On Friday night of the portion of Shelach my son, may he live and be well, returned from a study hall in a Charedi neighborhood of north Jerusalem. In his pocket was an innocent looking pamphlet named "Daat Emet," which at a quick glance seemed to overflow with Torah, fear of Heaven, and the sayings of Chazal, like many found in study halls these days.

But after reading it a little it was clear that it was all meant to mock our pure faith in Torah from the Heavens and the prophecy of Moses OBM and the words of the Talmudic sages OBM through works of cheap mockery wrapped in the seeming scholarship and sophistry of empty questions and other mishaps, G-d help us.

I asked how he had gotten the pamphlet. He told me that he found it in a gemara in the study hall.

It is clear that the source of the missionary pamphlet is one of the secular organizations whose goal is to ambush our sons and inject this disgusting, poisonous material in any way possible, be it through mail distribution or infiltrating the study hall.

Our young lambs should be warned lest they impurify their pure eyes with these words of apostasy and heresy. Let them take precedent from the laws of a Torah scroll written by an apostate who does not believe in Chazal, which must be burned with all the holy names written therein. May what is written, "And the earth is filled with the knowledge of G-d" be fulfilled in us, and may the heretics soon be cut off; may it be His will.

Signed in fear,

Rabbi P. Israeli, Jerusalem

From: Yated Neeman June 23, 1999 9 Tammuz 5759