Rabbi Uriel Wigler, Chabad's emissary to Israelis in Manhattan, New York, was shocked to discover that his Facebook home page, through which he regularly delivers Torah lessons to his many followers, had been shut down.
Don't be a sucker: You may be entitled to a lot of money from National Insurance.The lesson that "upset" Facebook was delivered under the title "The Real Coronavirus Vaccine.".
The official claim he received from the social network was that the page had a "violation of community standards.".
In response, he sent a letter to the company's founder and owner:
in honor of
Mr. Mark Elliot Zuckerberg
Facebook corporate offices
Menlo Park, California
Dear Mark,
My name is Uriel, and I have been a customer of your company for a good few years. The truth is, I am grateful to you and your partners for creating this social platform 16 years ago. Using my personal Facebook account allows me and millions like me to stay in touch with people anywhere in the world. Whether it's childhood friends in South Africa, acquaintances from all over the years, or community members who have moved away from where I live in New York City.
As you can guess, I use all the possibilities inherent in the media you have developed, in my field of activity. I strive to bring ideas from the Torah, the dissemination of Torah commandments, and the universal message inherent in the Torah and the heritage of Israel to the masses, Jews and non-Jews alike, in written or broadcast form. This is exactly why I was shocked when I discovered that you decided to block me!
Since the damn virus (Corona – Covid 19) broke into our lives, disrupting all of our lives, I have transitioned to being a rabbi and community leader virtually. The lessons I give to community members, the sermons I give every Shabbat and holiday, the connection to adults and young people in the basic human service I provide as a spiritual leader, have all moved to Facebook, or Zoom, and similar virtual platforms.
This week, for some reason, you decided to censor the Torah lesson I gave, labeling it "against the laws of society" (probably because of a very specific algorithm...) and preventing my target audience from watching the Torah lesson on this week's parashat that I prepared with great care and effort.
Are you serious?! To say that I was shocked and in shock, and couldn't believe my eyes, would diminish my sense of the serious act you did.
Never, during the 12 years that I have had an active account on the Internet, have I published any manifesto of hatred, or anything suspected of any political bias.
As the rabbi of a large and diverse community in Manhattan, New York, and a spiritual guide to thousands from all ends of the political spectrum, they know that political, gender, economic, or ethnic background do not fall under my considerations towards them at all. I very devoutly maintain the boundaries of discourse, even in charged times, because my mission is to spread light, Judaism in a positive light, Torah and mitzvot, and Hasidism. I am unable to understand why you decided to mark my account as problematic? And block my ability to use it for proper spiritual purposes?!
But as a Jew, as a Hasid, who is familiar with the concept of 'private providence', of 'reflection of the soul', I said I'll check anyway, maybe I was wrong. I got into the guts of your scandalous decision, and I found that there were four Torah lessons on the weekly portion, which may have disturbed you or the workers under you. It seems that the weekly lesson entitled "The cure for the coronavirus found in the weekly portion" jumped out at you, raising red flags on the radar of the "community standards" at the Facebook company you own.
In abject seriousness, I went through the lesson thoroughly from beginning to end, to see where you found the "fake news" that upset you: I begin the lesson with a historical insight, that the reason for the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile in which we have been for almost two thousand years, is - as the sages of Israel who lived at that time taught us - because of gratuitous hatred. Such a grave sin, the degree of which is compared by the sages to the three grave transgressions in the Torah that the Jew is commanded to "kill and not commit", incest, bloodshed, idolatry (adultery, murder, and idolatry). And how do we fix it? How do we find a cure for this incurable disease of terrible hatred without reason?
Free love! Start loving each other, for no reason! Simply love, contain, give up, embrace, accept. This is the proven prescription, the necessary vaccine that will lead me to general human healing, and to the coming of true and complete redemption. This will also end all other diseases, complications, problems, this will heal all of humanity and the entire world, including the latest pandemic that has paralyzed the world, the damned Corona.
Free love as a cure for free hate is such an ingenious but also so simple vaccine, which lies in the golden advice of the Holy Torah and the tradition of Israel. This is what I wanted to convey to the masses. The cure for the virus, the cure that the great experts, pharmaceutical companies, countries and powers are working on, is also under the spotlight. Love. And it's free!
In the surprising message I received from you, you wrote: "According to company standards, false information that can lead to physical harm, and make people feel unsafe in the social environment on Facebook, is removed immediately." So let me surprise you, and I will state here again: There is no more important message, and no more reassuring and safe message, than what I sought to convey and explain to people! Love between people, unconditionally, is the medicine we all need.
And here in the bloody, fractured, and divided United States, even more so than anywhere else in the world. Not only will the message I posted on my Facebook account not lead people to feel unsafe, not only will it not lead to any physical, emotional, or mental harm, on the contrary, it is what will lead to the great healing that everyone is seeking, consciously or subconsciously.
Mark, we may disagree on a lot of things, you know what? Maybe even on the 99% of things, but that doesn't in the least diminish the free love I have for you, man to man, Jew to Jew. I love you like a brother, with all my heart and soul, without reservations or conditions.
''Misinformation' did you label my words? The thing that is the furthest thing from "fake news" or funded, misleading, distorted information, from any side of the political map, is the Torah of Israel. True Torah, given to us by Moses our Lord on Mount Sinai, exactly 3333 years ago. You and I, like the entire people of Israel, and the souls of the people of Israel for their generations, stood there at the foot of the mountain, in the greatest divine revelation that has ever occurred in human history. In essence, we learned the foundations of the Torah, on all its levels, together from the mouth of the hero.
If you happen to visit the synagogue this coming Shabbat, listen to this week's parashah – Parashah Va'Thachanan. This is first-hand testimony about the "Ten Commandments" given in that sublime setting. Even if you don't get to visit for one reason or another, I would be happy to discuss the contents of the parashah with you here! On Facebook! On the wonderful social platform that has changed the face of the world in recent decades.
If you would like to meet, and discuss this closely, you are invited to our Chabad house, and we will even honor you with a special guest, as we read together the Ten Commandments from the Torah scroll. From the giving of the Torah until now, our social standards as a people, as a nation, have not changed. And loving your neighbor as yourself is a great rule in the Torah. There may be differences between us, but I have unconditional love for you, and I wanted to convey this message to others as well.
With great love,
Rabbi Uriel Wigler
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