"The Sinners of My People (Who Ignore Autistics) Will Die By The Sword"

So Nava's apocalypse, courtesy of the Tzaddik Nistar, has not yet arrived, and she turns to promoting other false prophets. (Indeed, in a post ironically titled "Falsehood is Disintegrating"!) The nevi`ei sheker in question are the autistics. They are fake for four evident reasons:

1. The mechanism they claim to use to communicate, facilitated communication, is nowadays (though was not initially) considered by many to be a pseudoscience even in the common case of non-mystical autistics. Critics claim that it is the facilitator, rather that the autistic, who is communicating, using the same sort of "ideamotor effect" that scientifically explains movement on Ouija boards.
   
   
2. Even those doctors who promote facilitated communication as scientific in the general case distance themselves from facilitated communication as practiced by these "mystical" autistics, among other reasons because of problematic differences in procedure which would make it even less likely it comes from the autistics. Indeed, the mystical autistics have taken to explaining away all sorts of these problems by means of telepathy, or the neshama of the autistic rather than his conscious mind communicating.
   
   
3. While on the surface, the messages from the autistics appear inspirational, as calls to teshuva, in truth their messages are more problematic. They insult Gedolim; engage in tremendous sinas chinam; attempt to dictate halacha, where the matter is often a machlokes -- something which a navi would be a navi sheker if he tried to do -- while claiming that they are not doing it. The message alone is not believable, but this is perhaps not clear to the hamon am.
   
   
4. They have already made a number of false predictions, including one apocalyptic war in Israel about a year ago and the failing of all commercial banks (rather than investment banks, which is a homonym)  such that no one would be able to withdraw any of their money. The connected George Bush and the minor war in Georgia to Gog and Magog, based in part on similarity of name. Some of these false predictions have been "interpreted" rather charitably as being fulfilled by people who want to see them fulfilled, so some think that the autistics have a track record of accurate predictions. This is not the case. If a navi were being put to the test, the correct conclusion would be navi sheker. (Except of course that negative predictions cannot be put to the test, so they are staying "safe".)

As such, there is no reason to pay heed to these false "facilitators" over any other lunatic screaming on the street that the end is nigh. Besides being a likely violation of tamim tihyeh im Hashem elokecha, we are told explicitly in Devarim 18:22 that we should not be afraid of him:

כב  אֲשֶׁר יְדַבֵּר הַנָּבִיא בְּשֵׁםה, וְלֹא-יִהְיֶה הַדָּבָר וְלֹא יָבֹא--הוּא הַדָּבָר, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-דִבְּרוֹ יְהוָה:  בְּזָדוֹן דִּבְּרוֹ הַנָּבִיא, לֹא תָגוּר מִמֶּנּוּ.  {ס}

22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken; the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him.

There is a positive aspect of this false prophecy. Time Magazine had an article last week about the difficulty of managing autistic people as they age. Perhaps so long as they are in these yeshivot and being exploited they will be well taken care of. Even so, it is unfortunate how they are poisoning Judaism and leading Jews astray in an apocalyptic cult.

It seems to me that they are lashing out at the disbelievers in the latest missive. For they title the latest one "The Sinners of My People Will Die By The Sword," a reference to Amos 9:10. (And here in Mikraos Gedolos.) But there is an end to that pasuk, that makes it clear precisely which sinners the facilitators mean:

י  בַּחֶרֶב יָמוּתוּ, כֹּל חַטָּאֵי עַמִּי:  הָאֹמְרִים, לֹא-תַגִּישׁ וְתַקְדִּים בַּעֲדֵינוּ--הָרָעָה.

10 All the sinners of My people shall die by the sword, that say: 'The evil shall not overtake nor confront us.'

That is, the sinners are those people who do not believe in the claims of the impending doom. I guess that means me. The thing is, I know already from their methods and their messages that they are false prophets, so I will not believe them, no matter how much they try to scare me. The pasuk in Devarim tells me not to worry about the message of these prophets. And they are no Amos.

Another of their messages is that one cannot simultanously be any bit materialistic and merit redemption and/or olam haba. Perhaps because the facilitators are poor, they begrudge wealth on the part of others and call it the Egel Hazahav. Meanwhile, the Torah promises wealth in this world as well for doing mitzvos, and some Tannaim and Amoraim were wealthy, and did not look at it as a bad thing, but rather as a blessing from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The autistics more or less say to cast off wealth, because this will prevent redemption or any share in Olam Haba. To cite:

"They too are enjoying all the gashmius like the Charedi Jews in America. In each country it takes on a different shape but in the end it is still the Egel Hazahav and it is destroying every thing spiritual in life. 

Am Yisrael, we are right before The End. You want eternal life? Then you must throw away every connection to the olam hazeh. The only way to do that is to accept with humility the Yoke of Heaven. 

This is the final tikkun [rectification] for this generation. Whoever does not complete this tikkun, chas veshalom, whoever does not lower his head and accept everything we are given form Hakadosh Baruch Hu, every blow, every difficult thing He gives us, without question, and does not cry out to Heaven: “Hashem is the Lord, Hashem is the lord, Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem echad” will disappear from this world - as well as from the Olam Haba, lo aleinu. 

Whoever does say this with all of his heart and truly accepts the Yoke of Heaven, he will gain eternal life [olam haba] and greet Moshiach Tzidkanu, bezras Hashem. Whoever does not – there is no hope for him."

There was another Jewish false prophet, about 2000 years ago, who had a similar message. He said (Matthew 19:24):

Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into the kingdom of God."

To cite an article which was found in Hamodia:

And as a matter of fact, the Torah does take a far more favorable attitude towards the accumulation of wealth than does Christianity. There were Tannaim and Amoraim of great wealth as well as great poverty, and neither state was viewed as conferring moral superiority. With wealth goes responsibility, but those responsibilities do not undercut property rights; they are found in Yore Deah not Choshen Mishpat. The ymearly [sic] Church fathers, by way of contrast, viewed the accumulation of more wealth than one needs for his basic subsistence to be sinful, akin to theft.