A enlightening post from some nutjobs who attack R’ Slifkin constantly sheds light on some of the mind-numbing and close-minded fanaticism rampant among haredim. It gives you a clear idea of what haredim think of secular knowledge. They hate non-frum books so much, is it any wonder that they abhor education and thus are mostly unemployed?
Yes, secular books are eminently capable of dragging a person off the path of emunah! The gemara in Chagiga (15b) relates that the great sage Elisha ben Avuya went off the derech because he was influenced by Greek culture (he was always whistling Greek tunes) and Greek attitudes (books of heresy)… Secular books are, for the most part, anti-Torah; they contain the attitudes of the gentile nations which are diametrically opposed to the attitude of the Torah. Even innocuous books, such as those on science, are tainted with the attitudes of the goyim. It is extremely dangerous for an innocent ben-Torah to start taking unwarranted and unsupervised excursions in the fields of gentile literature. Human beings, all human beings, are extremely impressionable and thus it is a sakana gedolah (great danger) to allow oneself to be exposed to foreign ideologies. This is the most obvious lesson that can be learned from this Ami article.
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In addition to the economic effects, this also has the unintended consequence of making people who break this geder and realize that the secular world is not entirely evil begin to question everything else. It is essentially the same principle as the story of the eitz hadaas.
ReplyDeletehttp://afence.blogspot.com/
Kiruv books, on the other hand, just make you drop into a coma.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very important priciple if one is to indoctronate the children
ReplyDeleteThe world outside the shtetle is poison....must be hammered home
Ksil
Orthodox Jews diminish the questions and concerns of OTDers at their own demographic risk.
ReplyDeleteLike if they drive away one person that's at least one or two kids in the next generation that they drive away.
Atheism is all about sex. Period, full stop.
ReplyDeleteThere is more of a connection between sex and rabbinic orthodox judaism (than atheism)
ReplyDeleteIn fact, ROJ is obsessed with sex, like i have never seen, my daughters are constatntly looked at by all yeshiva boys and married frummies with a sexual eye, how much of their bodies are covered, how tight their clothes are
Sick sick old bearded men
Ksil
"R’ Slifkin has written a number of posts, including this partially-disgusting one in which he stereotypes OTDs and claims their issues are usually emotional and that they’re usually involved with drugs. "
ReplyDeleteRead the comments to that post. You're speaking about different types of people.
>Read the comments to that post.
ReplyDeleteI did. He redefines OTD to mean kids 15-16 on drugs rebelling against their parents. Or something like that. Besides for the distinction being laughable, it's still overly simplistic and nowhere near sensible or acceptable.
None of this is surprising. The "internet" and "secular books" can't really lead someone off the derech. I found a website promoting the idea that the earth is flat, and there are lots of websites which promote dreadful music, Christian fundamentalism, restoration of the caliphate, and veganism. I've got access to lots of these sites, and yet (oddly) I'm not particularly inclined to adopt the philosophies (or taste) of any of them-- because there is plenty of other information out there that makes more sense to me. The only thing that leads people off the derech (no, "Jewish Philosopher," it's not sex, so pull your tongue back in and do up your trousers) is the complete inability of Judaism to provide satisfactory answers to these questions. The surest way to convince someone that you've got no argument is to attempt to prevent him from considering other ideas.
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