How Rabbi Akiva differs from delusional tractor driver Nir ben Artzi

This tractor driver is also non-delusional.

Why do I keep referring to Nir ben Artzi as a tractor driver? I've already explained, at length, that this is an way effective way of highlighing that he is no kabbalist or rabbi, but rather a psychic am ha'aretz. But in this post I'd like to consider it from other angles, and elaborate a bit.

In a recent post, Tomer Devorah wrote:

You do have to wonder though what is behind this obsession with Rabbi Ben Artzi having been a "tractor driver?" When was Rabbi Ben Artzi driving a tractor? More than fifteen years ago? What was Rabbi Akiva doing at the age of forty when he had yet to learn the aleph bet? How many people do you suppose wondered to themselves, andout loud, "...that Moshe ben Amram,...that David ben Yishai,...that Akiva ben Yosef, he's been a shepherd, smells like the animals, what could he ever turn into?"

Perhaps Tomer Devorah is simply unaware of Nir ben Artzi's history. He started his 'kabbalistic rabbi' career because he was a delusional tractor driver. That is, in the early 1990's, he was driving a tractor, and he was (purportedly) able to psychically see things that others could not. He warned people not to dig in certain places, because there were underground pipes, such that it was dangerous. People were impressed with his psychic abilities, and soon he began to attract followers. At this point, he quit driving the tractor and moved to the back of a little store in an Ashkelon mall and began to receive audiences. He joined with Rabbi Shmuel Shukron (one of his eventual abductors / torturers) and then assumed for himself, with no basis, the title Rabbi, and became the leader of this community of cultists / followers. All of this is in this video which appeared on Channel 2 in Israel and which Nir ben Artzi put on his own website, because it tells his side of the story. See in this hour-long video -- a lot of what I said above appears at 7:44 and on in the video.

17/10/2009 22:10

It is worth watching the video in full. The same video, which is on his website, and tells his story, states that he does NOT have semicha and that is what Rabbi Shukron brought to the table, that Shukron is at least officially a rabbi. The makers of this show were trying to tell Nir ben Artzi's side. He certainly could have told them that no, he does have semicha. And he could have proved this by showing them the klaf, of telling them who granted the semicha. He did NOT. Rather, it is clear that he does not have semicha.  I stress this point to counter Tomer Devorah, who is insistent on remaining ignorant:

From the time that I first learned of his alleged lack of smicha, (because to date, I do not know if he has or he hasn't!) I have referred to him only as "Rabbi," not Rav and not HaRav. 

It is indeed a good trait to be dan lekaf zechut, and I commend Tomer Devorah on this. Though there are halachic parameters for being dan lekaf zechut, where it is appropriate and inappropriate to do so. One would think that if she is unclear on this point of Nir ben Artzi's rabbinic status, instead of personally calling him Rabbi (for other reasons, as she states -- namely Rav Shmuel Eliyahu's approbation), and translating his parsha sheets and thus presenting to the public that he is "HaRav ... shlita", thus confusing the public, she could have asked the same people she received permission to translate whether he was or was not ordained.

So he is a delusional tractor driver / tractor driver psychic and he has continued in his same shtik for the past thirteen years. Before turning to the case of Rabbi Akiva, I'd like to repeat Tomer Devorah's quote:

You do have to wonder though what is behind this obsession with Rabbi Ben Artzi having been a "tractor driver?" When was Rabbi Ben Artzi driving a tractor? More than fifteen years ago? What was Rabbi Akiva doing at the age of forty when he had yet to learn the aleph bet? How many people do you suppose wondered to themselves, andout loud, "...that Moshe ben Amram,...that David ben Yishai,...that Akiva ben Yosef, he's been a shepherd, smells like the animals, what could he ever turn into?"

Well, now you know. "When was Rabbi [sic] Nir ben Artzi driving a tractor?" Yes, About thirteen to fifteen years ago, as far as I can tell. But he jumped to psychic immediately. That he continues the same shtik and is no longer a tractor driver means nothing.

What was Rabbi Akiva doing at the age of forty, when he had yet to leard the aleph bet? He was a shepherd. If at that point, Akiva decided to start paskening shaylos and drew a following of the gullible, and then wrongfully assumed the title Rabbi and persisted in that practice for more than fifteen years, Chazal would have criticized him. And it would be wrong to say "well, he was a shepherd over fifteen years ago!"

Maybe, though, Nir ben Artzi is now learned, while he was not more than fifteen years ago? Just because Rabbi Shlomo Aviner said:

"ניר בן ארצי אינו תלמיד חכם אלא עם הארץ, עד עצם היום הזה. כמו כן, אינו המשיח, ואינו מבשר המשיח, ואינו בעל רוח הקודש", כך פתח הרב שלמה אבינר את "גילוי הדעת" הראשון שלו בעניין. ברשימות הבאות מוסיף אבינר ומבהיר ש"אין מדובר בתלמיד קטן שלא הגיע להוראה, אלא בעם הארץ גמור שלא למד מאומה", וש"לצערנו כת משיח השקר ניר בן-ארצי הנם הוזים". 

To roughly translate:
"Nir ben Artzi is not a Torah scholar but rather is an ignoramus, until this very day. So too, he is not mashiach nor an announcer for the mashiach, nor is he one who possesses ruach hakodesh... We are not speaking about a small student who has not reached the level of being able to rule, but rather of an ignoramus who has not learned anything... To our pain, the messianic cult of Nir ben Artzi, they are hallucinating."

This was from HaRav Aviner, shlita's, sefer, Ben Or Lechoshech, published in 1999, and he writes "until this very day". Well, now it is 2011, so perhaps Nir ben Artzi is no longer an utter ignoramus, and perhaps he now knows gemara and kabbalah?

Well, why assume that he was acting as a psychic rather than scholar and kabbalist then, but he is saying the same things and a scholar and kabbalist now? It is the same shtik!

Further, if he were a great talmid chacham now, it is very easy to demonstrate. Let him actually speak words of Torah, instead of deranged prophecies of gloom and doom!

I will bring here the words of Rabbi Yaakov Mosheh Hilel:

, particularly the stomach-ache point. 

The quip is that a Talmudist is like someone with a fever, while a kabbalist is like someone with a stomach ache. The fever can be measured with a thermometer, but there is no way to verify the claim of a stomach ache. Similarly, a Talmudist can be tested; a Kabbalist cannot.

Yet, a Talmudist can be tested. Someone does not just get the "benefit of the doubt" that he is a great Torah scholar! This is a testable attribute. One need not grant someone this when he has exhibited no Torah knowledge in the past. And especially when this purported Torah knowledge is used to bolster claims to leadership, or claims that his dire psychic predictions are based on Torah, somehow!

Next, I'd like to analyzing the words of someone else who thinks I am doing wrong by making clear just who Nir ben Artzi is and is not. In a comment one of the previous posts, Concerned Jew wrote:

The fact that HaRav HaGaon Shmuel Eliahu, who everyone in both camps in Israel (Chareidi and Dati-Leumi) respect has tacitly endorsed the person under discussion, it is disrespectful to discuss his name in the way you, he being a "Real Rabbi" or not. My assumption is that he probably knows more Talmud than yourself as many Cab Drivers can probably be accredited scholarly status as well.

I will not address Rav Shmuel's tacit or explicit approbation of Nir ben Artzi in this post, even though both Concerned Jew and Tomer Devorah raised this point. This would require another lengthy post of its own. But don't think I am evading the question -- it is on my queue, and I do indeed have a good answer.

Concerned Jew made the "assumption" that Nir ben Artzi probably knows more Talmud than I do, since many cab drivers in Israel can be accredited scholarly status. Here is why I think Concerned Jew is wrong. (1) You don't operate on 'probably' when according such status, especially where there are wide-ranging repercussions from such an assumption. If I wanted to know whether a chicken was kosher, I would NOT approach any random tractor driver or cab driver to ask my shailah, because they 'probably' have greater knowledge than my local posek. That would be ridiculous. (2) Some cab drivers are very learned, but that does not mean that someone is learned by virtue of being a cab driver. There was a study about a decade back in which many, many Israeli high school students thought that Shaddai meant "my breast" and that Gedalya of Tzom Gedalya was a Member of Knesset. (3) Cab drivers don't have the opportunity to manifest their knowledge. Nir ben Artzi functions as the leader of a community, and sends out weekly "parsha" sheets entirely devoid of Torah content. That this is missing is strange, if he is really a great Talmudic scholar. This is enough to make one question this very weak tacit assumption. (5) We have Rav Shlomo Aviner's statement stating the opposite.

Finally, Ben-Yehudah wrote:

I find it disturbing, not so much that you go after Ben-Artzi, in such a negative fashion  (I've done much worse, so I can hardly criticize you for that), but that you use tractor driver as a negative.  Would you have done the same if he were a doctor?  We need Jewish tractor drivers.  If we had more, perhaps the two terrorist attacks by Arab tractor drivers would not have occurred.  It is an an honest job.  I know more than a few tractor drivers in the Shomron who are Torah-learned.  I am disturbed by what appears to me to be an artifact of American, Galuthi, Ashkenzy, classism and snobbery... If this was not your intention, by all means, please correct me, and consider writing a clarification on this matter.

I tried to clarify in previous posts that this was not rabbinic snobbery at play. We need Jewish tractor drivers. And the Chafetz Chaim was a shop-keeper! The reason I repeatedly call him a delusional tractor driver is because that is his entire claim to fame. He is the psychic tractor driver! After a while, I am supposing, he saw that he could garner a greater following if he called himself kabbalist and rabbi, and so he did this.

I will say, though, that being a tractor driver does not require any great intellectual effort. One can possess a great intellect, be a Torah-learned individual, who happens to drive a tractor for a living. And I am sure there are such individuals, and kol hakavod to them! But someone who is unlearned, and spends day in and day out driving a tractor, and suddenly out of nowhere describes himself as a psychic, and then, takes for himself the title HaRav ... shlita without the years of learning -- one should perhaps point out that at the end of the day, he is either a psychic or delusional tractor driver. Perhaps there is some element of intellectual snobbery, just as even Rabbi Yochanan thought it remarkable that his Beham could answer a Samaritan opponent when he was at loss for an answer.

Still to come, in other posts, I need to address Rav Shmuel Eliyahu's approval and I need to demonstrate that Nir ben Artzi did NOT predict the recent tsunami in Japan, just as Rabbi Shimon Dahan did not predict a tsunami.