own building in Monsey they were going to make,” said Fayge Felayge, a Hassidic woman who was witness to the carnage that took place. “They were implying Ohr Somayach as the new temple for all of Judaism, isn’t that what the German Reform Jews said before the Holocaust?  That is what I learned at the Aish discovery weekend.”

 “The real scandal, besides the rabbis at Ohr Somayach dancing for themselves, is how they are happy leach money from the Monsey community but would not attend the bar mitzvah of a poor orphan, much less dance at the wedding of a minor donor,” Said Rabbi Moshe Dovid Tendler, a Professor Emeritus of Yeshiva University and head of his own congregation in Monsey.

Other Jewish leadership seemed to think that the revision was good for the religion, such as Rabbi Nosson Wolpin, Editor in Chief of the Jewish Observer, the voice of Haredism. 

“We see Jewish owned institutions advertising with the private branding of publicly financed institutions like the sports stadiums and roads, and musical jingles were an advertising campaign staple for decades, so it only makes sense to rewrite this bedrock of observance in a way to encourage more donors,” Wolpin said. 

Wolpin when further to compare the increasing pace of innovations of all other areas of observance with the change of the song, remarked “We are certain the medieval commentators had nothing except inspiration with most of their interpretations of the Bible and Talmud, so this is no different.”