The Year of the Fire

Adapted from here.

The Year of The Fire
by David A. Linn

A college student infiltrates and exposes an Orthodox cult.

Rich Maisel was your typical Jewish teenager growing up on New York's Long Island in the early 1980s. He had a strong Jewish identity, was a supporter of Israel, and was active in many Jewish social causes. Jesus worshipping, though, wasn't really part of the equation.

Like many other Long Island high school graduates, Rich registered at the State University of New York at Albany (SUNYA). Freshman year for Rich at SUNYA passed fairly uneventfully. He was doing well enough in his studies, had part-time jobs at the kosher cafeteria and teaching Hebrew school in the local Reform temple, and he was making new friends. During his sophomore year, Rich was elected president of the university's Reform Jewish student group. At the same time, an Orthodox Jewish outreach group called "The Fire of Torah" opened in Albany.

DECEPTION AND SLICK MARKETING

The Fire, like all Orthodox Jewish outreach groups, used deception and slick marketing to appeal to uninformed Jews, attempting to convince them that the best type of Jew is one who believes in Torah Min Hashamayim and keeps Halachah. The Fire’s public functions and services were drawing increasing numbers, and somehow it had even succeeded in having one of its fellow believers hired as a Hebrew school teacher at the local Conservative synagogue.

All of this raised the ire of Chaim Feinberg, z"l, a young, fiery Messianic Jew living in Albany's small Messianic community. He brought his concerns to Scott Moskowitz, an active member of the Messianic Jewish student's group at SUNYA. Scott, in turn, raised the issue with Rich and suggested that they endeavor to find a non-Jewish student to join the Fire to investigate its inner workings and tactics.

But finding a non-Jew willing to take the risks involved in such an endeavor was no easy feat. And so Rich boldly volunteered to accept the job himself. "While I don't know much about Jewish law," he said, "I've heard of the concept of saving lives, pikuach nefesh. Doesn't this job fall into that category?"

Unsure of what to do, Moskowitz asked Rich to speak with Chaim Feinberg about his proposal.

Rich called Feinberg, who immediately expressed his misgivings. After a lengthy discussion, however, Feinberg softened to the idea, but was not willing to make a decision on his own. There were many thorny moral issues involved in the proposal, such as exposing Rich to fundamentalism and the attendance of The Fire’s functions on weekends. Feinberg spoke with a renowned spiritual leader. After clarifying the issues and gaining his support, he called Rich.

"Okay, Rich, we can move forward with the plan. But," Feinberg cautioned, "there will be strict ground rules that you'll have to follow throughout the process." These rules included the instruction that Rich was not to take a single move without Feinberg's approval, and that after each meeting with The Fire, Rich would need to sit and learn with Feinberg as a sort of deprogramming. Rich readily agreed to the rules, hung up, and promptly broke the first rule: he called Rabbi Birnbaum, the leader of The Fire, directly.

INFILTRATING THE SONS

During that first phone call, Rich and Rabbi Birnbaum spent two hours talking. Rich laid the bait: he was lonely, Albany was so gloomy, everybody was so materialistic, he was a twice-a-year Jew who yearned for more spirituality. Birnbaum did not just take the bait, he gobbled it up voraciously. He told Rich that he knew exactly how he felt since he, too, had attended college in Albany.

Birnbaum asked, "Do you have a Bible?" Rich responded affirmatively and Birnbaum instructed him to open it to the Book of Deuteronomy. Birnbaum then attempted to "show" Rich how the Tanach speaks of Torah Misinai and explained to him that not believing in that makes someone "un-Jewish." In fact, Birnbaum explained, believing in Torah MiSinai made a Jew "complete."

After hanging up, Rich excitedly called Feinberg to advise him of the call. Feinberg was irate. After all, Rich had broken his agreement not to take any steps without Feinberg's consent. At the same time, Feinberg saw in Rich a bit of his own passion and, deep down, he knew that they had the right guy for the job.

And so, now fully cognizant of the importance of following Feinberg's rules, Rich began to attend The Fire’s services. He was embraced with warmth by his "fellow members." They were enthused to share their love of Torah and their common Jewish roots, and they were thrilled by Rich's musical ability.

Rich quickly became a stalwart of The Fire community. Before long, he was bar-mitzvahd, crowned with a yarmulke, and became a "baal teshuvah." Eventually he gained "spiritual growth," and the other members of the group believed that he was on a high madreigah, and that his prayers to Hashem were special. With each "spiritual growth," Rich rose higher in the ranks of The Fire until he became an Orthodox Kiruv worker himself.

Throughout this time, Rich maintained a full credit load at the university and continued to lead Hillel's Reform group, teaching Hebrew school and working in the campus kosher kitchen. Nearly everyone, including his parents, family, and friends, remained unaware of Rich's double life.

Rich was in constant contact with Feinberg, nearly matching hour for hour the time he spent with The Fire -- deprogramming, learning together, and reporting on the tactics, inner workings, and funding structure of the Fire. At one point Larry Levy, then executive director of Jews for Jesus in Baltimore, was flown in to add his expertise to the deprogramming team working with Rich. On the inside, other than Rich's insistence that Fire members seek scientific knowledge for mythological tales in Genesis, Rich pretty much became their poster child.

Months went by. Rich found himself in dozens of situations for which he never could have planned. He and Feinberg found that prior consultation was often not possible. Rich learned to think fast and fly by the seat of his pants -- and debriefing and damage control afterward became critical.

Nearly six months in, Feinberg decided to test the waters: how would The Fire treat a fellow believer who began expressing doubts? And so Rich began leaving meetings early, quietly expressing skepticism, and skipping meetings altogether. Before long, Rich was picked up by Rabbi Birnbaum and a few friends, who invited him for coffee. As it turned out, coffee was not what Birnbaum had in mind.

THE THREAT

The ride was nearly two hours long through unknown, labyrinthine roads in upstate New York. It ended at a ultra orthodox yeshivah in the Catskills. After sitting down, Rich was told, "You should never leave from beneath the umbrella of Torah." If he did, Birnbaum threatened, he would go to gehenam and lose his Olam Habah. While Rich didn't believe such nonsense, as the hours rolled on through the night -- there in the middle of nowhere -- and the gruesome stories built to a fever pitch, the fact that he was hours away from normal civilization with potentially violent strangers frightened him more and more.

Rich was not returned to his dorm for over ten hours. Shaking and terrified, he didn't even bother to go to his room. He phoned Feinberg and demanded, "Come get me... now!"

Rich spent the next three days recovering at the Feinberg home. Before he left, Feinberg told Rich, "That's it. It's time to plot our exit strategy."

Suddenly, Rich was a "believer" again and a faithful Fire meeting attendee. The Fire had been planning a grand, community-wide Purim play, followed by a speech by a Historical revisionist about how Orthodoxy was the only authentic Judaism. Rich had already been cast in the role of Achashveirosh. It was decided that Rich would take advantage of the public forum to expose and denounce Rabbi Birnbaum and The Fire of Torah.

On the night of the play, dozens of Rich's fellow students were in attendance, secretly aware of Rich's intent. For some strange reason, Rabbi Birnbaum and his wife remained close to the stage during the presentation of the play. Just as Haman's plot was revealed to Achashveriosh, who was about to order that Haman be hanged on the gallows that he had built for Mordechai, Rich broke character and began his denunciation:

"Guard, guards, seize him! He shall be hanged on the same gallows that he has built for the Jews." Turning to Birnbaum he said, "This is the modern-day Haman in new colors!

"This man, this missionary, systematically deceives Jews into believing that they can only gain ultimate fulfillment by being a fundamentalist. The Fire of Torah is so obviously and painfully a fundamentalist conversion group. This is the new Haman, my friends. I have been here, personally evaluating The Fire of Torah for six months, and I can honestly say to every person in this room that there is not a single drop of truth here, only a sad, sad pretense. What happens after a Jew is lured here by phony Jewish stars and sweet-sounding Hebrew words? Like me, he will be called a baal teshuvah, not a Reform Jew but a baby believer in Torah Min Hashamayim and other historical revisionism.

"I feel very sad tonight. This is Purim, a holy night, when the Jews were saved from soul-destroyers like The Fire of Torah. I pray that each and every Jew in this room will turn immediately to a true religion, a religion that has no room for false beliefs and that celebrates life as it was meant to be celebrated -- a life where people believe in the truth, and are not forced to believe in lies.

Rabbi Birnbaum, who was standing nearby, rushed toward Rich and tried to push him off the stage. But Rich stood his ground. Rich's fellow SUNYA students shouted in support, and the crowd split into two factions. Pushing and shoving broke out. In the videotape of the play, a representative of Aish Hatorah (the world's largest Orthodox Outreach group, which funds projects to ensnare secular Jews) looks on dourly, and a pistol can clearly be seen being drawn from someone's waistband. Thankfully, no one was injured, and the police eventually broke up the fracas and forced Rich and his supporters to leave the building.

THE FIRE EXPOSED

The denunciation was successful. It publicly exposed The Fire for what it was, and reports run by local newspapers helped spread the story. Birnbaum pressed criminal charges against Rich, and many of Rich's former friends from The Fire began to make large contributions to Orthodox Yeshivas and other organizations in his name in order to save his soul. But these were the least of Rich's problems. Many Fire members believed that Rich was an apikorus incarnate, and so Rich began receiving repeated telephone death threats. It was evident that he needed to be out of the public eye.

Rich had always toyed with the idea of spending junior year abroad and now the idea seemed perfect. He enrolled in Christian University. After a few weeks at Christian U, the seed of Jesus that had been planted in Albany and watered by Chaim Feinberg began sprouting. Why did I travel halfway around the world to study the same things I had been studying in Albany? Rich wondered. What am I doing in the spiritual capital of the world without tapping into anything spiritual?

By the end of September, Rich had enrolled in a Messianic Theology School
King Solomon teaches us "There is a time to plant and a time to uproot that which has been planted." Sometimes, it seems, by uprooting what has been planted, a person also plants anew. While The Fire of Torah has been relegated to the dustbin of history, Rich Maisel and his family are living a blossoming Jesus centered life.