A cult member tries to de-cultify member of a far worse cult

Conversation between an UOJ and member of Lev Tahor

Source: Full article from Mishpacha Magazine

"We took two plastic chairs from the tent and sat down to talk. Maybe, I thought to myself naively, I’d even be able to persuade him to escape with me in my car.

Are all the dreadful things being said about you true?

“Like what?”

“That you marry off boys at age 13 and girls at age 12.”

“Yes. After all, our holy Avos also married at that age.”

But then they separate them for months on end as a punishment. What about the other terrible punishments I’ve heard about?

“What’s the problem?” Malka says. “Open the seforim of the great mekubal Rav Moshe Cordovero, and you’ll see a list of tikkunim and tortures that a person should take upon himself for every single aveirah that he does.”

Have you heard of even one tzaddik in the past 200 years, from the Baal Shem Tov to this day, who ordered simple people to conduct themselves according to any one of these tikkunim? And who are you to forcibly impose them on other people?

“So why did the Ramak write this sefer? And who did Rav Aharon Roth write his Sefer Hatikkunim for? If we don’t fix it in this world, we’ll get heavy punishments in Olam Haba.”

Why are you dressed this way?

“Because this is the way our elter zeides and elter bubbes dressed. A very long time ago, they dressed this way. True, we don’t have pictures, but we just know it’s true. It’s clear that this is how it was. The holy Avos and Imahos also dressed this way. We’re trying to be as close as possible to what once was.”

What about all the punishments and brutality we’ve been hearing about?

“Nothing to them. Who told you? Tell me names and I’ll explain everything.”

And the fact that you don’t let people leave the cult?

“Totally not true. Yesterday someone left with his children. We have no problem with that.”

I was actually familiar with that particular story, how much evil and cruelty was involved and how the askanim had to pull strings to extradite them.

Every so often he showed me on his smartphone all kinds of clips that ostensibly proved his words.

You’re allowed to have these devices?

“Now we’re allowed to because there is no choice. We are facing a war of destruction. But we have a filter.”

From the stories we know, I’ve long learned that for the members of Lev Tahor, everything is permitted for the sake of the existence and survival of the cult."