When I learned of the behavior of a relatively small group of young men at the Kosel on Rosh Chodesh Sivan handing a public relations victory to those seeking to undermine the sanctity of that site I was struck by the contrast with what transpired over a decade ago when the Torah community held a massive prayer rally in response to the antireligious bias of the Israeli Supreme Court.

I’m sure some reporters were traumatized by that event — imagine between 500000 and a million frum Jews gathered just for heartfelt prayer and not so much as a summons for littering to report on or even fabricate. Let’s just say that doesn’t happen at gatherings of that size anywhere else in the world.

But more: at one point a secular immodestly dressed couple brazenly made their way straight through the heart of the throng in an explicit attempt at provocation. They failed to get the slightest rise out of those present. What strength of character that took and how beautifully that ma’amad reflected on us as people whom the Torah trains to be in control of themselves. In stark contrast those misbehaving at the Kosel didn’t need any provocation and when the other side did bait them they took it like so many little fish hungry for a morsel of attention only to be skewered and then filleted by the waiting media fishmongers.

But there is something particularly galling about these hooligans getting abusive and violent when the WOWniks do their thing as I’ll explain. There’s so much about this entire Women of the Wall controversy that’s hypocritical and contrived that it would be quite laughable if it weren’t so serious in the damage it does to the kedushah of the place and to our ability to daven there. I’ve pointed out many of these inanities here before often in a sarcastic vein which it’s hard not to employ when confronted with such transparent dissembling. There’s the sudden fervor of Reform activists for mitzvas tefillin and for the last vestige of a Beis HaMikdash they’ve rejected for two centuries now; the exceedingly paternalistic attempt to “free Orthodox women from the shackles of their lifestyle ” over the outraged protestations of those very women; the pathetically symbiotic relationship between the activists on the one hand who use the media as tools to play the public for fools and the latter two groups on the other who allow themselves to be so used and played.

But if we are to be fair as we should want to be there are undoubtedly some sincere people who are not part of this circus nor condone it some women who don’t claim to be unable to find religious fulfillment other than by acting exactly like men in the few feet of space before the Kosel and aren’t looking to use this issue as a Trojan horse to install the heterodox movements as equal official expressions of Judaism. Yet these well-meaning people don’t understand what the fuss is about. What’s the problem with these women doing what they do and where they do it?

Ultimately there’s really just one answer. It’s not a sophisticated one invoking history or catching the instigators in a web of inconsistencies. But it’s perhaps the most powerful answer possible: Decency. Middos tovos. Plain mentschlichkeit. In other words: You’ve come to a really holy place; religious Jews hundreds of thousands of them have been davening here a certain way for as long as anyone can remember for what they believe are good reasons; they come at all hours and under all weather conditions from near and very far for very serious purposes and the way you do your prayers either makes it impossible for some of them to pray here as by your singing or is simply emotionally upsetting to many of them.

So why do it? Aren’t you a nice person? Would you act this way in a place sacred to any other faith group in the world and if not why here? Do you have something against these fellow Jews? They certainly welcome you to this spot of unrivaled unity; it’s unheard of in the history of the Kosel for a religious Jew to berate or seek to exclude one less religious than he.

And the response to this simple plea for decency? “But it’s our right and we will exercise it. The court ruled as much.” Do you understand the deep irony of that claim? One of the things that religious liberals of all stripes including Jewish ones pride themselves on is their unwillingness to adhere to the so-called letter of the law at the expense of the spirit of the law. It is the chareidim spiritual heirs to the Pharisees who are derided as narrowly concerned with legal minutiae while ignoring Judaism’s grand humanistic vision and thereby trampling upon the sensitivities of real people in real life situations.

Of course this line of argument entirely misses the genius of the halachic system which in its exquisite detail both expresses the Torah’s ethical principles and helps inculcate them into otherwise recalcitrant humans; the supposed letter-spirit dichotomy is simply a nonstarter in Judaism.

But putting that aside is there a greater example of exalting the letter of the law over its spirit than to wave about a legal verdict legitimizing behavior that due to millennia-old religious principles pains disturbs and distracts countless Jews one has never met and has no grievance against? And all this at a holy site where peaceful supplication and contemplation have always reigned supreme and when another site is available nearby for those who simply must slake their thirst for religious self-expression.

As for the media please consider: On Israel’s day of commemoration for its fallen soldiers its cameras scour the countryside for chareidim who ignore the two minutes of silence that the rest of the populace observes and when they’re lucky enough to find some frum family barbecuing in a park somewhere during that time their picture is giddily splashed all over. The rationalization that it is their right to reject what they consider a gentile form of commemoration is not accepted and rightfully so. We all understand: Not in public and not when what you’re doing is a slap in the face to huge numbers of Israelis with understandable sensitivities. Have some decency just be a mentsch. So how is it that when it is not just a random individual here or there acting in an offensive way but an organized well-funded group doing this each and every month to huge numbers of other Israelis the media closes its eyes to their indecency and eagerly abets them?

But then along come the hoodlums from our frum ‘hoods. Although their acting up and out doesn’t diminish one iota the logical case for sensitivity towards the untold numbers of frum Jews who come only to daven to the Borei Olam their antics severely undercut the emotional claim for it because it’s harder to ask for a little understanding and decency when people on our side are being obtuse and indecent and then some.

The truth is of course that these people aren’t on “our side” at all which consists not of yarmulke-wearers but of ehrliche Jews who display fealty to gedolei Torah. But unfortunately that’s much too nuanced a point to carry the day.