Tuesday, April 02, 2013

The Boyaner Rebbe's little secret - His father taught at YU and his older brother works for NASA

The Mishpacha magazine in both English and Hebrew had a cover story about the Boyaner Rebbe in their big Pesach issue. What was most interesting about the article was not what they wrote but what they left out. Although they mentioned his father in the article a number of times they never explained what the Rebbe's father did, where he taught, and why he didn't become the Rebbe. They also completely left out the Rebbe's older brother Yigal from the story who should have been Rebbe before his brother. The obvious question is why? After all these are important elements of the Rebbe's biography.

The answer is very simple. The Rebbe's father and brother are not Charedi and don't fit the mold. The Boyaner Rebbe's father, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Brayer, was a doctor of psychology and respected lecturer in education and Bible at Yeshiva University in New York and a prolific author. Even though he always considered himself a Boyan Hasid in every respect, and had a senior status among Hasidim, Rabbi Brayer was firmly in the modern Orthodox world. He was the leader of a mixed community of ultra-Orthodox and modern Orthodox in New York, and devoted most of his life to academic research. The Rebbe's older brother has a Ph.d and works for NASA and his sister also has a Ph.d. These facts don't fit in with the Charedi narrative of a holy Rebbe following in his ancestors footprints and therefore have to be concealed from the Charedi public.

2 comments:

Reb Yid said...

The fact that his sister has a PhD means he's not following in his ancestor's footprints? Your argument isn't very strong.

bluke said...

The fact that he grew up in a MO family where his father taught at YU and his older brother and sister got Ph.ds is not what you would expect for a Rebbe.