A Debunk of Yaron Reuven
Written on Shevat 30, 5781
Reuven's followers ^^^
I used to be a follower of Yaron Reuven, a con man and charlatan (though he does believe what he says) who essentially leads a cult of very close-minded cult-followers who accept every baseless claim he makes about the Torah (I know because I was one of them). His entire carreer is just a humongous conglomeration of unsubstantiated claims. What's funnier is that he makes a big deal about him always telling the truth, and in simple terms, and about always linking sources to devrei Torah, and yet never leaves any citations for the lies he makes up. I wonder why? He also has a large cult following of people I call "cult apologetics" that always make comments to his critics along the lines of "He is a wonderful servent of HaShem how dare you speak Lashon HaRa about him!" These comments never really argue anything, but merely claim falsely that the critic is committing lashon hara. Let the debunk begin.
One claim that already discredits him to a huge, huge degree is that he slandered Rabbi Sacks (I await his appearance in olam haba) by claiming that he said that yetzias Mitzraim was a parable. Of course this is unsubstantiated. And this is the basis on which he claims Sacks to be a "heretic". But even if he did say that yetzias Mitzraim was a parable, he would still not be a "heretic who deserves to die." At some point he "apologized", saying that he might not have been right, but then he slandered Sacks again by claiming that he was a heretic for other reasons, such as him supposedly saying that Chava was a protitute[1]; he did not say that, but even if he did, he would not be a "heretic who deserves to die." In the same "apology", he said that he might not have been right when he slandered Natan Slifkin, saying he was put in cherem. The "apology" video was also titled "Apologies to Rashaim."
One of his favorite topics is on the supposed horribleness of masturbation, saying that masturbation is equivalent to murdering 300,000,000 people[2], which is 3 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10. So masturbation is equal to the holocaust, times 50, wow. He obviously never provides any citation to this claim, nor is this supported in the slightest by the Torah. I could go on for ages showing how mind-bogglingly ridiculous this claim is. The reason he says this, I believe, is because on average, when one masturbates, they kill that many sperms. But even when one has legitimate sex, only one sperm actually fertilizes the egg. By this logic, having sex of any kind should be the worst sin in the Torah.
He also has this cute little blacklist of the "erev rav" rabbis that are supposedly heritcal and deserve to die. This list mainly is comprised of people he merely disagrees about on minor issues. Natan Slifkin, who I very much like (but he has some ideas I disagree with and plan to criticize), but has very heavily [and rightfully] bashed Yaron Reuven for his ridiculous claims he makes (you really should read about Reuven on rationalistjudaism.com for further debunks). This is the reason that Reuven added him to the blacklist, despite Slifkin not being heretical or wicked. Reuven has also often falsely copyright-striked critics that fall under fair-use (like Slifkin), which is illegal, and yet Jews [and gentiles] are obligated to keep the "law of the land." Hmmmm...
He even slandered the entire Jewish nation by claiming that the holocaust was caused directly by the Jews' sins[4]. I don't see why he said this lie, as it seems like an unpleasant fantasy to believe in. Jews are obligated to always give someone the benefit of the doubt in a situation like this, so why does he lie to make the Jews seem more guilty than they are? Hmmmm...
Like many con men like him, he pretends that he is this contrarian rebel from the EVIL authority, who has this big conspiracy to do X, and that he is the real Y, and the other Y's are just lying to make money. Ben Davidson, a prime example, pretends he is this contrarian rebel from the EVIL scientists, who have this big conspiracy for G-d knows what, and that he is the real scientist, and all the other scientists are just lying to make money. Both Reuven and Davidson are just random dudes who completely ignore the consensus of the actual legitimate authorities from their field. The reason that these con men do not hold the view of the consensus from their field is that being a contrarian rebel is a nice narrative; but really, they are just false authorities. There's a pretty good reason that virtually every legitimate authority in their fields reject their claims: it's because they're con men. There was a pretty good reason that many rabbis signed a letter condemning him.
Now I will discuss 99% of how his followers respond to criticism, because they almost always say the same several things, shown in the above image. They usually just say that the critic is an evil heretic who deserves to die (one of them said the following on a video exposing Reuven: "Thanks to rabbi Yaaron Reuven's list of kofrim, I now have some extra reading material! *condescending emoji* *condescending emoji*"). Often they say the following (this example is from a real YouTube comment): "Rabbi Yaron Reuven speaks only Emet with sources [wrong] as well as [fake] Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi, great [fake] rabbis !!!" As you see, this, I believe, is the fallacy from assertion, as no evidence or even real arguments were given. They almost always just restort to lazily calling it heresy, or calling the critic a rasha, using a thought-terminating cliche. To illustrate the invalid nature of their argument, simply respond "No! YOU'RE the heretic!" Another common thing they say is that criticizing him is "lashon hara." There are many ways in which it is not, but to address merely one, all the information the critics use has been publicly put on the internet, by Reuven himself. Lashon hara involves speaking things about another that are not public already. Anyway, if you wish to read these comments (be warned, however, that these are some really, really, stupid comments), click here.
I sure hope Reuven sees this article; I wonder what drivel he would say... I also, as of now, do not have very accessible contact information on this website, so he would have to leave a comment, to which I would reply something snarky. Anyway, I'll probably debunk Yosef "Reuven on steroids" Mizrachi, who Reuven associates with, soon (whom I was a supporter of for approximately four hours, until I saw a debunk of him), but with him, every sentence he says contains, on average, three ridiculous unsubstantiated claims. He's truly something else... On another note, I hope this article was humorous for you and may Hashem bless you!
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