OTD

Shiur

2012-01-25T02:21:00.000-05:00

I went to an interesting shiur today. I was at my campus Hillel, and someone talked me into staying for an hour to listen to a rabbi speak. I stayed, and had a somewhat interesting time. The rabbi was not insufferably boring. He was slightly entertaining, and seemed quite caught up in the material he was teaching. He was discussing the weekly parsha about Moses and the plagues in Egypt. He stressed how the Bible has God telling Moses to raise his hand and his staff, and “hand” is mentioned a few times. He tried saying that this is because Moses was such a servant of God that his hand was like God’s. That sort of thing.

It was fairly interesting, and I’ve heard far worse lectures. Still, I didn’t like the emphasis on God and serving him (as well as the hairsplitting with grammar, but that’s minor). It was all Moses, God and very lofty and abstract. Way too theoretical. Very little relevance to daily life, and even less relevant on a human, or humanistic level. For example, he pointed out that Aharon hit the water for the first three plagues as opposed to Moses WITHOUT EVEN MENTIONING the famous midrash that says this was because Moses was grateful to the water, so to speak, because it saved his life as a child and therefore he wouldn’t hit it. Simple lessons like that that I remember from ~~kindergarten~~ Pre-1A I find I can relate to, and all the abstract, technical stuff about sticks and hands, not as much.

Jewish Philosopher

2012-01-14T19:49:00.000-05:00

The only Internet character more repulsive than Garnel (if this is possible to envision), Jewish Philosopher, is back to his evil, trolling ways. He is harassing a blogger that I have a lot of respect for, The Atheist Rabbi. The Atheist Rabbi is a rabbi for secular humanist Judaism, and judging from my numerous interactions with him in the J-blogosphere, is quite a mensch. Jewish Philosopher has chosen to single him out for especially spiteful treatment, publishing a plethora of personal information about him, including details on his employers (I suppose he hopes to get him fired for his blogging the way he was fired for his own blogging. Only difference is the Atheist Rabbi has not harassed anyone. Further, the rabbi has not even bothered Jewish Philosopher on his own blog - these attacks are entirely undeserved).

Be sure to let Jewish Philosopher know what you think about his bullying. Also, do your part to get Blogger to ban Jewish Philosopher from the blogosphere by reporting him to Blogger. Click "report abuse" on the top left of his blog, and when prompted, report him for hate speech. Maybe if enough people complain, Blogger/Google will actually do something.

Garnel, Goebbels, and even more Goodies

2012-01-05T06:37:00.000-05:00

The Jewish community is going crazy about the riots in Beit Shemesh and some of the awful fighting that’s going on there between national religious (and even MO) folk and hardcore UO types (and even some moderate haredim. This sort of fighting is not entirely new, but it is probably the case that most of this fighting is usually between the crazies and the police, army, and non-frum Israelis. It’s interesting to see this fighting take place within the larger frum world, and to watch MO folk like Garnel nearly suffer aneurysms as result.

Garnel reports that

On Shabbos morning I was speaking about the situation with a friend in shul and what he said really shocked me. He told me that this was civil war, Jew on Jew, just like in the time of Chanukah. He felt that these extremists were the new Chasmonaim and that responsible religious Jews had a choice - line up with them and stand up for Torah or line up with the Hellenized Chilonim. It was that simple for him. When I pointed out that there were plenty of religious Jews lining up with the Chilonim because these Chareidim are no Chasmonaim but just barbarians looking for an excuse to cause trouble he dismissed me by saying that any religious Jew who sides with a Chiloni is already Hellenized and no longer really religious.
"Including me?" I asked.

At that point he realized he had crossed a line and tried to backtrack but the damage was done. I don't think I'm going to learn with him for a while.

It's been nice to watch Garnel literally shit his pants over the Beit Shemesh madness and the riots and insanity that are happening there. Modern Orthodox and charedi fanatics are practically killing each other over there, and it's the best Garnel to do to refrain from strangling a few extremists himself.

It’s nice to watch Garnel suffer this way. It’s nice to see the shoe on the other foot. Payback’s a bitch. He harassed the fuck out of me for months when I started this blog (starting with this mess of evil) followed by months of ruthless flaming. As an arrogant theist, he relished the opportunity to rub my face in my supposed lack of morals, my “sense of my own divinity” (I shit you not), and my extreme lack of morals and sexual self-restraint. He didn’t know the first thing about me, mind you, and all of this “information” was gleaned from a few generic paragraphs from this blog. In other words, he acted like a monster troll from hell, and it’s nice to see the doc served a taste of his own medicine.

He never misses the opportunity to ridicule those to his left. Atheists, Avi Weiss-type MO folk, and just random secular people are all subject to his wrath. Of course, he mostly doesn’t criticize his own MO types, and only rarely and extremely cautiously criticizes UO and Meah Shearim types (he has been seen to invoke the pathetic and cowardly “the rabbis don’t know what they’re signing – it’s all the work of askanim (activists) more times than I like to remember, an argument even honest, mentschlach types like Brooklyn Wolf are sadly not immune to). To see the shit finally hit the fan and fighting break out between different factions of Orthodox means the battle lines have been drawn, and he has to finally take his perverted gaze off those to his left and focus it on those to his right. He finds himself in a similar position to me: being insulted and devalued because of his status to the left of some crackpot. It’s not a fun place to be.

Anyway, the fighting has been going on for a little while, and we will see if and when it ends. Yossi Sarid has a slightly-extreme piece in Haaretz about halacha’s poor treatment of women. I think some of his points are quite strong, while some may be slightly overstated. Either way, I think his points are worth discussing, and angry attacks on his character are really uncalled for. Rabbi Fink discusses it with some reasoned criticism of it. Rabbi Hoffman from Vos Iz Neias has a really unfair article in which he practically calls Sarid a Nazi (he says, “with these unbecoming lies and fabrications how are you any different than the greatest of the anti-Semitic writers and orators that history has had to offer?”) which is particularly offensive in light of the use of Nazi imagery by the Beit Shemesh extremists recently. Here is an article from Daat Emet on the subject of women in halacha. Oh, and for those of you expecting a condemnation from rabbis, here’s a condemnation of the secular government by the world’s second most famous haredi rabbi. Yes, I’m sure he has no idea what he’s signing and it’s all forged by people. While we’re at it, I heard the Brooklyn Bridge is going on sale this afternoon.

Meanwhile, I’m doing okay. I haven’t blogged in a few months, and I may get more active in the future. No guarantees though. I recently found a new OTD blog, which looks really promising. The writer has a mature, thoughtful voice and I’m sure you’ll enjoy his take. Here’s a post I particularly enjoyed. Here’s another new blog that I haven’t really had a chance to read yet. Here’s another.

Apparently this blog does nothing but promote new blogs nowadays

2011-08-21T15:18:00.002-04:00

Link

Newest OTD blog

2011-07-31T23:10:00.002-04:00

Link.

The Ledge of Fail

2011-07-21T12:59:00.003-04:00

I looked forward to seeing The Ledge. The director kept promoting it as the atheist “Brokeback Mountain.” I finally managed to watch the thing (thank goodness I didn’t pay for it) and was quite disappointed. Not only was the acting horrendous (with the possible exception of Patrick Wilson), the plot was shallow, lame, insensitive, and dull.

The main character, an atheist (played by Charlie Hunnam), falls for the wife (Liv Tyler) of religious wingnut (Patrick Wilson) and persuades her to sleep with him. Perhaps we are supposed to be impressed by the fact that the main character is an out atheist yet not entirely immoral (though most people, atheists included, do not sanction extramarital affairs). Maybe we are to be awed by the clear role reversal, as the religious nut is the clear villain and the godless heathen is the hero. Either way, I was unimpressed.

The part that I liked the least was its strong focus on death. There are a lot of moments in the movie where characters reflect on the passing of a loved one. The hero lost his only daughter in a tragic accident. The religious freak spoke to parents right after the loss of their child. If the film’s obsession with death weren’t enough, it then goes on to relay extremely childish, shallow conceptions of death and the afterlife. The movie implies atheists cannot deal with death; only theists can because of their belief in the afterlife. Theists can hardily survive the passing of a loved one; atheists have no way of coping with the loss. How is that a pro-atheist message?

I’ve been fortunate to have not yet lost a really close relative. I can’t imagine the loss of a loved one is simple to overcome, for theists or non-theists. I can allow that belief in an afterlife can provide some comfort, but just a little. To propose that belief in an afterlife greatly lessens the pain is to cheapen the human grieving experience and to minimize a very real sorrow. I know my mother was devastated when she lost her father seventeen years ago. Whether or not she believes in an afterlife, I don’t suppose there is any easy way to assuage the pain. While belief in an afterlife may have some benefit, to promote it as the answer to grieving strikes me as profoundly juvenile and simplistic. This is aside from other obvious problems, such as the lack of evidence for life after death, and our subsequent uncertainty that we do, in fact, survive our demise. In reality, belief in the afterlife is an overrated way of coping with death that is useless to atheists and barely useful to theists. In the Jewish tradition, the way the loss of a loved one is dealt with is by “sitting shiva,” or receiving a week of support from family and friends. You’d think the afterlife would play more of a role, wouldn’t you? I’ve been to many shiva houses, unfortunately. I’ve never even once heard a whisper about the afterlife while there. And if the afterlife is such a big deal, why is it barely mentioned in the Old Testament?

There have been other atheist and atheist-friendly movies each more well-deserving of the title “Atheist Brokeback Mountain.” Examples include Religulous, Whatever Works, Chocolat, and The Invention of Lying. These portray atheists in a favourable light and don’t systematically butcher major concepts and questions. If you’re looking for a movie that deals with death and loss, I can’t think of a better example than Hereafter. Although not at all an atheist movie, it deals with the topic with great tact and sensitivity, with little to no theism invoked. The Ledge, in contrast, manages to insult the intelligence and emotions of both theists and atheists alike.

New forum for OTDers

2011-07-21T12:58:00.011-04:00

There is a not new, but currently very active not forum, but group for OTDers (I got the rest of it right, didn't I?) It's a closed Facebook group you're welcome to check out and enjoy.

Shouldn't have to get besser

2011-07-11T17:19:00.013-04:00

There is a video (embedded below) that presents individuals who were Orthodox and broke free. It is touching to see individuals so tightly regulated and oppressed choosing freedom and a brighter future.

The video has been posted on a number of blogs today, including Frum Satire and Failed Messiah. I greatly enjoyed the reaction of many commenters*. Too often, the response to an otherwise-excellent Unpious article or Better Know A Kofer entry is a visceral angry reaction by commenters. "How could you go OTD? Two thousand years of tradition!" blah blah blah. The commenters are nearly blind to the fact that life in ultra-OJ environments is usually very harsh and restrictive. Those who leave may not be chasing cheeseburgers and never-ending sex. Instead, they may simply want a better life; a proper education, a legitimate, honourable source of income, an Internet connection, or (horrors) a TV. Although these are possible within a Jewish framework, these folks have so often been told that anything less extreme than their Amish lifestyle is treif. They can hardly be blamed for making what is seen by some as an unnecessary decision.

This video can help those in the Orthodox community to begin to see the culprits less as those who left and more those who are responsible for perpetuating such an unearthly lifestyle (I'm looking at you, Lakewood and Agudah). OJ's love to blame the victim and attack those who have left for making what they see as an irresponsible decision. They ignore the reality that these persons have endured a lot of anguish and misery merely by being raised in an intolerant, arrogant community that prefers to live in the 1300's. This video shocks them out of their lethargy by showing seemingly well-adjusted, happy individuals in their repressive earlier lives and then even happier and more well-adjusted in their emancipated second lives. It's hard to continue stereotyping and cruelly envisioning expats as deranged, sadistic freaks when their smiling countenances stare you in the face. The reality becomes hard to ignore that Orthodoxy better modernize - or risk even more of their brightest and best wisely choosing to have nothing at all to do with it.

Don't get with the times because it's the right thing to do. Do so because it'll keep your kids on the derech.

*particularly the comments by Ilanit and Ken.

The Leadership Delusion

2011-07-09T15:51:00.002-04:00

Richard Dawkins has come under fire recently for some rude, sexist comments he made. Although I like him as an atheist advocate, I am severely disappointed with his behaviour and think his reputation will take a big hit for this. Even if it doesn’t call into question his scholarship and his ability to make sound arguments, it reflects poorly on his character, judgment, and leadership ability.

The atheist movement suffers from a few shortcomings, among them a lack of clear direction and agreement about objectives, as well as a great shortage of women among its activists. If nothing else, Dawkins has managed to alienate many women with his remarks, and that alone is unpardonable.

Whether or not you think his remarks were sexist and patriarchal, his condescending and flippant tone is enough to call into question his judgment and character. I won’t say that I will no longer read any of his books or that I have lost all respect for him. I will say, however, that I have lost a lot of respect for him, and that his image as an individual and certainly as one of the leaders of the atheist movement will rightly take a tumble.

BIXI: Stay far away

2011-06-03T03:47:00.002-04:00

This post is entirely irrelevant to most of you so you may disregard it. This post is about a bad experience I had with a bike sharing program, and its purpose is to warn others so they don't make the same mistake I did.

There is a bike sharing program near where I live called BIXI. There are bike docks around the city where you can take out bikes. You pay with a credit card, and the fee is $5 a day. What I didn't realize is there are ADDITIONAL fees of $4 for 60-90 minutes and an ADDITIONAL $8 for every half hour above that. I naively rented my "$5 a day" bike and proceeded to have a marvelous time biking throughout the town for 7 hours. I returned the bike carefully and went on with my day. Two weeks later, I get a credit card charge for $35. The lady on the phone politely informed me that my 7 hours really costs 115 and some-odd dollars, and they had graciously bumped it down to $35 because it was my first time, and they understood I probably did not intend to spend a king's ransom on a stupid bike.

I am very annoyed that not only was I charged a lot more than I had anticipated, but that BIXI was so expensive and I would probably never have the opportunity to rent from them again. $115 for 7 hours, are you freaking kidding me? Below is the email I sent the company. I will update this post when I get a response from the company.

I rented a BIXI bike a few weeks ago. I was under the impression that a 24 hour rental period was only $5. I was shocked to see my credit card statement this morning showing a fee of $35.65. I called BIXI customer service, and the friendly representative informed me that I had taken the bike for 7 hours, and the $5 daily fee only included the first half hour, and there were additional fees for longer usage. I am very upset that I was charged so much more than I expected, and I'm even more upset that BIXI's pricing system is so - frankly - outrageous. I had very much enjoyed my BIXI experience up until that point, and I had commented positively on my BIXI experience to the many passerby who noticed my BIXI bike and commented about it. I had recommended BIXI to many family and friends, because I thought it was a fun, enjoyable, and most of all affordable experience. Now that I realize a few hours costs $40-50 and a full 24 hour period costs something approaching thousands of dollars I will be sure to inform all my friends and family to stay far away from BIXI. I am a student, and live on a very tight budget. I barely have money to put food on the table, and if I had hundreds of dollars to blow on a bike, it certainly wouldn't be on a rented bike for mere hours.

I am very disappointed that I was charged so much more than I expected, and equally as disappointed to realize how out of reach BIXI is for myself and many others like me who earn less than six-figure salaries, and may find the promising BIXI experience hopelessly out of reach for them and their cohorts not living on the Bridle Path. I demand not only a full refund but a precise explanation for why BIXI bikes are so atrociously expensive, and what I should tell all the people who are sure to ask me what I think of BIXI. Should I tell them it's only good if you need it for an hour or so? And to watch out if you need it for longer because you will be charged an arm and a leg?

I am personally devastated to know that I will no longer be able to rent BIXI bikes or recommend them to friends. I was hoping to go on a biking trip for a few hours with my girlfriend next weekend. It will cost close to a hundred dollars with BIXI, so that is no longer an option. Who uses a bike for 30 minutes or less, or even an hour or two? If I have a bike I want to be able to use it for a few hours and enjoy the sun. That will no longer be an option for me with BIXI, as 4 hours costs $50 AND IT GOES UP BY $8 EVERY HALF HOUR AFTER THAT. What am I renting already, DIAMONDS?????!!!!!!!!

"Animals don't behave this way"

2011-06-02T13:39:00.002-04:00

Give it a listen. Kudos to Shmarya for his continuing comprehensive coverage of this story.

Defending the Indefensible

2011-06-02T12:49:00.003-04:00

The editor in chief of the new joke "Ami magazine" does a horrendous interview with Zev Brenner in which he defends the Skvere Rebbe, attacks bloggers, and basically insults our intelligence and that of his host for a half hour. In this story that just keeps getting bigger and bigger, wherein it is revealed that New Square residents were harassed for years and violence was going on for the longest time in which police, residents, and most importantly, the Skvere Rebbe, were complicit in condoning and encouraging bullying, terrorizing, and harassment against fine, ehrliche yidden who simply wanted to daven in a different shul. There can be no excuse for any of these crimes, and for this sick, horrible excuse for a magazine publisher to try and (quite pathetically, I might add) exonerate the Skvere rabbi for his part in these atrocities is criminal. For him to then attack bloggers and say that these message bearers are any worse than the horrendous criminals and their defenders (himself being one of their staunchest supporters) is to sink to a whole new low.

One of the only rabbis to condemn the attacks says, "The system needs to be scrapped... the machine is the problem. It isn’t the cogs" and "the Torah is designed to create a positive social environment for growth and spiritual development. It can’t be that poverty, oppression, terror and anti-social behavior are the darchei noam, pleasant ways of the Torah. It just can't."

Watch the New Square Terror Victim

2011-05-30T17:36:00.000-04:00

Arson

2011-05-24T19:58:00.004-04:00

Just a few days ago, a man in New Square was nearly killed by people close to the Skverer Rebbe for sins like davening in a new shul. The story is horrendous, and I recommend you check it out. I am hoping the story receives mass media coverage. I wonder if there will be an outcry from the Orthodox community. I strongly suspect there will not be, and while the Orthodox media is more than happy to hound closet atheists and denounce same-sex marriage, they're extremely reluctant to criticize so-called leaders of their community.

Update

2011-05-23T20:00:00.003-04:00

I forgot to mention in my last update that Frum Girl Gone South has been doing a series on how she left the Orthodox world. She is already up to Part 6. Well worth your time.

Also: a new blog.

Thoughts on living at home

2011-05-17T04:06:00.004-04:00

I mentioned a few months ago that I've been living with my parents for a little while. It's been mostly a positive experience, and I'm happy to be closer to my family. They haven't asked me (yet) to be observant, and I've been mostly able to live my life without too much interference from my family. I try to be a little outwardly observant (for example, wearing a kippa when in the neighbourhood and not breaking shabbos in their presence).

There have been a few arguments. My mother worries that I'm influencing my high school-aged younger brother to slack off in yeshiva. I don't think I'm responsible for this, but it is a concern of hers. At the same time, I wonder what my approach should be to him: do I promote Modern Orthodoxy? Ultra Orthodoxy? OTDness? My current approach is more or less Modern Orthodoxy, but I can understand if my mother worries I may influence him. From my perspective, of course, that would be a good thing! There's enough horrendous influences on people in UO (and probably MO) yeshivas to be crazy fanatical nutjobs, a light dose of sechel couldn't hurt, I would think.

I worry even more about my older brother, married with children, and doesn't even have an email address. He's currently going through some problems trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. Stay in kollel forever? Get a job? Go to school? Study what? He's got a lot of big decisions to make, and by no means is he in a position of strength to make said decisions. I would have even less incentive to promote OTDness to him, considering he has a wife and kids and that's quite a lot to lose. Do I promote Modern Orthodoxy? Am I being dishonest promoting MO when I don't believe in it myself?

I also worry about my siblings' shidduchim. How much more difficult will it be for them to find a shidduch considering they have an OTD brother?

This takes me to my next point about MO vs. UO. Someone who has been raised MO has less incentive to go OTD than a UO has, I would think. The lifestyle is much more free, and is a lot closer to Conservative Judaism than UO is. UO has millions of rules and restrictions, enough to drive anyone batty, while MO is far more permissive. I'm OTD for emotional reasons the same way MO are MO for emotional reasons: we can't stand the craziness of the UO world! Yet I can't think of a single intellectual reason to be MO, but I can think of numerous emotional ones. Even as I toy with the thought of becoming more Orthodox (for emotional reasons), I wonder whether my family will be willing to be less Orthodox for emotional reasons. Aren't they so primed against any change they will never consider going MO? I found it easier going from UO to OTD, epecially considering the intellectual arguments against both UO and MO. Will they be able to find a nice balance without sacrificing too much intellectual or emotional satisfaction? It is ironic that the only reason typically attributed to going OTD (emotional reasons) are the only reasons I can see for not going OTD.

Links

2011-05-16T06:20:00.005-04:00

G*3 has done a lengthy and highly-interesting interview for You, Me & Religion.

Major media outlets around the world reported a chareidi newspaper's removing Hillary Clinton from an important photograph.

There is a promising new blog called "Sitting on the Fence." The writer, a thoughtful Orthopraxer in her late twenties, chronicles the challenges and struggles she faces. Read all about the "bitachon method" of earning income and her journey back to school a few years later than most. This should be interesting.

Haters and nutjobs

2011-05-14T00:04:00.009-04:00

For those of you who haven’t been following the J-blogosphere, the Ami magazine article about an Orthoprax posek has been creating quite a storm. It’s been discussed by many blogs, and 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. These are highly-offensive claims, and I might cut him some slack because he is, after all, R’ Slifkin who has been harassed for years by the chareidim. But I won’t.

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.

KIRUV KLOWN™ DONIEL MECHANIC

2011-05-05T16:34:00.007-04:00

Garnel has a surprisingly decent post about a Pesach vacation he took with notorious Kiruv Klown Doniel Mechanic and describes the hysterical nonsense Mechanic spewed. Shmarya has not mentioned it yet, but I'm hoping that changes in a hurry. Garnel is likely to delete the post in the near future, so I decided to post the entire thing with comments right here.

The Disappointment of Aish HaTorah

Every year I take my family to a Pesach hotel. This was our fifth year with the same program and for the first four years we had the pleasure of having things led by an amazing Rav. Not only was he a dynamic speaker but he was also willing to address deep topics for the crowd and not shy from stating controversial viewpoints that he strongly believed in.
Apparently this wasn't what some people liked so this year a different Rav was brought it. In contrast to the previous one who was a pulpit rabbi, this one is one of Aish HaTorah's "missionaries". He's one of their biggest guns, apparently (or so he likes to think). He's also known as an amazing speaker and, given his reputation as Aish's "rabbi to the Hollywood stars" I was intrigued as to what he'd be speaking about during various parts of the program.
I'll admit my biases off the top. I really like the previous Rav and was not happy he wasn't even invited back so for me this guy was starting at a disadvantage. In addition, due in part to my blogging experiences, I am well-aware that Aish's Discovery material, the stuff they use to prove the truth of Torah, is about as deep as a puddle of rainwater after the sun has dried it away. So I was cynical going in.
Unfortunately my cynical side was not disappointed. I was hoping for great speeches on a variety of subjects, some of them even Pesach-related. Instead I got the Discovery Seminar, only it was the dumbed-down version due to time constraints. Talk about disappointment!
Imagine the following: you attend a conference on the latest treatments for heart attacks. Twenty years later you attend another conference on the same subject and the main speaker repeats all the stuff he said at the first one. What would your response be to such a speech, given that treatments for heart attacks twenty years ago are totally obsolete and only of historical interest today?
I attended a Discovery program around twenty years ago and the material that this Rav covered was almost identical to that original presentation. Over the last twenty years there have been tremendous social changes in the Jewish community including the rise of the atheoskeptics along with the growing off-the-derech phenomenon. Chrisian missionaries, as annoying as they can be, aren't the primary threat to many parts of our community anymore but just like twenty years ago that's all his presentation was about: Kuzari proof, verses in the Bible that refute Chrisianity, etc. etc. Every talk he gave about his successes was the same: he finds some schmedrick that knows nothing about history or comparative religion and feeds him the Kuzari proof. Nothing about atheoskeptics. Nothing about answering the questions OTD's raise.
By the end of the first talk I was annoyed so I raised my hand. My question was quite simple: "Your material is all nice and good for a high school student with no knowledge of Judaism. What do you say to someone who actually knows what you're talking about, has investigated the alternatives and doesn't buy your 'proofs'?"
The answer? "That's the subject about another talk." Talk about blow-off.
The problem wasn't so much the shallow nature of the so-called "proofs" this Rav considered so conclusive. It was other things like how he misrepresented Chrisianity, something he quietly admitted to me that he did to 'simplify' things for the crowd. Ah good, now he's not only arrogant but thinks we're all stupid too.
Then there was the aforementioned arrogance. In one of his talks he assured us he needed only 5 minutes alone with the Pope to convince him of the truth of Judaism. Right, because you get to be Pope after collecting another of those proof-of-puchase things from boxes of Alphabits. Listen, I'm not a fan of Catholicism or Chrisianity in general but I have no doubt of the great intelligence the Pope needs to possess to do his job.
There was also a lot of disappointment. One of his speeches was titled "Answering the skeptic". I was excited for that one. Perhaps there was an actually intelligent version of his presentation he'd been saving up? No, he assured us off the top, he wasn't going to speak about that. There was no point in speaking to skeptics, at least publicly. There you go: a major threat to traditional Judaism and we might as well just ignore them and speak about successful encounters with ignoramuses.
Maybe it was the inconsistencies in his speeches. A couple of nights after telling us that he was 5 minutes away from converting the Pope to Judaism he told us the story of how he spent an eleven hour flight to Israel convincing some hapless chiloni about the truth of Torah. However, at the end of the flight the young man in question did not immediately go out and buy a black hat and sign up for kollel learning. For the Pope he only needed 5 minutes but after 11 hours this chiloni was still not completely convinced?
There was other inconsistencies. He told us a story of how he mocked some Mormon missionaries (in Salt Lake City of all places) and pointed out the absurdities of their beliefs. They apparently responded by saying that it was their willingness to believe in such absurd things that made them beloved of God. Of course, he chortled, this is in total contrast to Judaism which is a completely rational faith with no absurd beliefs!
No, I didn't mention the idea of spending $100 or more to buy a gloried lemon for Sukkos. No, I didn't mention dibbuks or any Baal Shem Tov stories. Instead I went for what I thought was the obvious: the idea that there are many prominent Jewish figures who believe we should read the first chapter of Bereshis literally which means that the Earth was created over 144 hours and that dinosaur bones were planted by God as fakes in order to test our faith. Fake dinosaur bones, could there be anything more absurd?
His answer, of course, went beyond inconsistency and into something that is either a lie or idiocy: there are no rabbis he's aware of, he said, who hold like that.
Okay, where to being? How about Rav Dovid Gottlieb, philosopher-in-chief at the Yerushalayim branch of Aish's competitor, Ohr Sameach? In addition to ineffectually slagging Rav Natan Slifkin from time to time, he apparently believes that it is the universally accepted Jewish belief that we must read Genesis literally. Here's the money quote:
Our mesorah insists that the six days of Creation, counting from the first creative act, were six literal days
Got it? Well apparently this Rav had never heard of Gottlieb and, in his mind, that meant he was of no importance.
And what of the Slifkin controversy which was based entirely on this issue, with Rav Slifkin writing a whole book on how there is copious support in the mesorah for a non-literal understanding of Genesis and his opponents putting him into cherem for daring to say so?
Oh no, was the response, that's not what it was about and anyway, no one takes the literal position that Genesis must have taken 144 hours as we understand them. They simply hold that we can't understand what happened during that period of time and Slifkin crossed some kind of line by trying to explain it.
Right.
What about Rav Aharon Shechter and his diatribe, made famous by Youtube, against Rav Slifkin while insisting on a literal understanding of Genesis? Nah, he hadn't heard about that either.
Fine, I figured I'd go for the big gun. He wasn't aware of any rabbonim who were in favour of the literal reading of Genesis? Had he perhaps heard of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a"h?
(By the way, this is probably why Chareidi-type figures try so hard to ban the internet. They don't seem to be able to figure out how to adjust to the new reality it has created. Pity the poor Chabad shaliach, for example, who insists that open meschichistim are a fringe part of the movement when confronted with an on-line video showing a prominent Chabad Rav insisting der Rebbe fihrt de velt.)
In a letter dated back to 1961 the Rebbe reveals a partial understanding of science but also quite openly dismisses any understanding of Genesis other than the "traditional" (in other words, the view he favours) one:

The theory of evolution, to which reference has been made, actually has no bearing on the Torah account of Creation. For even if the theory of evolution were substantiated today, and the mutation of species were proven in laboratory tests, this would still not contradict the possibility of the world having been created as stated in the Torah, rather than through the evolutionary process. The main purpose of citing the evolutionary theory was to illustrate how a highly speculative and scientifically unsound theory can capture the imagination of the uncritical, so much so that it is even offered as a scientific" explanation of the mystery of Creation, despite the fact that the theory of evolution itself has not been substantiated scientifically and is devoid of any real scientific basis.
Nope, the Rebbe wasn't a literalist either!
Now, I am not a skeptic, by any means. I have critically examined the relevant materials and concluded that the Torah is true but that it is also an incredibly complex document. Both the atheoskeptic who insists that it's a man-made document and the fanatic who insists on believing any bit of dogma, no matter how bizarre, both misunderstand the Torah, possibly wilfully in order to adjust it to meet their personal agendas. Fine, that's the way they are, I can't help that.
But after listing to this crap (sorry, that's the most polite word I could come up with) I became very angry. People are becoming frum because of him? After listening to presentations full of inaccuracies, misrepresentations and lies? What kind of superficial, simplistic Judaism are they being led to practice? How well do they really understand how Torah works? What kind of easy pickings will they be for the first atheoskeptic with a spare copy of The God Delusion who walks by?
I liked the food. I liked the davening. The seders were great.
But I'm really hoping this Rav's appearance is a one-time event that doesn't get repeated.
Posted by MIghty Garnel Ironheart at 3:33 PM
Labels: Charedim 35 comments:
BrooklynWolf said...
Then there was the aforementioned arrogance. In one of his talks he assured us he needed only 5 minutes alone with the Pope to convince him of the truth of Judaism. Right, because you get to be Pope after collecting another of those proof-of-puchase things from boxes of Alphabits. Listen, I'm not a fan of Catholicism or Chrisianity in general but I have no doubt of the great intelligence the Pope needs to possess to do his job.

Heh. I wouldn't be surprised if the "proof" that he would have used on the Pope is that the Christian Bible says that 75 people went down to Egypt (as opposed to 70). That's usually the first "disproof" I hear each time. Of course, it never occurs to them that somewhere along the way some Christian theologian might have noticed the discrepancy. Poor guy, he'd probably be totally lost when the Pope started explaining to him about the Septuigant and how, in many circles, it was considered authoritative for a long time -- complete with it's count of 75.

The Wolf

27 April, 2011 3:45 PM
Baruch Pelta said...
Another great post Garnel. One quibble: I don't think they're easy pickings for us atheoskeptics. I am friends with a lot of Discovery fans (the main questions I got when I went off the derech were "what about the Bible Codes?" "What about Kuzari?" "What about the 4-animal-proof?" and "What about Gerald Schroeder?") and these are people who have ensconced themselves against any evidence. The fact that they weren't interested in looking into counter-arguments against Discovery narishkeit in the first place indicates that they are what they say they are -- pashuteh yidden who are mevatel daas and can't be bothered to look at arguments from kofrim.

By the way, Gottlieb's most direct about the age of the universe here:
http://www.dovidgottlieb.com/comments/AGEOFTHEUNIVERSE.htm

27 April, 2011 6:54 PM
Michael Sedley said...
Great Post,

The more that I read about Discover-Like "Proofs" the more I am amazed that any thinking people (myself included) still believe in Judaism.

If the best "proofs" are either outright lies, or use faulty logic, is there still any reason to accept Judaism.

B"H I'm firm in my belief in SPITE of Discovery, but if I was to ever go OTD - it would be because of the arguments against G-d inherent the the falsehoods of cerain Charedi institutions (i.e., if the Torah is true, how come you can't prove it without lying)

28 April, 2011 6:25 AM
no one said...
The thing which is nice is that they learn Talmud.
and maybe they do help some people who would be into other worse types of cults. I have to admit i have got a soft spot for the Talmud and any place that really spends time with it has to my mind a high degree of legitimacy.

28 April, 2011 7:22 AM
Natan Slifkin said...
Can't you say who it was? It's not as though the program was a secret or anything like that.

28 April, 2011 10:48 AM
MIghty Garnel Ironheart said...
I realize that the public nature of the program removes the loshon horo nature of spreading this guy's name (Rav Gil Mechanic, BTW) across me blog. However, my annoyance was both because of his supreme self-confidence and the crappy material he's been given to work with more than who he is in particular.

28 April, 2011 12:40 PM
Natan Slifkin said...
"Gil Mechanic"

I don't think that there is such a person. Do you mean "Daniel Mechanic"?

28 April, 2011 1:09 PM
MIghty Garnel Ironheart said...
Ah yes, that would be him.

28 April, 2011 1:38 PM
Mississippi Fred MacDowell said...
It seems like the big avla here is that Rabbi Mechanic insulted your intelligence. That's understandable - no one likes that. And, to be perfectly honest, it's annoying to sit there and think that the people sitting around you probably assume that you are buying what he is selling.

But the question is: does it really no longer work? I assume that Aish has some kind of inkling if their numbers are way, way down or not.

28 April, 2011 3:02 PM
YGB said...
In fairness to Aish HaTorah, I think you should change the post's title. I don't think the rabbi in question is affiliated with Aish in any formal way. Although Aish lists his organization, Project Chazon, as an affiliate, PC's website conspicuously omits any reference to Aish.

28 April, 2011 3:04 PM
YGB said...
Oh, and just to round out the picture (while avoiding discussion of the substance of Garnel's plaint), at the two presentations I attended, the crowd seemed mightily well entertained. Which is probably the main purpose of a Pesach hotel Rabbi.

:-)

28 April, 2011 3:18 PM
Baruch Pelta said...
S:
An informed leading figure in the OU told me that kiruv stuff isn't working well these days. That being said, like I wrote earlier, a good deal of my friends have been greatly influenced by Aish.

RYGB:
He was the director of Discovery for 15 years, so I assume he knows the ins-and-outs of how it works. Officially speaking, Chazon is listed as an office of Aish and if you email chazon, you email "chazon@aish.com ." It's an Aish operation and is therefore fair game.

28 April, 2011 3:23 PM
MIghty Garnel Ironheart said...
RYGB, at his first lecture he gave his background and it was "I was a nobody and then I met Rav Noach Weinberg and went to work for Aish." His speech about his appearance at Princeton was predicated on his having gone there at the behest of a big Aish donor. His material was al Aish discovery stuff. I think I was not off base making an association between him and Aish.

As for being entertaining, he certainly was. He had the crowd eating out of his hand. But so would a good stand up comedian, except the comedian would admit he was telling wild stories just to get people to laugh.

28 April, 2011 4:14 PM
shimon9test said...
This post has been removed by the author.
28 April, 2011 5:39 PM
Mississippi Fred MacDowell said...
Baruch: "An informed leading figure in the OU told me that kiruv stuff isn't working well these days."

I hear, but I'm curious about Aish specifically. If the OU is experiencing something like that, does that

28 April, 2011 5:40 PM
Baruch Pelta said...
This post has been removed by the author.
28 April, 2011 6:20 PM
Baruch Pelta said...
He meant efforts being done in kiruv generally, including Discovery (which I particularly mentioned in my question)

28 April, 2011 6:21 PM
Y. Ben-David said...
Baruch Pelta-
We seem to be seeing contradictory data these days. I spoke to Rav Natan Lopes Cardozo a couple of days ago and he told me he is convinced a major spiritual crisis is brewing among young religious Jews (he lives in Israel so I presume that is referring primarily, but not only, to Israeli youth). I said "but we see a massive growth in the Orthodox community and a much lower drop-out rate of young people than there was 40-50 years ago". He said that even so, he was seeing a LOT of dissatisfaction. I asked if it was due to problems of belief (e.g. the Holocaust, Israel's ongoing crises, good and evil, etc) or due to "rigidity in the halacha". He answered "both". I then asked about why the drop-out rate of youth seems to be much lower today. He said "social pressure".
I must say I was really confused after this. He certainly gets around and talks to a lot of people. But then I look at the opening of the new, larger, full-service synagogue in my place of work at an Israeli government company and compare that with the shed we prayed in 20 years ago. The level of kashrut is much higher now in our company dining hall. I look at the children who grew up in our typical Israeli national-religious synagogue in a suburb of Tel Aviv in which almost all the children who grew up there, many from families that were only so-so religiously, have remained religious.
If religious youth is disaffected, it would be natural that kiruv would also be affected. I don't know what to think. All I know is that I, myself, am dissatisfied in the the same that people Rav Cordozo says are unhappy, so I am glad to know that I am not alone, not that I want to give up religious observance, G-d forbid. However, even though the religious world, and its values which I see around me seem increasingly alien to the way I and a lot of people think, it seems that the religious world is bigger and stronger than ever. Any opinions?

29 April, 2011 3:08 AM
Anonymous said...
Srsly, garnel, aish was Never happy to have an educated audience or to entertain shades of philosophic grey. And nowadays the stand-up comic style is all.

29 April, 2011 6:55 AM
SD said...
Would it be unfair to say -- despite claims otherwise -- that these "Discovery" Gateways" presentations are not for those who actually have the questions (and the knowledge to know why the question is a very good question)?

That rather they are for the already-frum bourgeoisie, to allow them the pleasure of basking in the delusion that the trueness of their treasured beliefs has been confirmed by "biggest experts"?

29 April, 2011 9:53 AM
YGB said...
I have no vested interest in Aish, but Reb Noach zt"l's 1980 Lakewood series is an amazing introduction to the world of Jewish Thought, and I do not believe he was a shallow thinker in any way. He may be critiqued for allowing shallowness to pervade the organization, but that is the almost unavoidable nature of the phenomenon: The larger an organization gets, the shallower it gets.

29 April, 2011 2:11 PM
zach said...
Were you aware that this rabbi was going to lead the services before you plunked down what was certainly a large chunk of change? If not, you should complain very loudly.

Anyway, an interesting post but hard to read without paragraph spacing. Please address this in the future.

1 May, 2011 9:52 AM
topdog said...
I get the problem people have with the simplistic black-and-white kiruv approaches. I'd like to know if the oilum thinks this project emunah site is any better. He certainly looks more open to discussion...

1 May, 2011 1:28 PM
Dovid Kornreich (Dr. Jekyll) said...
You seem to be suffering from the same lack of depth and nuance that this presenter is guilty of , Garnel.
Why should an Aish rabbi have to defend any position other than his own. Aish holds of Gerald Schroeder's approach that the six days are literal but they don't add up to 144 hours.

And if yoou actually watch the YouTube video, Rav Aharon Schechter doesn't say Genesis has to be understood literally. He takes the Mahral's approach that creation is "Sisrei Torah" and it can't be understood at all!

You are oversimplifying the issues just as much as this Aish rabbi was.

1 May, 2011 2:15 PM
Menachem Lipkin said...
Aish holds of Gerald Schroeder's approach that the six days are literal but they don't add up to 144 hours.

That's not really what Dr. Schroeder holds. If you want to simplify his approach it's that the universe was created in 6 days AND 14 billion years. The difference just depends on one's perspective. Dr. Schroeder also says, and I heard with my own ears, that Adam had parents.

I know that Dr. Schroeder teaches at Aish, but is it totally true that Aish holds of his approach?

1 May, 2011 3:22 PM
Natan Slifkin said...
I just had a long phone conversation with Rabbi Mechanic, who was very upset and bewildered at Garnel's account of what transpired. He flatly and vehemently denies every single part of the account. (I myself often find that people misrepresent me; sometimes deliberately, sometimes subconsciously, and this is sometimes even done by people who are close to me - and it is immensely frustrating.) The Ami article - which Rabbi Mechanic hated as much as the rest of us did - likewise did not accurately represent his work, and quoted him (also inaccurately) without his permission. I do know that while in the past he was heavily involved in Discovery-style presentations, he has very much moved away from that approach in the last few years, for which he should be commended.

1 May, 2011 4:01 PM
Shadesof said...
"I get the problem people have with the simplistic black-and-white kiruv approaches. I'd like to know if the oilum thinks this project emunah site is any better. He certainly looks more open to discussion..."

Project Emunah/R. Clinton's website looks like like something new and interesting, and I would recommend it!

As far as the discussion of past approaches, I think it's better to relate to them in a positive way even if one finds them unhelpful, no matter where one is on the emunah peshutah/skeptical continum. For example, I commend Project Chazon and Discovery for trying to help teenagers and the frum public increase their belief, even if I question whether they are THE intellectual answer to the Haskalah, or to frum people who share the same questions on a more complex level then they *publicly* deal with. This is because I think that Torah Judaism is a force for good in the world, and I am also not willing to give up as far as finding intellectually satisfying approaches.

Speaking of questions/proofs, here is a question I would like to see focused on:

R. Boruch Clinton, quotes R. Gottleib's Kuzari Priciple positively on his new website("Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb's updating of the Kuzari argument is a treatment of the problem that I've always found persuasive). My question about R. Gottleib's approach is what he writes concerning Faranak Margolese's quote of him*(see link, and quote below).

Does R. Gottleib believe that the Haskalah was "irrational"? Also, how does the Kuzari principle interact with any historical challenge, such as the years of the Bayis Sheni? If it doesn't deal with the issue because it's about logic, philosophy, national experience and memory, then why is anyone "irrational" for rejecting the Kuzari principle which doesn't address all issues using *historical* methods?

To be fair to R. Gottleib, he has lectures on his website on many topics other than the Kuzari Principle, can run circles around many intellectually, and I'm sure is aware of these issues. However, to call "opposition" irrational, one would have to directly engage the most learned of the opposition publicly, and I haven't seen that done in the frum world, as say, the Ramban debated the Christians. To the contrary, Ami Magazine wrote how there is a need to protect the frum public from questions.

======

"The last paragraph does not in fact represent my position. There is no leap. We have sufficient evidence to require us to believe that the Torah is true. The only choice we have is to be rational or irrational, and the latter is clearly the wrong choice. The interested reader should look at Living Up to the Truth on this website."

http://www.dovidgottlieb.com/comments/correction-to-off-the-derech.htm

1 May, 2011 5:24 PM
Baruch Pelta said...
Shadesof:
...why is anyone "irrational" for rejecting the Kuzari principle which doesn't address all issues using *historical* methods?
Gottlieb maintains that his apologetics are so compelling that anything else we see which contradicts the plain truths of the Torah (like the universe and the earth being only 5771 years) must be an illusion. In other words, while you -- Shadesof -- may think these historical methods of which you speak look strong, he maintains the proofs he's elaborated on in his book are so obviously true they override any other evidence we see. Ergo he writes at http://www.dovidgottlieb.com/comments/AGEOFTHEUNIVERSE.htm :
The bones, artifacts, partially decayed radium, potassium-argon, uranium, the red-shifted light from space, etc. - all of it points to a greater age which nevertheless is not true...Does that mean that G-d is tricking us? Not at all: He told us the truth! Only someone who [perversely] decides to ignore the statement of the Creator and rely only on what he can investigate will be lead to a false conclusion.

In other words, since we already know the Torah's from God, modernishe methodologies which contradict the Torah's truth will yield results you will realize -- from knowing the Torah's from God -- are false.

Personally, I don't find the Kuzari Principle compelling and I certainly don't find Gottlieb's apologetics more compelling than the physical evidence we have for the age of the earth and the age of the universe. I've written a critique of the Kuzari Principle and some other apologia for Judaism here:

http://bpelta.blogspot.com/2010/12/kuzari-principle-proof-from-mass.html

(As for the point that Gottlieb can run intellectual circles around some, that may be true, but a person can be very smart and ignore the evidence against the point-of-view he wants to be true (you know this of course from the fact that there are extraordinarily intelligent Christian apologists)

1 May, 2011 5:57 PM
Shadesof said...
"As for the point that Gottlieb can run intellectual circles around some, that may be true, but a person can be very smart and ignore the evidence against the point-of-view he wants to be true"

That's true, but I think he has what to contribute, and is entitled to respond(FWIW, I attended three shiurim of his on Derech Hashem when I visted Ohr Somayach, and then had a pleasant conversation afterwards on topics having nothing to do with the Kuzari Principle, or with Derech Hashem, for that matter, and am open to hearing from him).

R. Gil Student discusses what I am gettig at--"language differences"-- in connection with his review of "Freedom from Bondadge" and says that rebuttals would "likely be some talking past each other" due to differences in "language"(see below).

Nevertheless, I'm still interested in a response from R. Gottleib--in the same "language"-- even if I question whether his use of "irrational" is warranted or not.

(see also FKM's post, linked below, defending the Kuzari Principle)

=======

"He also utterly demolishes R. Dovid Gottlieb's so-called proof (also known as "The Kuzari Proof") for the Torah. Over the past few days, I read the latest updated version of R. Gottlieb's book. It is not my place to argue in detail with his logic but I found it to be fatally burdened with unstated and unproven assumptions about psychology, sociology and Jewish history. Gold has a field day, although I'm not sure that he and R. Gottlieb speak the same "language" so there will likely be some talking past each other in any rebuttals that are produced."

http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2008/06/freedom-from-bondage-ii.html

http://fkmaniac.blogspot.com/2008/07/in-defense-of-rabbi-gottliebs-kuzari.html

1 May, 2011 6:33 PM
Baruch Pelta said...
Shadesof:

I see from your last comment that we're on different wavelengths. I do agree with Rabbi Student though that Rabbi Gottlieb's book is "fatally burdened with unstated and unproven assumptions about psychology, sociology and Jewish history."

1 May, 2011 8:35 PM
Shadesof said...
"I see from your last comment that we're on different wavelengths. "

What do you mean? Why is encouraging discussion between both sides, on "different wavelengths"? Or do you think discussion is futile and has already happened?

I said that I think RDG "has what to contribute", even though I understand what you are saying(see below). What's wrong with trying to learn something from RDG in the process of debate? The Rambam said "accept the truth from anyone who says it".

The issues are:

a) do you speak in logical and experiential terms vs. historical methods(RDG would try to critque historical methods; I believe that R. Ken Spiro briefly does that in his book regarding the Bayis Sheni issue; also, I think Professor Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, from what I've heard, also spoke about national memory).

b) if the Kuzari method is so scientifically-solid, that opposition is "irrational", why does the frum community protect people from challenges(as AMI wrote in part, eg, even R. Baruch Ber was negatively impacted)?

Actually, Daat Emet asked the question:

"If the "Divine truth" is in the pocket of the Charedi, why are they so afraid to teach their students Biblical criticism, the results of archeological research, and to teach them whether their faith passes the test of reasonable critique?"

(a response--for debate-- would be, that emunah is both intellectual and spritual/emotional, and the avoidance of public exposure is not due to any intellectual weakness; also, the same Rambam who wrote Moreh Nevuchim said in Hilchos Avodah Zarah that not all minds can grasp the truth)

c) I would agree in part with AMI that not all online-skeptics are familar enough with pro-Torah sources(most never saw Doros HaRishonim, or have a solid grasp of Shas; Ezzie Goldish made a similar point on his blog SerachandEz when discussing the Ami article)

d)AMI is also correct about the role of emotions, in part, in going OTD, even if the writer took it too far

1 May, 2011 9:15 PM
Baruch Pelta said...
It was something else I was disagreeing with you on when I said we're on different wavelengths, but yea let's focus on the point where we agree: I agree with the need for debate. I've had a few myself, the most formal being http://bpvsfkm.blogspot.com/

1 May, 2011 9:28 PM
Yitz Waxman said...
Without getting into the details of this particular Rabbi or his presentation, I'd just like to point out that today, after the Slifkin bank, any kiruv Rabbi pledging fealty to our charedi sages are basically in an impossible situation. They're going to have to compromise something, and the options basically come down to choosing the least vile poison.

Option #1a - present a literalistic reading of the creation story, and also try to convince your secular audience that this is fine and there is no contradiction with simple scientific observations.

Result #1a - your audience will laugh you off the stage or simply walk out and see what's on TV.

Option #1b- the omphalos approach - present a literalistic reading of the creation story, and acknowledge the conflict with science. Tell the audience that the conflict doesn't matter because God made the world look old.

Result #1b - Audience is likely to give the Rabbi a cold blank stare as they absorb the insult to their intelligence. If anyone is a bit savvy or even thinks about it for a minute, then the Rabbi has a substantial risk of fielding painfully embarrassing questions.

Option 2a - You're both right! Time is relative and the universe is 15 billion years old and also created in six days.

Result 2a - Cute, but the charedi sages don't accept this and for good reason. It still leaves the same problem of accepting naturalistic evolution, which is the thorny theological problem that caused the bans to begin with. The details just don't fit a full literalistic reading. The Rabbi exposes risk to being forced to concede allegorical interpretations to Genesis.

Option 2b - present RNS's explanations from his banned book.

Result 2b - go directly to cherem.

So what would you do? OK, I assume nobody on this blog would take the job - fine. But that is an entirely different type of critique.

2 May, 2011 12:39 PM
Garnel Ironheart said...
Rav Slifkin, in reponse to:

> He flatly and vehemently denies every single part of the account

I reread my post and, frankly, I don't see anything that needs adjusting based on Rav Mechanic's denials. My account of the questions I asked and the answers I gave are exactly as I recall them. Perhaps there were two Rav Mechanics and you contacted the wrong one? (Just to try and give the one I heard the benefit of the doubt)

As for reconciling Torah with science, there is an answer that is floating through the discussion that needs to be stated clearly:
1) The Torah is true.
2) The Torah was written so as to be understood by us with our current knowledge of the universe and by people living 3500 years ago with their knowledge base. It is ridiculous to assume that one of my ancestors and I will read the text in the same way but the beauty of God's writing it is that it remains relevant to every Jew in every generation.
3) Therefore a simplistic literalistic understanding of the Torah's account of creation, in this day and age, is no longer possible. That does not make the Torah untrue, it only changes how we must approach and understand it.

2 May, 2011 4:45 PM
YGB said...
The best approach, IMHO, was, is and will be, that of R' Aryeh Kaplan zt"l.

4 May, 2011 11:49 AM

Censorship WTF

2011-03-28T18:47:00.009-04:00

I'm not a fan of censorship. As someone who's been through the Orthodox wringer and is all too familiar with corrupt "adults" stifling others' rights to free speech, I have a visceral gut reaction to any attempt to censor or corral others' freedoms. That's why I'm rather irritated that Harry Maryles edited a comment I posted on his blog.

He posted a rather reasonable post on the phenomena of hareidi poverty, an issue that I feel strongly about, and post about here every so often. I left a rather reasonable, if somewhat feisty, comment, and was disappointed to see that it was edited slightly. It lost some of my intention and also messed with the formatting a bit. And I simply can't stand censorship. If I had used foul language, it would be one thing. But really?! "Vigilant" needs to be changed to "there"? WTF?

Below is my original comment, in blue, beginning with the quote from his post that I took issue with. In red is the "censored" comment.

>>"The societal norms of this community deny them the opportunity to learn anything but Torah 24/7. In doing so they cannot possibly prepare themselves to make a decent living. If anyone of them ever does, they are considered outcasts. It is far more acceptable therefore to go through their system and end up as charity cases than to even have a thought of learning a trade or profession... It is my firm belief that those who are not cut out to learn Torah full time would better off learning a trade or a profession. Nonetheless because of the type of Chincuh they get they are virtually forced to stay in learning full time even while they contemplate marriage. They are indoctrinated to continue sitting in the Beis Hamedarsh and refuse to even consider preparing to make a living in any way."<<

Harry, you're beating around the bush. I can't stand this. A major crisis facing the Orthodox world and (I think) the biggest problem the Jewish world has ever faced is this insane poverty going on. And all you (who is one of the staunchest critics of the Orthodox world from within an Orthodox framework) can do is mention some vague inanities about trades and professions. If your cautious treading on eggshells doesn't tell me all I need to know about this sensitive topic, what will?

Part of the problem I have with your "trades and professions" line is the imprecision of the term. It's not unlike people imploring those who are unemployed to "get a job." Yes, getting a job is part of the solution, but it's far from the crucial issue that's at stake here. That is education, and the absolute necessity of a university degree to get even a half-decent job. Minimum wage and blue-collar work simply won't work. The money is too low, and the hareidim would never suffer the indignity of slaving in the mines. Nor should they do. In places like America with a wonderful knowledge economy, there's no reason some of these brilliant chareidim don't go to the greatest universities and come out with the greatest degrees and get the greatest jobs. There's no reason the next Einstein will be MO or not frum as opposed to a chusid mit payos. But you and I both know this will never happen. Because the chareidi world AND PARTICULARLY THE LEADERSHIP are yehareg v'al yavor opposed to FEH! CALLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY FEH! and will never allow their students to attend. They'd much rather their students live like shnorrers, ganavim, chazerim, vilde chayes, and outright hobos than chas v'chalila! perish the thought! step foot into one of those treyfeh batei avodah zora, the colleges, where feh! atheist professors and GIRLS feh! are ever-vigilant to corrupt the pure innocent minds of our tayare bucherim. If and until this problem is addressed, nothing will change. The problem starts and stops with (lack of) education. It's just that simple.

You'll have to forgive my rude manner in this comment, but I simply can't bear to see people miss the point and act like the problem with frummies is that they don't get jobs. It's much deeper than that, and you know it. They insist on remaining ignorant (of everything except limudei "kodesh") and refuse to get an education, which is the number 1 reason for their poverty. I went to yeshiva with these people. I would estimate that 95% of them never went or will go to college. A quick peek at prestigious private non-frum JEWISH schools in my city show probably the inverse phenomenon. I would estimate that 95% of them do go to college, most of them for 4 years. What else can I say? (I know some of you will snicker that my numbers are not scientific, but please, they are estimates. Grow up.) I'll never forget the conversation I had with my yeshiva high school administrator, who, in explaining to me why I would not be getting the high school diploma I had earned, and subsequently codemning me to three long years of hell while I tried to compensate for my non-existent high school education and get in to college:

"???WHADDAYA NEED TO GO TO CAAALLEGE FO???? AY NEVA WENT TO CAAAAALLEGE!!!!"

>>"The societal norms of this community deny them the opportunity to learn anything but Torah 24/7. In doing so they cannot possibly prepare themselves to make a decent living. If anyone of them ever does, they are considered outcasts. It is far more acceptable therefore to go through their system and end up as charity cases than to even have a thought of learning a trade or profession... It is my firm belief that those who are not cut out to learn Torah full time would better off learning a trade or a profession. Nonetheless because of the type of Chincuh they get they are virtually forced to stay in learning full time even while they contemplate marriage. They are indoctrinated to continue sitting in the Beis Hamedarsh and refuse to even consider preparing to make a living in any way."<<

Harry, you're beating around the bush. I can't stand this. A major crisis facing the Orthodox world and (I think) the biggest problem the Jewish world has ever faced is this insane poverty going on. And all you (who is one of the staunchest critics of the Orthodox world from within an Orthodox framework) can do is mention some vague inanities about trades and professions. If your cautious treading on eggshells doesn't tell me all I need to know about this sensitive topic, what will?

Part of the problem I have with your "trades and professions" line is the imprecision of the term. It's not unlike people imploring those who are unemployed to "get a job." Yes, getting a job is part of the solution, but it's far from the crucial issue that's at stake here. That is education, and the absolute necessity of a university degree to get even a half-decent job. Minimum wage and blue-collar work simply won't work. The money is too low, and the hareidim would never suffer the indignity of slaving in the mines. Nor should they do. In places like America with a wonderful knowledge economy, there's no reason some of these brilliant chareidim don't go to the greatest universities and come out with the greatest degrees and get the greatest jobs. There's no reason the next Einstein will be MO or not frum as opposed to a chusid mit payos.

But you and I both know this will never happen. Because the chareidi world AND PARTICULARLY THE LEADERSHIP are yehareg v'al yavor opposed to FEH! CALLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY FEH! and will never allow their students to attend. They'd much rather their students live like shnorrers, than chas v'chalila! perish the thought! step foot into one of those treyfeh batei avodah zora, the colleges, where atheist professors are there to corrupt the pure innocent minds of our tayare bucherim. On top of that they condemn the mixed environment of boys and girls!

If and until this problem is addressed, nothing will change. The problem starts and stops with (lack of) education. It's just that simple.

You'll have to forgive my rude manner in this comment, but I simply can't bear to see people miss the point and act like the problem with frummies is that they don't get jobs. It's much deeper than that, and you know it. They insist on remaining ignorant (of everything except limudei "kodesh") and refuse to get an education, which is the number 1 reason for their poverty. I went to yeshiva with these people. I would estimate that 95% of them never went or will go to college.

A quick peek at prestigious private non-frum JEWISH schools in my city show probably the inverse phenomenon. I would estimate that 95% of them do go to college, most of them for 4 years. What else can I say? (I know some of you will snicker that my numbers are not scientific, but please, they are estimates. Grow up.)

I'll never forget the conversation I had with my yeshiva high school administrator, who, in explaining to me why I would not be getting the high school diploma I had earned, and subsequently codemning me to three long years of hell while I tried to compensate for my non-existent high school education and get in to college:

"???WHADDAYA NEED TO GO TO CAAALLEGE FO???? AY NEVA WENT TO CAAAAALLEGE!!!!"

Advice Needed

2011-02-15T12:23:00.003-05:00

I received a recent email from a reader. The writer explained that he is a 24 year-old married chasidisha male stuck in a lifestlye he does not enjoy. Did I have any advice to offer this gentleman as to where to go from here? Should he leave everything he has behind and go OTD? Maybe find a less-restrctive lifestyle than his current one?

I don't have any easy answers for this young man, nor for the many others that will likely get fed up with the Orthodox world for intellectual and practical reasons (it does suck to have insanely strict dietary laws and to have to dress like it's 1643. One doesn't need a PhD in sociology to figure that one out). While I see the advantage of quitting cold turkey, saying "no thanks" to the whole charade, I also see some advantage in staying put and roughing it out. While I certainly think change is necessary and the whole Orthodox world could use a healthy dosage of change, I wonder if it's necessary to go all the way, be brutally honest and say "religion is all a pile of shit." Yes, I think religion is all a sack of bollocks, but maybe there is some merit in allowing some of it. I'm willing to allow it some honorary spot in society, as long as it's taken with a dose of moderation and a whole lot of salt. I'm not saying religion is good, just that, when used cautiously like in Reform or Unitarian type frameworks, it's basically harmless. I'm not saying that our friend should stay religious but maybe a little, at least in practice. Am I advocating for a sort of closet atheism? Absolutely.

You're entitled to consider me a hypocrite at this point. It's not consistent, or intellectually honest of me to be an atheist yet have a soft spot for theism. Neither is it honest, or courageous, of me to be intellectually opposed to eating meat yet eating it all the same. I suppose I have my weaknesses.

Here's my experience: I was really miserable, stifled, and trapped in the frum world. I think that was for the most part because of the insane rigidity of the frum life (think hell x 1,000,000). Leaving that world was a great decision for me because it helped me break out of that cycle of misery and despair into which I had fallen so deeply as a chareidi. I saw no reason then and I see no reason now to sugarcoat my disdain for modern religion and the Modern Orthodox who see me as nothing but evidence that their system is superior to the chareidi one. Yes, your system is superior. So is Christianity and atheism FOR GOD'S SAKE!

I see no reason to kiss up to Modern Orthodoxy just because their assholes need someone to say "told-you-so" to. They can rot in hell for all eternity for all I care. However, the fact remains that I have a lot of family in the frum world--the Orthodox world, as well as in the more modern Jewish denominations. Judaism has a significant aspect of it that is cultural and not religious or supernatural in essence. Some of it I enjoy and may want to keep. Again, I want to retain some connection to my family, and some of that may include pretending to believe, or at least respecting, certain beliefs and customs.

I've made my break with the Orthodox world. I've left it for a few years and am finding my way on my own rather well. I'm in school (which is extremely important to me) and I see a future for myself with one foot in the Orthodox world and one foot out. I'm not saying I'm going back to being Orthodox, just that I will have more connection to it than I did in the past. I will spend more time with my family and make some time for friendships that have lapsed the last few years. I will go from being an outsider to an Orthoprax OTDer within the community. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's what I feel is right for me right now.

Perhaps I would not have wanted to make this step a few years back when I was angry at the frum world for lying to me about everything under the sun and for doing everything to ensure I was so miserable. Perhaps I would not have been able. I may have needed a break for a few years to get some space and a change of perspective. Maybe only after cutting all ties with religion am I able to reconnect in any healthy way. Yet I sometimes wish I had the courage to make huge changes in my past life without completely cutting ties. Giving up most of the craziness of the frum world while still retaining some of its positive aspects. Giving up the kollel mentality (the greatest tragedy in Jewish history since the Holocaust, to my mind) and a lot of the isolationism and the stifling lifestyle while still keeping a little of the love, the kindness, the community.

So I'm going back. Not to the frum world that I left, but to the family that I love and the people that I love. Not to the things I reject, but to the things that I miss. Not to the past, but to the future.

But enough about me. This is supposed to be about our letter-writer friend, who we'll call Avi. Please share your thoughts and advice for him here.

Conversation With a Kiruv Klown

2011-02-07T14:26:00.003-05:00

I had a recent conversation with a snivelling, smooth-talking kiruv klown that sent my blood pressure to catastrophic levels. You see, our friend here the kiruv klown had absolutely no problem with college absolutely whatsoever--as long as you don't go or it's online or something. Don't ask.

He related proudly that he supports his son in Lakewood. 27-year old kid whom he's proudly supported the last five years, and plans on continuing to support for many more. Of course, his measly kiruv salary hardly allows for it, so what does he do? "Collects." What more can I say?

Extremely proud of his sons' high school which granted them a diploma after -- get this -- three years of correspondence work post-high school. A far cry from my high school which DOESN'T GIVE YOU A DIPLOMA. EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRR.......

He never went to college and he has no problem with that.

His sons never went or will go to college and that's fine with him.

He has no problem with the current Lakewood system destroying the entire Orthodox world. From his perspective, it's a good thing that Torah is becoming such an important ideal. Where the money will come from is not his concern. The fact that he and his wretched system is condemning the masses to horrid lives of misery and poverty doesn't bother him in the slightest. (Hey, there's always welfare to steal and a government to cheat.) So long as no one's forgetting to talk to the walls three times a day (or more) or eating non-kosher bagels ch"v, the world will keep spinning happily. Oh, and those "few" kids who nebbach don't have what it takes to be a greasy shnorrer, well...well...well... they're just collateral damage, "korbonos" as he so eloquently puts it.

Couldn't not mention it

2010-11-28T17:08:00.000-05:00

"The formerly frum need to unite like a community"

2010-11-23T21:59:00.004-05:00

I found an interesting comment from a "Joe" posting on the Formerly Frum blog:

The formerly frum need to unite like a community and there needs to be a movement springing from it, like the Haskala. How that will happen, I don’t know. But as it is now if you go off the derech there’s no clear movement you can join (an organization, yes, not a movement). People want to be a part of a movement. The Orthodox are able to pretend like they have a monopoly and anyone who isn’t frum is just ignorant or like their tayvas, and it’s believable when you’re in it bec the people who went off the derech are covert about it. If we could get a critical mass, then we could even have our own dating system and it would cause even more people to go off and feed itself in a beneficial loop. If everyone who went OTD tried to make people who are frum go OTD just like people who are frum try to make the formerly frum become frum, we would be in a much better situation. But they are in power now and to go off takes so much effort.

I very much agree. There needs to be a community for ex-orthos. If Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox are all respected, legitimate segments of the Jewish world, what's stopping us from adding a new one to the mix - Formerly Frum? I know I don't feel comfortable in either of those three parties; why not give them a little competition and have a new group called Formerly Frum, or ex-frum, or OTD, or whatever? I think Joe makes a good point that OTDers so often have to go it alone, they get little support from any community (including the Jewish community), and heaven forfend if they call themselves an atheist! It is time that we stood up and challenged the status quo and provided a non-Orthodox alternative not only to change the Jewish world and to make it easier for frummies to transition into post-frumville, but to be there as a source of support for those who have left even 1, 2, or 10 years ago. There is a need for change, and I hope we will see it sometime within the next few years.

In related news, the first-ever Formerly Frum meetup occurred over this past weekend, and according to my sources, it was a smashing success. Was it an historic event? You bet.

Circumcision

2010-11-23T10:51:00.002-05:00

This rabbi has asked for my opinion on circumcision. In his view

Orthodox Jews follow the commandments of the Torah (Old Testament) and the Oral Tradition of how to keep those commandments. The Torah commands us to circumcise our sons when they are 8 days old. Nearly every single child born to an Orthodox Jewish family will grow up to be an Orthodox Jew as well. The percentages are very high. Sure, some people venture off, but even those folks are likely to keep some basic traditions like circumcision. So, the kid is going to grow up to be an Orthodox Jew. The kid is going to be obligated to have a circumcision and he is going to want fulfill that obligation. It almost guaranteed that the kid will want a circumcision.

Turns out, the parents are doing the kid a favor. The kid wants the circumcision. It is not something that the kid might or might not choose later on. It is a fait accompli.

There are a number of problems with this reasoning. First, "nearly every single child born to an Orthodox family will grow up to be an Orthodox Jew as well" is far from clear. According to this study, the rate is only 42%, nowhere near a majority. Besides, even if I would grant that 99% of Orthodox-raised children remain that way in adulthood, I don't think that justifies the procedure. If it is determined that the surgery is not in the best interests of the child, I don't see how it is ethical or responsible to perform the surgery, even if the child as an adult would want it. Kind of how we wouldn't get a kid started on drugs even if we could determine that he would want it as an adult.

This of course leads to the much more salient issue of whether circumcision is beneficial or harmful, ethical or unethical. In my view, it is highly unethical. It's nice that you admit that "The health benefits and detriments are negligible as science has shown. Circumcision is about religion and not about ancient medicine." I agree that there is no scientific benefit to the procedure. It really is all about religion. Religion says to amputate a part of the body. What's not barbaric about that?

It really is about religion. It's nice that you don't hide behind supposed "health benefits", pseudoscience, and stories about AIDS in Africa. There is no reason for genital mutilation besides for religion. I fully agree. Maybe this is just one more instance where religion poisons everything.

Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks Garnel is a moron, a douchebag, and an asshole

2010-11-23T10:40:00.006-05:00

Quite a few others agree. See most of the comments here.

Essay on Morality

2010-11-18T16:00:00.001-05:00

The following is an essay I wrote for a course on world religions this summer:

Many people think religion and morality hold a lot in common. Dostoevsky said “without God everything is permitted.” Voltaire who was famous for his hatred towards Christianity, nonetheless conceded, “without religion, there are absurdities” and believed religion was necessary to maintain social order.

Religion has a long history of moral benefits and costs. Countless wars have been waged in its name and untold suffering inflicted on its behalf. Yet there have also been many positives, and much kindness and altruism is said to be influenced by it. The argument can be made that modern religion is a socially beneficial construct, and one that we would be loath to abandon.

Atheism, conversely, currently popular thanks to the efforts of “The Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens), is also compatible with antisocial as well as prosocial philosophies. Stalinist Russia was famously atheistic (though it was a political movement with many other deficiencies, such as corruption and human rights violations that likely contributed more to its shameful record than its metaphysical positions) and it was no shining example of a thriving civilization. Yet there have been no shortage of non-theistic philanthropists, such as Warren Buffett who recently pledged $37 billion to charity, which suggests there is kindness outside of a religious framework.

The fact that religion has been used in instances of extreme pro-social and anti-social environments, as I have demonstrated, and that non-religion has been used in both prosocial and antisocial environments, suggests that the picture is a lot more complex than religion or non-religion is a force for good or evil in the world. What it would seem to suggest is that there are many factors contributing to prosocial and antisocial behavior, and religion and non-religion only play a role in the equation. In other words, religion or non-religion can be a sufficient, but not a necessary factor in what is known as morality. Theists have to cease insisting one cannot be good without God, and atheists have to stop insisting one cannot be good with God. The fact of the matter is far more complex.

Religion at its best can be a community of caring, where everyone looks out for their fellow, and all share in the beauty and friendship of each other’s lives. At its worst, religion is rigidly dogmatic, intolerant, and resistant to change. Atheism at its best can be human beings engaged in passionate inquiry, brazen discovery, and fearless exploration of the wonders of the world. At its worst it can be individuals hopelessly depressed, paralyzed by the utter insignificance and meaninglessness of their godless lives.

One of the most dearly-held religious views is that without religion, we would not have objective morality, all morality would be merely subjective. One may not think killing and stealing are a good idea, but without a higher power endorsing and immortalizing this code of morality, how can it be binding? However, Plato dealt this absolute view of morality a decisive blow 2400 years ago in his dilemma in Euthyphro: If morality was outside of human control, it is arbitrary. Yes, God may decide something is moral, but unless it is subject to our understanding of morality, it is incomprehensible to us humans. Unless, of course, God gives us rules which already correspond to our concept of morality, in which case God is merely deferring to our view of morality, which would make divine will far from objective. In which case, religious texts may offer a helpful moral code, yet they are far from the final word on the subject, and their words are, necessarily, subject to human interpretation.

Another common argument in favor of religion is that societies without God pay a severe social cost. Statistics are cited that indicate that religious people in the USA give more charity than non-religious people, and often live longer lives. Stalinist Russia and present-day North Korea are cited as examples of how society might look in atheistic countries, and it is suggested that without God there would be anarchy and a great lack of social order. Unfortunately, the numbers are more than a little contradictory, and there is plenty of evidence that societies without God are much better off than those with. Countries like Stalinist Russia and North Korea have more than their share of unrelated political weaknesses, such as totalitarian governments, and worship of the state sovereign.

Religious people sometimes talk as if religion is necessary for moral character. Dr. Laura Schlesinger insists people cannot be moral without religion (Zuckerman 6). Televangelist Pat Robertson declares that a society without religion results in “tyranny” (Zuckerman 19). A recent Gallup poll found that Americans would rather elect a Jew (94%) or a black (92%) to the White House than an atheist (45%) (2007).

People tend to associate religion with morality, but this assumption deserves to be scrutinized. Is the evidence in favor of it? Does religion really lead to an enhanced morality, or do the statistics indicate the opposite? Is the field so complex that one can hardly draw decisive conclusions about religion’s effect on morality?

Research shows that some of the most secular countries, like Denmark and Sweden often rank among the safest, happiest, and most prosperous nations on earth. According to one study, Denmark is the happiest nation on earth (Veenhoven). Another study found that when it came to giving charity to poor nations, Denmark ranks second worldwide, and fourth in lack of corruption amongst politicians and public figures (Paul). Denmark has also come in third as being among the most peaceful societies in the world, and ninth in overall quality of life (Zuckerman 115). One researcher concludes that, “[T]he fact still remains that it is not the most religious societies in our world today, but rather the most secular, that have been able to create the most civil, just, safe, equitable, humane and prosperous societies” (Zuckerman 30).

Yet there is also evidence that religion has positive effects. The case is often made that American atheists are less happy and less charitable than their religious counterparts (Brooks). Yet the numbers can be spun either way. Depending on the way the question is worded, over ninety percent of Americans can be classified as religious, or as few as 75% (Aronson 11). Also, these numbers do not take into account the fact that atheists in America often feel persecuted and alienated from society at large, and also many identify as “culturally religious” and are thus counted among the believers although they do not subscribe to the metaphysical claims of organized religions and can thus be arguably classified as atheists. Can societies be good without God? Without question.

What is needed, then, is a synthesis of the best values religion has to offer with the best values atheism has to offer. A new sort of religion that may or not include a higher power but that offers all the social benefits of religion without the costs, as well as all the benefits of atheism without the costs.

The world faces many problems today. Global poverty is a mammoth problem, with over 1.4 billion people living on under $1.25 a day, or the amount that is currently considered the poverty line (World Bank). The environment is being put under tremendous strain, as our exploitation of ecological resources reach unprecedented levels. 50,000 people die a day from preventable causes, yet we do little to stop it (Singer xv). In such a world, it is sadly ironic that people actually debate whether religion makes people moral or not, as the fact that so many are dying daily while we hardly bat an eyelash suggests we are a lot less moral than we like to think, with religion or without.

Can theists and atheists set aside their differences long enough to recognize that they are essentially fighting the same battle, that they share a lot more in common than typically believed, and that our very survival depends on our ability to unite and pursue the collective interests of all mankind? That remains to be seen.

Works Cited

Aronson, Ronald. Living without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided. Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2008.
Brooks, Arthur C. Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for America--and How We Can Get More of It. New York: Basic Books, 2008
“Some Americans Reluctant to Vote for Mormon, 72-Year-Old Presidential Candidates.” Gallup News Service, 2007. Web. 11 Aug. 2010.
Paul, Gregory. “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies.” Journal of Religion and Society 7.1 (2005): 1-17.
Singer, Peter. The Life You Can Save: Acting now to end world poverty. New York: Random House, 2009.
Veenhoven, Ruut, World Database of Happiness, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Web. 11 Aug. 2010
World Bank Development Indicators, 2005. Web. 11 Aug. 2010.
Zuckerman, Phil. Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment. New York University Press, 2008.

Two links

2010-11-17T22:53:00.003-05:00

A reader notified me of an interesting-looking new book by an anonymous Haredi author on sexual abuse in the frum community. (H/T on request.)

Very interesting write-up of Hitchens.

Great News!

2010-11-10T03:46:00.007-05:00

Thanks to an awesome anonymous commenter, I've been made aware of... You see, I posted a few days ago about how I thought a meetup group or three for ex-frummies would be a swell idea. I challenged you to be the first one to get the ball rolling. One incredible person apparently took me up on my offer! A meetup group called "Formerly Frum" was started a few days ago, and - HOLY SHIT!!! - they already have 23 members!! (My post was on Nov. 3, the group was started on Nov. 5th - not that I'm taking credit or anything.) Although I don't know much about the group, I must say that it looks awesome, incredible, terrific... okay, one more cheesy word and I shoot myself. Really, it looks fantastic, and I would give my right --- to be there. Too bad it's in the NY area and I'm out in the Great White North. Shit. Anyway, I haven't been this happy since...well, before Garnel.

This group was started by an incredible individual named Freida (I don't know anyone personally, but I'm going with my intuition here...it never lets me down). Since I'm in such a good mood (and Blogger pays by the word), I figured I'd paste the text from the home page of the group:

Finally!

The name of this group was an opportunity in alliteration not to be passed up, but I imagine that anyone who even knows the meaning of the word "Frum" probably clicked on this page out of curiosity. To all those who looked, WELCOME!

I won't go into the details of how I came to be where I am but needless to say, I used to call myself "frum" and no longer do. I'm not self-hating, not even sure than I'm non-believing... just in search of something genuine.

I believe that there are a great many others out there, who like me, left a community thinking they hated the labels and are now searching for the security of a new one - a defining label rather than a limiting one, a community, a context, a sounding board, a sense of belonging ... even if all of that happens to be on the fringe.

I'm not currently keeping Shabbos and yet, it will never be just another day for me. I'm not keeping kosher either, but I still read the ingredients on every package. I can't bear the judgment of religious friends or the fact that I need to hide things from them to escape it, but I still feel like the "frummy" amongst those who are not.

I'd like to find others like me and to form a community of friends. If you can identify with anything you've just read then please do join! All "labels" are welcome here. Frum, Kosher-light, Disillusioned, Just Confused, Taking A Break... as long as you understand and share the vision for a group that is about companionship and not kiruv or judgement. As long as you've done some thinking and have a story to share....

I don't have any ideas yet as far as activities go, but I imagine that those will come if this group finds a following. If you are joining this group, please share your own expectations of this community and ideas for the kind of activities you'd like to see us organize.

Can't wait to meet everyone!

Definitely looks interesting and worth checking out if you're within a few hours of the NY area. Below are some comments from people that have joined the group, and are looking forward to the first meetup:

-hey this is great , I cant wait to talk we have to plan a kosher outing for dinner

-I live in a very frum community, which I enjoy but I'm somewhere between Orthodox and Conservative, without wanting to put both feet into either. So I don't fully fit into either.

-I gasped when I read this! I grew up modern Orthodox, my father (z'l) was a well known rabbi in another town. While I am not observant, I cherish Judaism, it is who I am. I look to celebrate the holidays and Shabbat intermittently.

-Right now I am in transition from being frum to not being frum. Hopefully, I will meet people who have already gone through what I am going through.

-I am only half Jewish and considered to be a goy by the orthodox community however I feel a deep connection to the Jewish people...I dance with orthodox women in Bklyn and I practiced Judaism for about ten years but I am no longer observant...

-Hello Everyone. I am so glad to find others like myself who have "gone off the derech" and are not afraid to come out and talk about their disillusionment! I can't wait to meet everyone!

-I didn't grow up religious, but I spent about 5 years living a Yeshivish life. I still have a Black hat in my closet, but I never open the box.

-I was never religious yet my work is with the frum to Ultra Religious of Kieryas Yoel to New Square. they keep telling me that I need to learn more and then I will be, but the more I learn, the further away I move. so much more to say.

-Hi, I'm Jody. This group def sounded interesting. Used to be observant, not so much any more, but I'm looking to find a community that I love.

-Hi. I grew up in an orthodox chasidic home and defected 27 years ago. After going around full circle, I realized that tradition is important to me and enjoy celebrating all Jewish holidays and Shabbat dinners and created my own label "Art-a-dox".

Self-Expression

2010-11-06T01:01:00.008-04:00

(Can you guess which one I bought?)

I wanted to plug a friend's business idea. She has designed quite a few T-shirts and is selling them on this website. The company that prints the T-shirts is ethical, environmentally-friendly, and all that good stuff. Have a look.

The Meetup Challenge

2010-11-03T16:38:00.003-04:00

Lily shares a deeply personal post. Her husband, a recent OTDer is having problems adjusting to the non-frum world. She says:

I had the support of a group of online friends I met via the blog and on Facebook. Those friendships, paired with the release that I get from writing, helped me survive and thrive as I returned to the secular world. For many, however, such options are not practical or do not exist, period. My somewhat introverted husband is a strong example. He is not a fan of any type of social networking, and isn’t much of a “feelings guy.” It’s hard for him to discuss his emotions, so he tends to internalize them until it’s too much to bear (meltdown time). I would imagine that many other Formerly Frum feel the same way.

Did you ever experience any of this? If so, how did you deal with it? Do you have any suggestions on how we can reach out to those in the process of frei-ing out with more love and compassion?

I commented:

One thing that has helped me very much was joining a meetup group for ex-fundamentalists in my city... there may be local atheist or humanist organizations that may be profoundly useful. I’ve been going to a monthly meetup for almost a year now and I honestly don’t know what I would have done without it. If there is such a thing where you live (and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is, meetup.org is the address), you two should go and I imagine you’ll both love it. Someday we’ll have this kind of thing for ex-frummers. We have to.

The commenter after me opined: I wonder, as far as reaching out to people, is there a meetup group? Or are we all too fearful to meet up? A dating site? Something to get people to meet face to face without fear. I know I am in great need of some support I can see before me.

I've decided, somebody has to make a Meetup group. I dare you to be the first. Don't make me be the one to do it!

Esther Petrack, and other stories

2010-10-30T15:39:00.004-04:00

You know what really annoys me? Hypocrisy. Rabbi Harry, who is supposed to be so tolerant and open-minded, going on about how the hareidim are so closed-minded. He, of course, is much more worldly than they are, and he approves of things like education and television and getting a job, all things the hareidim abhor. Yet it never fails to irritate me when so-called modern folks like him and Garnel agree with the hareidim fully in theory, but in reality they don’t practice what they preach, and not only are they not ashamed of their hypocrisy, they have the audacity to criticize the hareidim for being honest unlike they are. The Torah says a pig is treif. The rabbis say, why is a pig treif? Because it has split hooves but doesn’t chew its cud. It shows to the world that it is kosher with its split hooves, but, on, closer inspection, it fails because it doesn’t chew its cud. This is the way God tells us that there is nothing worse than a pig or a hypocrite.

Here's an example: Rabbi Harry says: "But what’s worse is the ease by which the worst and most immoral images can be seen by any individual without anyone else being the wiser. The sophisticated celllphone is now commonplace and can receive with ease via the internet - the most disgusting images imaginable right in the palm of your hand." He then goes on to say, "The one thing to avoid is over-sheltering. That is putting your head in the sand. And that’s a prescription for disaster." I don't understand. A cell phone is the worst thing in the world, yet one shouldn't shelter their children from it. I don't get it. If secular culture was really as bad as hareidim claim it is, and R' Harry says it is, then there's no real excuse for not sheltering one's children from it. But no, R' Harry is proud of his TV and everything else (even though it's the worst thing in the world!) and he has the best.excuse.ever: "it's unavoidable!" You see, really he'd throw out his TV if he had any integrity, but nebbach, it can't be beat, so poor Harry now has to watch his six o'clock news. Poor him! Oy vey! With a hypocrite like that for a father, it's a surprise none of his kids did go OTD, I'd say.

In other news, Garnel and his so-called “modern” hareidim/atheists-in disguise slam a Modern Orthodox girl for appearing on America’s Next Top Model. Initially, they thought she agreed to break Shabbos so that really made them hot under the collar. Then, it appears that she didn’t, so they have to excuse their hate with pithy rationalizations like “what’s she doing, prancing around in her underwear!” (On a related note, nothing annoys me more than the Conservative values of the Orthodox. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, more distressing in this world than hearing teens and twenty-somethings talk about sex like they’re 95). Any excuse to hate, judge, and ostracize another human being – a fellow Jew no less! – and they’re on it in a heartbeat. There is very little positive blogging buzz from the Orthodox world on this story. Thankfully, there is one rabbi who has strongly supported Esther, and is a shining example of what Orthodoxy could be if it weren’t run by lunatics for the most part. Perhaps there still is some hope that there are still one or two Orthodox rabbis left in the world with their heads screwed on right. I bring this up because I know some people are hoping for a new kind of Orthodoxy, one with all the best humanist values of the non-Orthodox Jewish world and the non-Jewish world, while at the same time retaining a lot of the passion, commitment and practices sometimes associated with the Orthodox world. I can’t say there are a lot of rabbis who can be trusted to lead a movement like this, but I think a rabbi like this is an excellent place to start.

In other news, here is an interesting blog from a fundamentalist Orthodox perspective (though without most of the hate) that is strongly critical of Slifkin and evolution for religious and scientific reasons. It’s good to keep in mind, after seeing jokers like Garnel slam people like me for being “well-dressed apes” while at the same time believing we descend from apes and the universe is some 14 odd billion years old. But they believe in God! This kind of nonsense is dismissed as “Rafi-theory” on this blog, and I highly recommend you take a look.

A Reader Writes

2010-10-27T09:23:00.000-04:00

Hello,

I’m taking the liberty of emailing you because you have an email address linked to your blog. You have likely thought deeply about some of the religious issues about which I write. I value all perspectives and so I’m seeking yours. I have no motive except to attempt to figure out my own issues. I am finding that giving back to the world in ways related to my issues is helpful in resolving them.

I’m off-the-derech (was modern orthodox at best). I’m not in the closet at home, but I am within my community. In many settings I straddle both worlds or at least don’t make waves, but I’m growing very tired of it. I can’t be fake any longer. I’ve concluded that I cannot be happy like this. I often feel like I have no world because I fit into no community. As we know, there are many people like myself. I do not entirely reject Judaism. I seek to find a comfortable, open, and meaningful way to observe without the burdens of my past or my past community. I don’t feel that simply going down a notch (e.g., orthodox to conservative) is the best solution for people in my situation. I believe we can do better, but I’m not sure how.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this as part of a larger evaluation of my life. I am considering approaching some rabbis about the possibility of creating a support group for what I’ll call “religious sliders,” meaning anyone becoming or who became less religious. I know that some of us entirely reject Judaism, but many of us do not. Perhaps we should split ourselves into the rejecters and the sliders. Both need support, but I’m not sure at the moment if the support for both could be done in parallel. The current outreach options seem targeted at “religious risers,” those becoming more religious, and not suitable to the sliders or the rejecters. (There are some groups that help the formerly very religious who cannot function well in the modern world without assistance in their transition.) I think that those sliders that don’t entirely reject Judaism could benefit by sharing their experiences in a supportive environment. Online blogs can only do so much because the blogs lack the human, open, acknowledging interaction that we need. There have been some attempts at this, but I don’t know of anything ongoing in the NY area (let me know if you do). I suspect that this sort of thing is not suitable to teenagers. I envision the college plus age group. I’m 28. Ultimately, this process would also create a group of people comfortable enough to confront some of these issues in their former communities if they so choose. That is a byproduct and not the goal. The goal is to free many of us to go on with our lives as stronger people. Yes, this might be doable with therapy, but I think this option would be more effective. I know several people who have unsuccessfully tried therapy. I’m guessing that a facilitator might best be a mental health professional that is perhaps also a rabbi (likely not of a congregation). The particulars are less important than whether this is conceptually worth the effort to try to put together. Obviously, I’d be sticking my neck into rough waters, but that is ok. Something must be done. There is too much unnecessary suffering.

I welcome any thoughts you may have as I continue to think about these issues.

Sincerely,

There’s no point in fake names (I’m sure you understand)

My response:

Thank you for taking the time to write me. I agree with you that the frum world needs a major change. A lot of people grew up in it or want to be a part of it or have now rejected it to some degree or another or want to reject it. Yet there is little room for flexibility within the Orthodox world, particularly the charedi world, but even in the "authentic" Jewish world (for the benefit of my Modern Orthodox readers). Your categories of riser, slider, and rejecter are useful, but I prefer not to marginalize the rejecters and prefer to see all who are somewhat disillusioned and want change to some degree or another to be more or less in the same group. So there's the risers (aka suckers, BTs, those who "flip out") and then there's the rest of us. I too would love to see the Orthodox world become much more open, accepting, tolerant, and progressive, but I don't know how to go about effecting that change.

Would you mind if I post this on my blog? I'm sure there are others who are interested in this and may even have some ideas.

Goebbels speaks

2010-10-21T16:59:00.003-04:00

Boruch Pelta has done an interesting interview with head Aguda PR schmuck, Avi Shafran. This line is great: "Today, most scientists who write for the popular readership are vehement atheists who are intent on utilizing the knowledge that they have to further their goals." He also tries to portray the gedolim as peace-loving tolerant pluralists who have NO problem with other derachim. Chas v'shalom you should think they're closed-minded bigoted, ignorant, power-hungry, fanatical control freaks. You mechutzaf!!! In Shafran's imaginary la-la land gedolim have a profound respect for science, y'know? And they would never, ever tell people to forget or ignore science. Chalilah v'chas! Just what can you do, what passes for novels today is full of vapid nonsense that old farts can't handle. So nebach, al korchoch we have to throw science down the drain. And the "outside world." Airtight logic, don't ya think? My favorite quote by far: "I mean, there is a pluralism in Orthodoxy, in Ultra-Orthodoxy, that people don't fully appreciate." LOL!!

It occurs to me that as good a liar as Shafran is, he still barely approaches Garnel's skills at bulllllshit. The question begs to be asked: how come the far superior spin doc writes a shitty blog, while the so-so one is the mouthpiece for the Jewish Mafia? I suppose the answer is simple. Garnel is a kofer. Perhaps this forum would be more appropriate for the Fuhrer himself?

Ancient history

2010-10-17T04:32:00.002-04:00

[Inspired by this essay]

Science and religion have had an uncomfortable alliance in that they’re both more often used to batter one’s opponent into submission than as honest approaches to determine truth or to resolve moral questions. They both offer simple answers to complex questions and rely on appeals to authority. This is not to say that science needs a major overhaul, but only that one should be aware of its proximity to fairytales.

If you were to ask me how far the earth is from the sun, I would tell you that it is a wonderful question. If I were interested in the answer, I might investigate how to measure such things, and then go about measuring it. Although science books tell me the distance is roughly ninety three million miles, I have very little knowledge of how that measurement is made, and if in theory the scientists are mistaken or dishonest, I would be none the wiser. It’s like using a calculator: I can generally rely on the results, but it’s really an appeal to authority, an “ask the expert.” It’s not firsthand knowledge.

It can get more confusing when dealing with complex and controversial areas of physics like the Big Bang. Science plays right into the hands of religious snake-oil salesmen by proclaiming that the universe does indeed have a beginning. Religious opportunists could hardly be blamed for seizing the story and having a field day with it. “What’s that, the universe had a beginning? Thank you! It all started with some matter which we don’t know where it came from? Hallelujah!” my point is not that I don’t believe in the Big Bang, only that it’s too close for comfort to religion for me. Also, a) I don’t see it as the only alternative to religious creation myths b) either creation story is basically gibberish to me and I have little knowledge how either conclusion was reached, although science usually is based on facts while religion is usually based on little more than politics c) do I really care whether the world began this way or that? Who cares?

Religion and science should and usually are used in more mundane areas and don’t need to be all about abstract, more-or-less arbitrary stuff. Yes, the Big Bang may not have happened, but 2+2=4. Yes, your deity may not have flooded the earth 4000 years ago, but a meal with family once in a while may be a good idea. I find that science and religion (perhaps science to a greater extent) spend too much time dealing with abstract theories and not enough with practical matters. "Good” science and religion (l’havdil) deal with blue, practical matters, while bad science and religion deal with abstract, irrelevant trivia.

In honor of Garnel's favorite parsha

2010-10-07T19:46:00.001-04:00

Worth a chuckle: Matzav.com

2010-10-07T19:34:00.002-04:00

Here's a recent article from Matzav.com attempting to explain the OTD phenomena. Needless to say, it is horribly-written and makes no sense, but hey, there's the frum velt for you. I did get a kick out of one line, "those who go off the derech do what any Modern Orthodox kid does 'beheter.'" I must say, there is some truth to that. Some of the things I enjoyed most about leaving the cult was basic things like Internet, TV, and secular study (I know, how exciting!), all things "permitted" by the MO. Obviously, MO is no more authentic than Reform or any other religion in that it's all a bunch of lies, but hey, I'll take painless lies over painful ones any day, by golly.

HT

Great article by Dennett on the recent Pew report

2010-10-07T19:22:00.002-04:00

"If you emerge from seminary still believing in God, you haven't been paying attention... also reveals why atheist critiques of religious doctrines are largely a waste of effort: Few people believe them in any case; they just say they do."

Read it here.

H/T

New blogs

2010-10-07T17:46:00.002-04:00

I came across a new blog recently, by a former BT. He says the Internet played a big part in his change of heart. He says:

Over time I began trying to defend Chabad Judaism online as a sort of kiruv effort, although Chabad doesn't like to call it that. Ultimately in trying to defend my views I began to actually think critically about my faith for the first time. I did this because in order to bring atheist Jews back to Judaism I had to first think like them and then dig up or develop proofs that would convince people with that mindset to do Teshuvah. Over time I realized that there was no rational proof or evidence that would convince atheist Jews to return. I also came across rational arguments that totally tore apart Jewish "rationalizations" that dismissed evolution and the age of the universe. I began to realize that the Rabbis promoting these views were either totally ignorant or actively misleading about the positions and findings of the scientific community. I began to come across evidence that suggests that TMS never happened. And so on.

This promises to be interesting.

Other new (and not-so-new) blogs I've recently discovered:

Baruch Pelta

Ben Sira

Atheist Rabbi

2010-09-25T20:25:00.000-04:00

Averah goreres averah

2010-09-25T02:05:00.002-04:00

Just a few short days after Yom Kippur, and Garnel is already back to his lying ways.

He tells one Orthoprax'nik, "the one magical ingredient you're missing is faith. In the absence of that, you cannot accept most of Judaism's claims."

He then tells a questioning frummie, "one could use logic to prove Matan Torah happened." A bissel a stirah minei u'bei, no?

He also declines to debate the merits of Orthodoxy (twice). You'd think with all his "logical proofs" and impressive Godwin violations, it would be a walk in the park for him...

Religious people and truth simply don't mix. Yet another reason to say no to that disease.

You know what they say about the leopard changing his spots.

Interesting read

2010-09-20T21:44:00.002-04:00

I chanced upon a very interesting blog by a Lubavitch bochur. I thought it was of rather high quality, and I particularly liked two posts on yeshiva. A frum person who's not afraid to be honest once in a while. What a surprise.

Serious Fan Mail

2010-09-17T19:27:00.002-04:00

I received the following email recently from a reader named Janis. A kind letter thanking me for blogging and expressing her fascination with the subject of OTDness. Janis explains that her parents were hardcore BTs who thankfully smartened up when she was still a toddler. Janis has graciously allowed me to post this letter and to use her real name.

Hello!
This letter turned out to be a lot longer than I originally meant it to, sorry about that. I actually deleted a lot of it and it still turned out to be long.
In short - I admire you and your strength.

I have been sitting here thinking of how I can start this message to you and no way seems right. So I guess I’ll start with telling you a little about my past so you can understand where I’m coming from. My parents were BT and while their whole heart wasn’t fully in it, they fell hook, line, and sinker for the kiruv. They moved to a religious community and a year later I was born (their first child). By the time I was 5 (maybe 4, maybe 6-don’t remember) my parents hated the way the community/teachers, ect. were ‘raising’ me and the things they were teaching me to believe and so on. They thought it was completely different then the things they were taught when becoming BT. My mom didn’t want my younger siblings to start to learn these things as well. So they decided to leave the community and go back to the secular life they had led before. I was hell-bent against not leaving. I didn’t want to leave and my parents actually debated with letting me stay and be raised there. But because they had no family there , they decided against it. After a few months of living in our new place, I really started to enjoy it and never really thought about the community I had just left again. I actually don’t remember anything from that time, besides small stupid things. Since going back to secular life, Judaism played no roll what so ever in our life. Yes, we did still celebrate some of the holidays but there was no religious aspect to them. Basically it was a time to get together with family and have a fun time. That was literally the only ‘jewish’ thing we ever did.

Now at the age of 24- 3 months ago I randomly come across a documentary on tv. It was about a boy who came from an ultra-orthodox community and left and went to live with his grandparents. It showed his struggle of leaving the only world he knows for a completely different one. How he barely spoke English and had no education.. There is a lot more about the documentary I could talk about , but that wasn’t the point of this letter. (Though I am curious if you have seen it?) The documentary is basically how I found you.

After watching the documentary, it reminded me of my past. Thinking we had something in common. Even though I was 5 when I left and didn’t have a choice and don’t even remember the religious part of my life. It made me interested in learning more about OTD people and the like. I started doing research into and found your blog (along with others). I found yours really interesting and sincere. Now mind you, before I did any of the searching , I had no idea that people who did this were called OTD. Or that my parents were considered BT, or that there was even a thing such as kiruv. I learned this all after reading the blogs and having to google what all these phrases meant. I started reading your blog from the beginning and I really felt for it. I really felt for you. Your struggles touched me. Your blog felt real and sincere (not that other didn’t but just to me yours really touched me). I loved that you let your weakness show at times and you showed your vulnerable side. I felt terrible seeing how people were being huge douchbags to you. I guess the whole point of this letter is telling you that I really enjoyed your blog and admire your strength. Don’t let the assholes get you down. I’m not sure why but I feel I can relate to you somehow. I also want to thank you. I am now so grateful that my parents left when they did. It scares me to think of what my life would have been if they stayed.

I hope all is well in your life now and that your life is getting better . I actually have lots of questions to ask you, but I think I’ve wasted enough of your time.

Janis

Comment of the month

2010-09-07T06:14:00.002-04:00

OTDers like truth, honesty, integrity and ethical conduct — qualities severely lacking in the frum world.

Here. (I don't know how to get the URL to specific comments on this site.)

Harry

2010-09-07T05:37:00.004-04:00

Harry Maryles (I consider the title rabbi not one to be proud of) has a decent post on a recent Ynet article about the OTD reality (I'd be surprised by now to hear there are less people going OTD than staying on!).

Two comments on his post I found particularly interesting. The first one (in blue) is one person's painful account of his experience. The second (in green) is a tongue-in-cheek analysis of the great MO/UO divide. By the way, here is a TERRIFIC article by an OTDer. I don't know why it hasn't gotten more publicity.

from my own experince

i recently became a koifer by surfing the internet and coming to the realization that the whole toirah is manmade and there was never toirah mesiai

i am in extreme pain by acting frum but without any belief it is very hard

all my children they are all married are in koillel

and to have zero nachas for realizing that they are just waisting yheir time and koiches on a foolish manmade religion

all religious people are koifrem regarding all other relious beliefs and miracles

i just came to the truth that our religion is just as silly as all other ones are

I think I understand. The MO are the draftees doing state-side duty in the old peacetime American army. They're soldiers, technically speaking, but they're unhappy about it and would rather be back home hanging around street corners and robbing lunch money from school kids. Their uniforms are sloppy, they ignore or forget their orders, they snigger at authority, and they're too lazy and incompetent to do much more than fill the bunks in their forgotten barracks. No one is surprised when they go AWOL or get caught smoking treif in the motor pool and end up back home with a less-than-honorable discharge.

The chareidim, on the other hand, are the chosen elite, the Special Forces, Ranger-qualified and ready to roll, smart, disciplined, squared-away and gung-ho. They wear their peyos with pride. They worship authority and follow orders without question. They go strictly by the book, i.e., Chazal as the rebbonim transmit it to them. Their drill instructors tell them at boot camp: "If Da'as Torah says you do it, you do it. If Da'as Torah wanted you to think about it, it would've issued you semicha. You aren't allowed to have opinions. Only the MO have opinions. For us, it's Torah's Way or the highway. Ten-Hutt!" Among these elite there will always be wash-outs who just can't cut it and end up OTD. Not as many as the MO, who aren't real soldiers to begin with.

R' Horowitz: Close, but no cigar

2010-08-29T17:48:00.005-04:00

Yes, I know Rabbi Horowitz is supposed to be one of the less crazy rabbis out there, but still. My God!

The following is his latest article detailing ways to keep your kids on the derech. My comments are in italics:

One by one, people were filing in to a parenting class I was about to deliver a number of years ago. I was standing near the doorway, greeting them as they entered. On a whim, I randomly stopped a few attendees, introduced myself, and asked them what they were hoping to gain from the workshop.

A charming twenty-something Chassidic fellow pushing a baby carriage containing a newborn child floored me with his response. “Rabbi,” he said, “My son is two months old. Just tell me what I should do so [that] he doesn’t go off the derech.” And he wasn’t kidding.

That comment reflects the deepest fear that parents have nowadays – that their adorable child might c’has v’shalom (G-d forbid) morph into an unruly teenager who veers off the path (derech is Hebrew for path) to a successful life, abandons Yiddishkeit, and falls into a sub-culture of antisocial and self-destructive behavior.

“Off the path to a successful life!?” Are you kidding me? You call the ultra-Orthodox lifestyle “successful”? What’s there to discuss if to your mind someone with ten kids, no salary, and no freedom is more successful than a well-adjusted, secular professor? You mean by definition people outside of your lifestyle cannot be happy. That assumption, I’m afraid, makes you crazy, and betrays the deep ideological divide between the Western world and you backward, medieval types.

Truth be told, the question that young man posed is one I am often asked, albeit in less stark terms, due to my work with underachieving teens over the past thirty years. And while there certainly is no single correct answer to the question of why kids go “Off the Derech,” patterns of specific circumstances and parental behaviors are identifiable as significant risk factors for children to eventually join the ranks of the disenfranchised and dysfunctional.

Yeah yeah, blame it on the parents. Why blame the system on anyone but the parents or the kids? Chas v’chalila we should even entertain the thought that the system is crap.

With that in mind, I decided to put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard) and run a series of essays identifying things parents can do to give their children the very best chance to succeed in school and life. I will do my best to keep things positive and concentrate on practical advice rather than dwelling on the destructive behaviors that lead kids astray. Nevertheless, despite the gentle tone of these lines, keep in mind that the inverse of the items listed below are enormous risk factors for your kids. In other words, these essays are not wistful thinking of what the perfect home should look like, but rather a polite way of informing you of the terrible, often permanent damage that can occur when we ignore them.

Since you’re such a smarty-pants, I’d love to hear more about those “destructive behaviors” you’re so sure leads kids “astray.” Keep telling us politely what we better do – or else. And I still love your vague “succeed” – as if staying in the UO system leads to anything but abject poverty and failure. Using a word like “success” within a framework of UO (defined by me as anti-college types) means you’re either stupid or dishonest.

Please find below my list of “Ten Things Parents Can Do to Keep Their Children on the Derech,” listed in order of importance.

In the weeks and months ahead, I intend to write at least one essay for each item below amplifying the theme and offering practical tips and suggestions. There is no doubt in my mind that I will amend and re-order this “Top Ten” list before the conclusion of this series of essays, and I hope it can serve as a springboard for reflection and discussion.

I welcome your thoughts on these critical matters and it is my hope that these essays will help you raise your children so they grow to be proud, committed Jews who realize their fullest potential.

Yes, yes, “fullest potential” as they shteig in BMG with thirteen kids and no idea where their next meal will come from.

“Top Ten Things Parents Can do to Keep Their Children on the Derech,”

1. Belong to a kehila with a Rov who can guide you, and live spiritual, meaningful and inspired lives where you are true role models for your children.

2. Create a happy and nurturing home environment; avoid corporal punishment and refrain from sending them to settings where it is condoned.

Great point, don’t be too authoritarian. There is a tendency for Hitler-types to be around frum schools and homes, so I guess you want to avoid the real SOBs. Yeah, your average religious schmuck is a real asshole, so try not to be that way. Very good.

3. Spend quality time and nurture your relationships with your children and seek help should you find yourself exuding negative energy with them.

4. Be flexible – treat them as individuals and allow them to chart their own course in life.

5. Protect them from abuse and molestation.

6. Live in a forbearing community where the members have good Torah values and guide your children to develop friendships with peers who have good middos and share those values.

7. Provide them with a good and broad-based education – in Judaic and general studies.

8. “Stay in the Game” – never give up on them no matter how bumpy the road educationally or socially, and professionally identify and address any learning disabilities.

9. See to it that your values and those of their schools are consistent and maintain congruence between your words and deeds.

10. See that they exercise (very) often and have varied hobbies and interests.

And … always and above all, daven to Hashem for siyata dishmaya.

I have to say, most of the ideas aren’t all that bad. He might just be one of those rare rabbis who’s not a complete piece of shit. Maybe. Although his eleventh piece of advice really annoys me. If davening is so important, why do we need all these other pieces of advice? If it’s really “always and above all” why not make it #1 (as opposed to #11)? It’s just frustrating that after a solid list of 10 pieces of good advice, ones that I can hardly criticize, he has to ruin the feeling with a big, smelly “prayer is most important, of course.” Sure, it’s a step in the right direction, but when I see the frum world’s obsession with craziness like prayer, I realize how much farther there still is to go.

HT.

Dawkins on the Afterlife

2010-08-28T13:21:00.002-04:00

Polls suggest that approximately 95 per cent of the population of the United States believe they will survive their own death. I can't help wondering how many people who claim such belief really, in their heart of hearts, hold it. If they were truly sincere, shouldn't they all behave like the Abbot of Ampleforth? When Cardinal Basil Hume told him that he was dying, the abbot was delighted for him: 'Congratulations! That's brilliant news. I wish I was coming with you.' The abbot, it seems, really was a sincere believer. But it is precisely because it is so rare and unexpected that his story catches our attention, almost provokes our amusement - in a fashion reminiscent of the cartoon of a young woman carrying a 'Make love not war' banner, stark naked, and with a bystander exclaiming, 'Now that's what I call sincerity!' Why don't all Christians and Muslims say something like the abbot when they hear that a friend is dying? When a devout woman is told by the doctor that she has only months to live, why doesn't she beam with excited anticipation, as if she has just won a holiday in the Seychelles? 'I can't wait!' Why don't faithful visitors at her bedside shower her with messages for those that have gone before? 'Do give my love to Uncle Robert when you see him...' ... Could it be that they don't really believe all that stuff they pretend to believe? (356)

Terrific kofer interview

2010-08-25T00:17:00.000-04:00

Here.

Garnel admits he must shut off his brain to be frum

2010-08-23T21:15:00.003-04:00

In math there are no principles of faith, nothing that demands "I would think this but I'm not allowed to". In Judaism there are.

Here.

Can theists be moral?

2010-08-17T03:19:00.006-04:00

-"Nazism and Communism, avowedly atheist political movements, are the # 1 murders and torturers in history.
-There is no fundamental difference between the atheist running the local corner store and Joseph Stalin."
-GarsMell

Religious propagandists like to claim that religion has utilitarian value. Yes, it may all be a pile of bollocks, but it gives people MEEEning, and don't you know (wait for it) it's the societal glue that holds us all toGEeeether. Not only is it the societal glue that holds us all togeeeeeether and gives us personal MEEENING and just REEELLLLLY gets us out of bed in the mornings like you wouldn't believe (unless you have the necessary faith, of course), don't you know that without religion, Nazism would be the default political approach? I mean, it's OBVIOUS!!!! So religion may be a crock, but hush! PIKUACH NEFESH docheh TRUTH!

After the crazy nutjob has cooled down for a minute or two, you might be inclined to challenge some of his assumptions. How do you know religion leads to morality? How do you know non-religion leads any less to morality? And most of all, what makes you think without religion, one is left with Nazism? Besides, don't you know the Nazis were not atheists? Perhaps with religion you're left with Nazism, and without it, you're left with nothing but humanism? Me dunno.

To shed light on some of these questions, I was reading an interesting post by someone who attempted to tally up the numbers, and give the death count caused by both theists and atheists. He says he doesn't get caught up in who is a true believer or which were done in religion's name (or atheism's name, assuming that is possible), but simply tallies up the numbers of those killed by theists and atheists. His results? 2,229,074,100 for theists, and 45,000,000 for atheists without Stalin (95 million with). That's er, 2 percent (or 4 percent with Stalin). I dunno, I don't think we lose this argument. How about religion sucks as a truth claim AND as a way to get people to be MOOORAL? For Gods sake...

From the blogger's conclusion:

"So, at its very highest, atheists have caused almost a whopping 100 million deaths throughout world history. This is about 1/20th the casualties caused by the morally depraved theists who have dominated history. Given that statistically about 16% of the world is non-religious but only about 5% of total world military/genocidal violence has been caused by atheism, we can safely add one more piece of evidence that theists have proven themselves to be far and away more morally depraved, violent, aggressive, brutally selfish, and downright nasty to each other than us infidels. And to think that the theists say that we atheists can't know right from wrong."

Don't take my word for it. See it for yourself.

In light of this information, I'd say even if religion made the slightest bit of sense, we'd still need to get rid of it, for humanitarian reasons. After all, pikuach nefesh docheh truth!

Oh, and the Hitler Youth oath includes the word God, and atheists make up a fifth of ONE PERCENT of the U.S. prison population. Any idea why that might be? I don't know. Why don't you ask Garnel? He seems to be an expert on murderers.

Advice for a reader

2010-08-13T05:05:00.005-04:00

I became religious as an adult, post college, pre-marriage, was romantically involved with my wife, so we became religious together. We were working 7 days a week, life seemed to revolve around work and meeting up with friends at a bar. When high holidays rolled around, we got an invite to Aish, slowly over the next few years we became more observant, and when we moved, we moved to an Orthodox neighborhood, and got slightly involved.

Beliefs? I don't believe, never did, just happened to enjoy being an observant Jew especially in a Jewish community. My wife is somewhat more spiritual, somewhat of a believer, but bored and disinterested in Orthodoxy. The extent of my beliefs: I am a proud nationalistic Jew, and Orthodoxy, of all the expressions of American Judaism, is the only one compatible with Jewish tradition. i.e. Judaism without Shabbat and Kashrut is not Judaism.

Here is the dilemma, we have a few kids (all young, if we went OTD, switched to using their English names, they'd have few memories of Frumkeit within 2-3 years), but I LOVE doing the Shabbat/Chaggim thing with them. However, I hate the mediocrity of the local Yeshiva system. As an adult, I see tremendous advantages that the sense of balance Orthodoxy brings to my life. For my young children, I see wonderful advantages that observant life has in terms of family time, etc.

We have them in a non-frum but Hebrew rich and kosher environment, but now we are about to start "real" school, where the rubber meets the road. I believe that the Yeshiva system tremendously disadvantages children, and I do not want my children in it. If the Yeshiva elementary schools were stronger academically, we would probably utilize it for elementary school, but they are so weak, I simply can't see disadvantaging my children that way.

I'm Torah Observant, I'm NOT Orthodox, because I don't believe the tenets of Orthodoxy, and I'd like to keep those practices that really enhance my life, keep Orthoprax enough that friends on the RW are comfortable eating in my home, but without the negativity, mediocrity, and anti intellectualism that the Yeshiva version of Orthodoxy brings. My wife and I really benefited from all the advantages we had in secular America, and I am not prepared to give that up for my children.

I'd like to be Masorti -- Orthodox when I need religious services, my culture/holidays be Judaism, but not get into this neo-shtetl neo-Orthodox that is so harmful to the next generation.
Any advice, comments, or suggestions is appreciated.

Excerpt from The God Delusion

2010-08-02T06:36:00.000-04:00

As a child, my wife hated her school and wished she could leave. Years later, when she was in her twenties, she disclosed this unhappy fact to her parents, and her mother was aghast: ‘But darling, why didn’t you come and tell us?’ Lalla’s reply is my text for today: ‘But I didn’t know I could.’

I didn’t know I could.

I suspect – well, I am sure – that there are lots of people out there who have been brought up in some religion or other, are unhappy in it, don’t believe in it, or are worried about the evils that are done in its name; people who feel vague yearnings to leave their parents’ religion and wish they could, but just don’t realize that leaving is an option. If you are one of them, this book is for you. It is intended to raise consciousness – raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled. That is the first of my consciousness-raising messages. I also want to raise consciousness in three other ways, which I’ll come on to.

In January 2006 I presented a two-part television documentary on British television (Channel Four) called Root of All Evil? From the start, I didn’t like the title. Religion is not the root of all evil, for no one thing is the root of all anything. But I was delighted with the advertisement that Channel Four put in the national newspapers. It was a picture of the Manhattan skyline with the caption ‘Imagine a world without religion.’ What was the connection? The twin towers of the World Trade Center were conspicuously present.

Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers’, no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no ‘honour killings’, no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money (‘God wants you to give till it hurts’). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it. Incidentally, my colleague Desmond Morris informs me that John Lennon’s magnificent song is sometimes performed in America with the phrase “and no religion too’ expurgated. One version even has the effrontery to change it to ‘and one religion too’...

My fourth consciousness-raiser is atheist pride. Being an atheist is nothing to be apologetic about. On the contrary, it is something to be proud of, to stand tall to face the far horizon, for atheism nearly always indicates a healthy independence of mind and, indeed, a healthy mind. There are many people who know, in their heart of hearts, that they are atheists, but dare not admit it to their families or even, in some cases, to themselves. Partly, this is because the very word ‘atheist’ has been assiduously built up as a terrible and frightening label. Chapter 9 quotes the comedian Julia Sweeney’s tragic-comic story of her parents’ discovery, through reading a newspaper, that she had become an atheist. Not believing in God they could just about take, but an atheist! An ATHEIST? ...

I wish that scientists would refrain from using the word God in the special metaphorical sense. The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light-years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason.

S**tload of links for ya

2010-08-01T13:35:00.002-04:00

Here's a study being done by the University of Waterloo on atheists and freethinkers.

Here is a study for OTDers.

Here is a new FORUM for OTDers.

Now for some videos:

There is a terrific new ~~OTD~~ Youtuber from Israel: Nira Amit. Undercover Kofer has translated two of her videos. Here's to hoping he gets around to more.

Leisha Camden (who I found through Margo) has uploaded a lecture from PZ Myers. See them on her channel.

A recent rant from Pat Condell.

Jesus Camp is an interesting documentary which can be found here.

Nother OTD blog

2010-07-23T16:18:00.002-04:00

http://kissmeimshomer.wordpress.com/

New OTD blog

2010-07-17T22:55:00.001-04:00

I know I haven't been blogging much lately, but I like to publicize OTD blogs when I get a chance. If you'd like me to publicize your blog, send me an email at offthed@gmail.com.

Here's a new OTD blog: http://boxedwhine.blogspot.com/

JP gets into a fight with Garnel!

2010-07-17T13:23:00.000-04:00

Here.

My weekend

2010-07-15T20:10:00.006-04:00

He is, indeed, a very personal person - a complicated one. Sometimes he swaggers, and other times he seems uncomfortable in his own skin.

You may have been wondering where I was this past weekend. I will not deny this report. I was in Detroit. Here are some of the events that occurred:

was detained for four hours at the border
was introduced to the Koren Sacks siddur
was forced to not wear a kippa
drove around a yeshiva campus
was introduced to Tila Tequila
snuck out of someone's house at four in the morning to head out on a five hour road trip
had way too many french fries

All in all, a pretty good experience.

Onymous vs. Anonymous blogging

2010-07-14T18:08:00.002-04:00

There has been ongoing debate in the blogosphere over whether onymous (not anonymous) blogging is better than anonymous blogging. One obvious benefit of anonymous blogging is you can say what you want with little fear of repercussions. Many of us keep some of our opinions to ourselves on an everyday basis for fear of offending others; so anonymous blogging is quite attractive in that it allows that outlet. It is quite exhilarating to be able to speak your mind without having to worry about your words coming back to bite in an employment or family setting.

A common complaint leveled against anonymous blogging is why would anyone take seriously what an anonymous blogger has to say? If one doesn’t have the courage of their convictions, why should I even bother reading? To this I say 1) you don’t have to read it 2) how is it any less reliable than onymous blogging? If an onymous blogger was say a closet atheist but couldn’t disclose for obvious reasons, how is he any more credible than a strictly anonymous blogger who has the freedom to declare whether or not he is an atheist? 3) if one is looking for honest opinions it shouldn’t be difficult to determine whether a blogger is honest or not. Just as it’s unfair to assume all onymous bloggers lie for privacy purposes, it’s unfair to assume all anonymous bloggers lie just for lulz. To simply wave away the content of all anonymous blogs (or call them a hoax) just because they don’t put their names to their words is absurd.

Another common grievance aired about anonymous blogging is that it is too much of a free-for-all. You may notice in a good flame war the anonymous blogger lets loose an incredible stream of insults, while the onymous opponent is reluctant to return fire, for privacy reasons. If I’m a rabbi or a doctor, I may not want to be seen hurling f-bombs, y’know?

A related complaint is that anonymity can be empowering in a negative way. Kind of like how bank robbers don masks before doing their deed, bloggers hide their identity before unleashing a wave of destruction. However, there are two sides to the story. Yes, deindividuation can have devastating consequences, but it can also have positive results. Johnson and Downing (1979) found that deindividuation can have desirable rather than undesirable effects on behavior. While dressing in a KKK costume can increase aggression, dressing in a nurse’s costume can decrease aggression. Deindividuation does not automatically result in an increase in aggression; rather it has more to do with the group you lose your identity to. Joining a nice online humanist community couldn’t possibly lead to an increase in aggression.

If I’d recommend blogging (and I don’t), I’d recommend anonymous blogging.

Penn Jillette hangs out with OTDers!

2010-07-08T13:35:00.001-04:00

via Failed Messiah.

Great Guest Post

2010-07-08T01:28:00.002-04:00

the sickness of doubt doesn't cease. It must be a sickness, I conclude, because I couldn't put a finger on what it is that's making me doubt. Nobody I know struggles with their faith. My therapists, my lifelines, give me many palatable reasons for the sickness. Mesorah comes through the parent-child relationship, which I never had much of. I'm blaming God for things that I should blame my parents for. I got a fucked up version of the religion. Judaism is experienced emotionally, and I was robbed of my emotions. And so forth. But the questions never leave. How are we so sure we possess the truth? Why the Holocaust? Why did God give me this wretched existence called "my life"? Am I to believe that God created one billion Chinese people just so that we can have cheap Chanukah presents?

On Shilton HaSechel.

New Blog

2010-06-29T22:54:00.006-04:00

So there's this new blog, The Orthoprax Rabbi.

Orthoprax bloggers are getting their panties in a twist because they're S-O H-O-R-R-I-F-I-E-D that someone is actually speaking up for a change. They'd happily accept him if he went back in the closet, of course. But to openly admit you don't believe in God?! Teh chutzpeh!

Anyway, I'm really happy to see this new blog and I wish him a lot of success. I have no reason to think it's a hoax (unlike this clown, whose "gut instinct" tells him it's a hoax and that "it would be almost impossible to pull off." Are you crazy? Have you never heard of Garnel? Textbook case of an Orthoprax atheist, and he's THE FREAKING MOST VOCAL JEW ON THE INTERNET!)

Garnel is, of course, all over the place commenting how he should quit his job and how-wait for it-he's not being honest!!!! Oh, the horror!!!! And the irony of the world's biggest liar EVER INVENTED calling someone else a liar is just too much. I threw up my lunch.

I also think it's telling that these so-called Orthodox bloggers are SOOO disturbed that one of their own may have actually flown the coop. You don't hear them make a stink over how the majority of their coreligionists are Young Earth creationists; they hardly ever make a peep about kollel and the looming financial catastrophe, the horrendous morals of both the Modern Orthodox AND the ultra-Orthodox, but someone doesn't believe in God? OHMYFREAKINGGOSH!

Hey, at least Rabbi Harry concedes that some people may not go off the derech solely for taivos. There may be hope for the left-wing MO!

Yes, I think it's beyond hypocritical for lying liars who lie to get their knickers all in a knot because someone is also dishonest but less discreet about it. YOUR WHOLE RELIGION IS SHEKER V'CHAZAV!

Needless to say, I strongly support The Orthoprax Rabbi, and I look forward to much great reading.

I leave you with a great excerpt from Richard Dawkins:

The singular predicament of these men (and women) opens yet another window on the uniquely ridiculous nature of religious belief. What other career, apart from that of clergyman, can be so catastrophically ruined by a change of opinion, brought about by reading, say, or conversation? Does a doctor lose faith in medicine and have to resign his practice? Does a farmer lose faith in agriculture and have to give up, not just his farm but his wife and the goodwill of his entire community? In all areas except religion, we believe what we believe as a result of evidence. If new evidence comes in, we may change our beliefs. When decisive evidence for the Big Bang theory of the universe came to hand, astronomers who had previously espoused the Steady State Theory changed their minds: reluctantly in some cases, graciously in others. But the change didn't tear their lives or their marriages apart, did not estrange them from their parents or their children. Only religion has the malign power to do that. Only religion is capable of making a mere change of mind a livelihood-threatening catastrophe, whose very contemplation demands grave courage. Yet another respect in which religion poisons everything.

Garnel

2010-06-27T22:06:00.005-04:00

Do you see a resemblance?

Tefillin

2010-06-26T16:00:00.001-04:00

Thirteen years old. I couldn’t wait to put on my new tefillin.

I had been practicing for months. I would be wearing them in shul for a full month before my bar mitzva. I practiced putting them on for months. I was so proud to finally be wearing tefillin, like all the male adults in shul.

I had gone with my father a few months before to order my tefillin. Our next-door neighbor was a sofer who sold but didn’t write (he was lazy). He showed us three different sets of tefillin, with prices ranging from $900-$1400. I was somewhat taken aback when my father proudly chose the more $1400 ones. This was the man who once walked out of a shoe store with me because the shoes were a few dollars more than he wanted to spend. The message was clear: spare no expense when it comes to spirituality!

I picked up my tefillin a few weeks later. I was so excited to finally wear them in shul. That first day I was up at dawn, anxiously awaiting the opportunity to head out with my father and wear my tefillin publicly for the first time.

After davening, there was a little celebratory kiddush. The whole shul was invited to partake of some cake and schnapps. I remember a rebbe telling me he hoped tefillin would always be as exciting for me as it was that first time. I was a bit perpelexed, as I couldn’t imagine a mitzva as special as tefillin ever becoming dull.

The years started to roll by. Wearing tefillin became more routine, although I think I never stopped enjoying the process of wrapping the straps around my arm. Some days I would miss minyan; I might even miss zman tfila, but I never missed a day of donning tefillin.

I was 21. Been out of yeshiva for a few months, trying to navigate the ex-yeshiva world. I hadn’t been to shul for a while. I had slowly been losing faith and was shifting away from observance of Orthodox custom. I still made a point of slapping on my tefillin daily, although some times I just barely managed it before nightfall.

Then one day I lost my faith. I don’t know if it was from reading XGH, his calling frummers “tinokos shenishbu;” I’m not exactly sure what did it, but one day in 2007 I just stopped believing. There was no turning back.

I never looked at my tefillin again.

A few months later, I left my past behind. I would start life anew, without the shackles of religious observance to weigh me down. I didn’t bring along much from my past, but I made sure to bring along my quiet little friends: my tefillin. Somehow I felt a little less alone knowing my phylacteries were resting in the dresser beside me.

Recently, I came home from work, and found my basement apartment knee-deep in water. A pipe had burst, and my room was flooded. Among other things, my tefillin were damaged beyond repair.

I took them along with me to my next home, knowing that although they were unwearable, I could still keep them around. After a while, they started to smell so bad, I knew they had to go. It wasn’t fun, but I had to get rid of them.

It’s tough without my favorite memento of the past.

Monkey see monkey do

2010-06-26T13:29:00.005-04:00

In a recent comment, Shilton HaSechel wondered whether suicide bombers really believe they will go to Heaven. That got me thinking…

First of all, suicide bombers don’t need a lot of incentive to opt out of this world. Do a little research, and you’re shocked at how these cults select only the most unfortunate of candidates, make their lives living hell, and then ask them to go on a suicide mission. With such horrid existences, the bombers can hardly be expected to do much else.

It reminded me of being part of such a cult. Not only are living conditions so pathetic, one hardly recognizes oneself. What I mean is one falls victim to groupthink to such an extent one hardly retains an identity, let alone any unique opinions.

When one is part of a group, especially a dangerous, dysfunctional one such as Orthodox Judaism, they are encouraged to defer to other opinions. Thinking for yourself and having original opinions is strongly discouraged, unless they happen to align perfectly with those of the governing body. Hegemony and uniformity in thought and action are key.

That’s one of the great sins of cults like this. Individuals are pressured to lose themselves, literally, on the altar of group conformity. It is necessary for each individual to adhere to the party line so strongly that one’s opinions are irrelevant, if not deadly. Asking a cult member for a genuine opinion is as useful as asking a pig waiting for slaughter a question: you’ll get a blank stare and lots of squealing. Or asking an incarcerated individual to go shopping with you. It’s simply infeasible.

One can debate whether there is 100% certainty among people who commit mass suicide, or who chop the ends of their sons’ penises off because their rabbis tell them to. Personally, I am certain that there is (doubt), yet the question of whether or not they believe something all the way is less important than the question of whether or not they are willing to act on the possibility.

Individual opinion and thought are no match for groupthink, brainwashing, conformity and social pressure on a massive scale. It doesn’t take much to get groups to do crazy things. Do you think the guys who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima were 100% certain it was the right thing to do? No! But when your opinion is not asked for, it becomes highly irrelevant.

This is the great evil of cults: one loses oneself on the altar of herd mentality, and it makes a mockery of free will. Yes, it’s possible to have groups where individuals are not required to sacrifice their freedom of thought. But among religions it’s unlikely. Especially fundamentalist ones.

Garnel on Lubavitchers

2010-06-21T23:17:00.003-04:00

(Have you seen his new pink template, BTW?)

only Lubavitchers actually believe all the stuff they claim

I know! All the rest of you are A BUNCH OF FUCKING FAKERS!!!

Consequences

2010-06-16T04:05:00.005-04:00

First, the bad news: JP is harassing Tova again. Now for the good news: JP says he's been out of a job almost a year thanks to his online abuse. (He interprets it thusly: "this is surely my punishment for not battling even more fiercely against the God haters.") It gives me hope that there can be consequences for online abuse, and the Internet is not a complete free-for-all. Abusers can sometimes get their just desserts. Now I wonder why I haven't put Garnel out of a job, considering his name is all over the Internet, and he harassed me endlessly for many months.

But enough about Garnel (for now). Something needs to be done about JP and his never-ending abuse. No, I'm not of the school that ignoring problems makes them go away. I tend to think that the best way to solve a problem...is to solve it. I know, that was really deep. There has been some discussion on this thread about what to do about the JP problem. I think there needs to be more discussion about the issue, and some ideas I would throw out there include getting his Internet service provider to shut him down or maybe Google to cancel his account. Yes, there are other, better ideas, but these are just two simple ones that may not be too difficult to carry out.

Frum bloggers like to claim that problems in their world like rabbinic sexual abuse and corruption are exceptions, and are not at all the norm. Furthermore, they insist that they would never stand for such evil, and would be the first to stand up and roundly condemn the abuses if they'd see them. So why is it that when they see examples of the worst kind of cruelty on the blogosphere, they look the other way? Why is it that they do nothing but enable or ignore monsters such as Garnel or JP, all while claiming the moral high ground and that they would NEVER stand by in silence while witnessing horrible atrocities being carried out in their communities, by their neighbors, in THEIR name? DOES THE TORAH SAY LO SA'AMOD AL DAM REI'ECHA, OR NOT?! Are we dealing with religious people, or the Mafia?!

The silence is deafening.

Questionnaire

2010-06-12T20:46:00.003-04:00

I posted several weeks ago on my questionnaire that was to be published on You, Me & Religion. I'm pleased to inform you that it was published today! Head on over to the wonderful blog, and let us know what you think.

Did you know they're publishing an interview with James "the Amazing" Randi on July 24th? I kid not. Thanks You, Me & Religion for providing a wonderful forum for people to express their spiritual views.

Major atheist convention

2010-06-12T20:45:00.003-04:00

In Montreal this October.

Why does something tell me I'll be there?

So good I had to quote it twice

2010-06-08T09:28:00.001-04:00

Nazism and Communism, avowedly atheist political movements, are the no. 1 murders and torturers in history. The Catholic Church only wishes it could have done what these monsters did.

Garnel calls 99.999% of humanity "Holocaust Deniers"

2010-06-07T10:34:00.000-04:00

Holocaust denial, Sinai denial, it's all the same pathetic thing

Here.

Garnel contradicts himself 3

2010-06-06T09:57:00.002-04:00

A normal, intelligent debate presupposes that each party is prepared to change his mind

A few sentences later,

No David, I'm not prepared to change my mind.

Here.

Garnel on Evangelicals

2010-06-05T09:45:00.000-04:00

Orthodox Jews often get along better with Evangelicals than with secular Jews.

Here.

The plot thickens...

2010-06-04T17:15:00.005-04:00

Commenter Mellock (who made some good points here) has done some digging around, and has come up with some very interesting theories about JP's identity. He posted the following drasha on DrJ's blog, and I will post it here in its entirety.

DrJ, I know I may be a little late with this one, but I think it may be necessary to understand what makes JP tick. This latest ad hominem attack by Jacob Stein against "anonymous bloggers" is all the more ironic considering what a compulsive liar he is!

Concerning Mr. Stein's biographical details we have little or no way of determining what is true and what is false. For starters, by legally changing the name his adoptive parents purportedly gave him to "Jacob Stein" he acquired a certain degree of anonymity because "Jacob Stein" is such a common Jewish name. Beyond that, we have little or no way to independently verify his biographical or genealogical details, though we can conclude that some are true based on his odd decision to include photographs of himself, his wife, his 3 children, and his house.

Some biographical facts are probably true. Others are obviously false. Yet others fall in a gray area where they may or may not be true, and are difficult to verify or refute, but which Jacob Stein reports as if true (which is not blatant lying as Stein does not know whether such claims are true or false but he assumes the veracity of such suspect claims). I am willing to assume that claims regarding his personal life story and his family mostly fall in the first category, that his claims to be a Mensa member fall in the second (blatant lie!), and that his genealogical details mostly fall in the third category. (His family history stretching into the Dark Ages is obviously exaggerated, if not outright fabrication in some areas, as there is no way that anyone who had so little contact with his biological parents can construct such a long and thorough genealogy with any reliability.)

Jacob Stein claims in his biography that he is a Mensa member, about which he boasts on his blog. This is obviously a blatant falsehood. In order to qualify for Mensa membership, one must score in the 98th percentile on a standardized intelligence test. Jacob Stein is a total retard! Well okay, that’s a bit harsh… Even so, based on the content of his blog entries and comments, I would estimate his IQ to be in the 80s. He is clearly of below-average intelligence, certainly NOT gifted, and his resorts to logical fallacies and personal insult, both stemming from an utter inability to argue logically, reflects his relatively low innate intelligence. Furthermore, I can guarantee that nobody of Mensa potential would waste their intellect by deciding in his teen years to forsake any sort of college education for some Haredi rabbinical seminaries and opting to permanently shut his brain off. That he claims to be Mensa material (without even offering any proof, no less!) when his IQ can NOT possibly be higher than the mid-90’s tops, reveals two things about him (in addition to the fact that he is a compulsive liar). First, that he is an extreme narcissist who must pretend to be involved with Mensa on the Internet. Second, that he is a “credophile” who does not need any sort of evidence or proof to believe what he wishes, and accordingly expects others to take whatever he claims on face value without independent verification. (He assumes everybody operates as he does, which further demonstrates his narcissism, and exemplifies his tendency towards projection.)

Likewise, Jacob Stein’s genealogy page reveals more than just his shortage of honesty and integrity. It reveals his bizarre fascination with family ties and “blood” and nepotism. Of course this is also evident in his life story, if true. He admits to have ungraciously forsook his loving adoptive parents, who took him in and raised him as their own son, upon his conversion (and he posted his final letter announcing his abandonment of them), yet he remains fascinated with the worthless losers who happen to be his biological parents, the very same people who gave their son away on the flimsy pretext that they were “not married,” said fascination bordering on obsession. Jacob Stein is so obsessed with his bloodline that he felt the need to attempt to create a genealogy extending to the Middle Ages (who the HELL cares?), about which he claims that perhaps nobody could trace their ancestors as far back as he can (more narcissism on his part) though he uncritically mentions the Chinese Kong family, purportedly descended from or related to Confucius, in passing. What exactly is his point in including such an elaborate genealogy? Is it to prove the purity of his Teutonic blood? Is it so he can say, “I’m a bonafide convert, Just 100% shaygetz going back to my Teutonic ancestors in the Dark Ages!”

Does he know more than he reveals? Does he honestly expect us to believe he reliably reconstructed his genealogy based on limited encounters with his biological mother? After all, in the short version of his genealogy he mentions a great-grandparent from Finland with the surname “Newman.” Hmm… Newman does not sound Scandinavian/Swedish or Finnish at all! On the other hand, it is a common Jewish surname. Newman is listed as "Lutheran" but it is possible he converted to avoid trouble. Jacob Stein (AKA Lee Epple) may be as much as 1/8 Jewish from his father's side. He also mentions one great-grandparent on his mother's side, Catherine Bluxome, who was rumored to be Jewish, a rumor which he summarily denies. Considering that both of his parents have at least one grandparent who was probably Jewish, Mr. "Jacob Stein" is probably as much as 1/4 Jewish by birth, coming from both sides of his family. I suspect that his larger biography tracing back to every major king or duke or prince of Europe is a red herring to bury and distract from his own Jewish ancestry.

But why? We may believe either that Stein fabricated his entire genealogy, or that he did get many of the details right but that is because he knew about his family history for longer than he claims, or else we are to believe that Stein miraculously reconstructed his entire genealogy based on a few meetings with his birth mother and biological cousins, a very outrageous claim. This leads me to believe the first two options to be the only tenable ones. Either Jacob Stein's genealogy is a complete sham, a work of conjecture, fancy, and imagination, or else it is partially true but with some guesswork and outright embellishment mixed in. If the latter, then the real dishonestly lays not so much in the content of his genealogy page, but in how much he admits to have known about his family history prior to meeting his mother. I suspect that the real reason why young Lee Epple (Jacob Stein) was so interested in Judaism and the real reason why his Haredi rabbis were so open to the conversion of a "gentile" was racial, not spiritual in nature.

My take on the matter? The Epples were somehow aware of their adopted son's (rumored?) Jewish ancestry. Their son found out somehow, and believed himself to be "Jewish" in some ethno-racial sense by a sort of "one-drop-rule reasoning," and sought to convert. He probably used this information to persuade the rabbi to sponsor his conversion, and thus "Jacob Stein" was born. His adoptive parents probably knew more than Jacob Stein lets on, and he probably gathered some facts about his family history from them. However, in creating his "Jewish Philosopher" persona he attempted to sweep evidence of his Jewish ancestry under the rug and invent genealogical facts and details to distract from this. I think this is part of his "personal narrative" in which he rewrites history thus bending the truth that he is a racist old Haredi rabbi to make it seem that he was a strapping young Teutonic lad who converted to Orthodox Judaism because it's the "truth." He can also use his (largely forged) Gentile pedigree to get holier-than-thou and claim that he is a "better Jew" than most born Jews. (When in fact, due to the unique circumstances of his adoption, Jacob Stein is a Jew by birth AND conversion.) But this is all just speculation...

There is no way to confirm ANY of Mr. Stein's biographical details, although, a poster to OTD's blog identifying himself as "Mark" claims to have known Jacob Stein personally. However, everything from his blind acceptance of fundamentalist Orthodox Jewish dogma, to his relentless stereotyping, his lavish genealogical page based on the fragmentary memories of his mother and some very old German church documents and books by amateur genealogists, to his outrageous, self-aggrandizing claims (which he expects us to believe with no supporting evidence)... This all leads me to conclude that Jacob Stein is what James Randi calls a credophile. The concepts of critical thinking, skepticism, and rational skepticism are so utterly alien to him that he is willing to believe whatever he wants, disbelieve whatever he rejects, and expect others to take whatever he says on face value. However, the man is a rotten liar and everything he says should be taken with a hunk of salt!

In summation, what we can infer about the mind of Jacob Stein:

(1) He is a pathological liar with no qualms of telling blatant falsehoods.
(2) He VASTLY overestimates his own intelligence.
(3) He is an extreme narcissist with delusions of grandeur.
(4) He has a bizarre obsession with bloodlines and ancestry.
(5) He constantly engages in psychological projection.
(6) He is possibly a severely repressed latent homosexual (as evidenced by his violent homophobia among other things).
(7) He appears to lack any emphatic instinct being motivated entirely by an authority that operates through coercion or threat of violence.

Ex-Mormon

2010-06-04T17:04:00.002-04:00

I came across this ex-Mormon blog today. She writes:

All my life I have heard the phrase "the church is perfect, but the people aren't" to excuse bad behavior.

If your idea of a perfect church is one that endorses the raping of underage girls, and calls it marriage, and condones men bringing their adulterous affairs home to your bed, and the sexual mutilation of infants, what in the name of Christ, would you consider an imperfect church?

It sounds to me like your people are exactly the product of their doctrine.

Dis stuff's the shit.

Post Of the Month

2010-06-04T17:00:00.000-04:00

Here.

Award

2010-06-04T16:53:00.002-04:00

One of my favourite new blogs, You, Me & Religion has awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award. Thank you YMR! And keep up the good work.

I'm supposed to nominate fifteen others, but instead I'll give a shoutout to three of my favourite bloggers, all relatively new (as is mine).

1

2

3

Garnel on Judaism

2010-06-04T09:47:00.000-04:00

There is no real difference between an Orthodox Jews, an Islamofascist and a hard core Evangelical.

Here.

Garnel on truth

2010-06-03T09:22:00.000-04:00

Religion is entirely about truth. Each religion believes it has knowledge of the objective truth of Life, the Universe and Everything. As an observant Jew, I believe that God revealed His will to us through His Torah at Mt Sinai and that the values in Torah are THE truth.

Well duh! If I thought Mo had actually talked to Allah, I'd be a Moslem now! yes, of course I believe everyone's wrong but me. I mean, if you're right and there is no God, chas v'shalom, then I'm the idiot for practising Judaism.

Here.

Garnel on his age

2010-06-01T09:24:00.000-04:00

Sonny boy, what makes you think I'm any older than you?

Here.

Garnel contradicts himself 2

2010-05-31T09:37:00.002-04:00

"More people have been killed in the name of God and more cruelty has been committed in the name of God than in the name of any other cause."

Three sentences later: "Nazism and Communism, avowedly atheist political movements, are the no. 1 murders and torturers in history. The Catholic Church only wishes it could have done what these monsters did."

Here.

Garnel on morality 2

2010-05-30T09:25:00.001-04:00

"What religion offers is an external, universal standard. Not what is right or wrong but what is good and bad. Objectively."

Here.

New blog

2010-05-29T21:10:00.000-04:00

I'd like to direct your attention to a new blog, Shilton Hasechel. Here is an excerpt of a recent post:

"Eventually one of my Rabbis brought me to the Rosh Yeshiva which was a pretty big deal. He did a worse job than any other Rabbi I had talked to and then when he realized he wasn't winning me over he said "You just don't care enough that's all. You're making excuses" I was so mad! "Not care!" I burst out. "Every day I pray to God to help me all I want is to believe again and you think I don't care!" He wouldn't even look me in the eye! He muttered something about pretending to believe. I stormed out fuming.

Its that attitude that gets me. Its that attitude believers have that we are taking the easy way out, that skeptics just want to undermine Judaism because they have nothing better to do. I poured my heart out in prayer for years. Nobody answered. Does that sound like someone who is just making excuses?... A message to all believers: ITS NOT OUR FAULT FOR DOUBTING! And I'm not willing to pretend that everything is fine I demand the right to discuss my views even if it may be branded kefira by the believers. I'm not trying to proselytize if this or any other blog makes you lose faith DON'T READ IT. And if I comment on a believer's blog its only because I love arguing like any other Jew.

I didn't choose to become skeptic. It just happened. I loved Judaism and had nothing to gain from losing most of my faith in it. I made a genuine effort to find answers for my questions but just couldn't. I'm sure God will understand."

Read more at Shilton Hasechel.

Garnel on divinity

2010-05-29T09:07:00.001-04:00

What does your hatred of the concept of God say about your belief in your own divinity?

Here.

Yeshiva

2010-05-29T07:22:00.003-04:00

I saw this on Failed Messiah, and I got really excited. It looks like the Quebec government is looking to shut down a yeshiva in Montreal that's been around for fifty years, because it does not have a permit to teach, and the school does not meet provincial standards for education. I think it's great that the government in Quebec actually has the beitzim to take on religious fanatics; I only hope more governments do the same. I know there are many schools throughout the United States and Canada (particularly boys' schools) that are unlicensed to teach, and they rob their students of even the most basic education. You'd think this is one battleground that the faitheists and religious accomodationists, as well as the devoutly secular and religion-hating atheists could find some common ground: We may disagree on the existence of God, but surely we agree on the importance of education? So STOP ENABLING THEM, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!!!!

Garnel on idol worship

2010-05-28T09:09:00.001-04:00

The Gemara tells us that the only reason our ancestors in ancient times embraced idols despite having daily proof of God's existence is because of the sexual freedom idol worship allowed.

Here.

Garnel gets pwned

2010-05-27T11:07:00.000-04:00

Here.

Lily sez it

2010-05-27T10:02:00.000-04:00

"Although I love and appreciate my freedom, there are definitely dark hours during which I actually miss the oppressive simplicity that existed in the frum world because I have so much to overcome in the secular world. I can’t get over what a strange paradox that is."

Here.

Garnel on self-worship

2010-05-27T09:10:00.001-04:00

All people worship something. Either its some objective external authority, which we call God, or its oneself.

Here.

Garnel contradicts himself

2010-05-26T09:12:00.000-04:00

He says, "Religion is entirely about truth. Each religion believes it has knowledge of the objective truth of Life, the Universe and Everything. As an observant Jew, I believe that God revealed His will to us through His Torah at Mt Sinai and that the values in Torah are THE truth."

And, "I don't know what'll happen when I die but I believe my soul will go to a better place. And that's what gives me comfort."

Then, "I mean, really, if the Torah didn't provide Jews with some natural superiority, why on Earth would any of us stick around? Duh!"

Garnel on morality

2010-05-25T11:04:00.001-04:00

Nazism and Communism, avowedly atheist political movements, are the no. 1 murders and torturers in history. The Catholic Church only wishes it could have done what these monsters did.

Here.

Quotes and a link

2010-05-25T09:26:00.003-04:00

I'm having an interesting discussion with Rabban Gamliel about morality in the comments here.

You may have noticed the quote used for the new header of this blog is, "Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act" by George Orwell.

Another good one is:

"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place." --Henry Mencken

Here's a few brilliant ones from Winston Churchill:

-A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

-A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

-An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

The deity of the old testament

2010-05-23T19:36:00.003-04:00

God kills 70,000 innocent people because David ordered a census of the people (1 Chronicles 21). God also orders the destruction of 60 cities so that the Israelites can live there. He orders the killing of all the men, women, and children of each city, and the looting of all of value (Deuteronomy 3). He orders another attack and the killing of “all the living creatures of the city: men and women, young, and old, as well as oxen sheep, and asses” (Joshua 6). In Judges 21, He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, God told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife! Just about every other page in the Old Testament has God killing somebody! In 2 Kings 10:18-27, God orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own church! In total God kills 371,186 people directly and orders another 1,862,265 people murdered.

The God of the Bible also allows slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:1-11), child abuse (Judges 11:29-40 and Isaiah 13:16), and bashing babies against rocks (Hosea 13:16 & Psalms 137:9).

From EvilBible.com.

A Vote Against Atheism is a Vote For Hitler

2010-05-15T07:08:00.005-04:00

I just watched a rather interesting debate between Christopher Hitchens and William Lane Craig (clips below). It's well over two hours and I only recommend you watch the entire thing if you're bored, but I posted two (of sixteen) clips that I found especially interesting. I won't say that either of them won the debate, and I'll refrain from making snide comments about Craig's nasal voice and some of his pathetic word games, but I'll say that compared to an average Hitchens opponent (including Garhel's BFF Al Sharpton) he emerged rather unscathed, sadly enough.

Anyway, I've been doing some research into Garnel's baseless assertion that Hitler was an atheist and that the Nazi regime was atheist. The more I look into it, the more transparent it becomes that Garnel is a filthy, pig-headed liar. Hitler was recorded as saying "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so," and "My feeling as a Christian leads me to be a fighter for my Lord and Saviour." See this website for more information, and for photos of zer Fuhrer leaving church and praying. Hitchens says in the video that Paul Johnson has estimated the number of Waffen SS who were practicing Catholics to be as high as 60%. I haven't had the chance to check the source myself, but this guy claims the number is actually 22.7%. Too bad Hitch fudged the numbers, but hey, it's nothing like the kind of lying Garnel does...

Garnel said (in case you missed it): "Nazism and Communism, avowedly atheist political movements, are the no. 1 murders and torturers in history." Only the Nazis weren't atheists. And Communism didn't have much to do with atheism, either. But I can tell you who's a fascist just like all the Nazis! (How did you guess?)

Or try this one:

It matters not that Hitler and Stalin were atheists? Their lack of fear of retribution from a higher authority, their nihilistic attitude that this life is all you get and that only the strong survive was their entire motivation and such an attitude is not something you find in religion where the fear of external punishment for sin is always present.

Look at it from a sociological basis: Ask any old survivor from Poland or the Ukraine what things were like before and during the War.

Before the war it was lousy but tolerable. The Poles and Ukraines might attack someone on the street or have the occasional pogrom but otherwise life was quiet for the Jews. Then the Germans, y"sh, came to town and suddenly these same people who couldn't organize a proper riot became death camp kapos and expert murderers. Why?

Because before the War they had some fear of God. They knew they weren't supposed to like Jews or be nice to them but they also knew that if they rose up and massacred all the local ones, God just might get mad at them. When the Germans came to town and got away with murdering Jews left right and centre and there was no retribution from above, they lost their fear of God and unleashed their savage hatred.

Go look through history. No religious movement has ever accomplished a fraction of what the Nazis and Communists did. Dawkins, for all his apologetics, can't avoid this.

If I, as a religious man, have to make common company with Torquemada, Osama and the Crusaders, then any atheist has to accept he's in the same club as Hitler, Tse-tung, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. To deny this is hypocrisy.

Gotta love that: "they also knew that if they rose up and massacred all the local ones, God just might get mad at them." Ha! As if fear of God was what "kept them" from massacring Jews all those years! And they somehow lost their fear of God and that allowed them to kill. LMAO. The stupid is just overwhelming.

Again, Hitler was not an atheist and the Nazis were not atheists. They were... uh... theists. Besides , Europe had a rich history of slaughtering Jews for thousands of years (was that also because they were "atheists"?) and organized religion has more than its share of blood on its hands (all while claiming moral infallibility, of course, and knowledge of the Ultimate Truth about everything and anything else they can dream up). And Stalinist Russia had thousands of years of religious baggage and bigotry before Stalin came along (and if he was an atheist? So what? Hitler was a THEIST!!!)

So much for objective morality. The shoe's on the other foot, I'm afraid. The question is not whether one can be moral without God. The question is can you be moral WITH God? Hmmm... I'm not sure.

Anyway, here are the videos. I recommend the first half of this one, second half of the second one.

Living Without God: A Review

2010-05-03T17:57:00.008-04:00

In a recent article, a born-again Orthodox Jew related “we were hurt to the core of our beings, but not disillusioned enough to leave. We knew there was nothing better out there anyway– we'd been there and done that already.” It struck me how hopeless that sounded. In combating religion, one approach is to appeal to reason and to the fact that there is no rational need for gods to explain anything (not that there ever was one). However, it strikes me how the major factors of belief in God are primarily emotional. People don’t believe in God because it best explains the origin of species. Rather, they believe in God because it allows them access to community, gives them some comfort when they’re sad, they’re not allowed to question it, and a whole host of other sociopsychological reasons.

This is why I really liked Living without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided by Ronald Aronson (2008, Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 211 pages). The author seeks to explore the basic emotional and psychological needs that religion has attempted to resolve, and attempts to provide a coherent and ethical worldview. He tries to show a moral approach to living that makes no reference to gods, or supernatural phenomena. My favorite parts are the fact that he seems to have a strong social consciousness, the the book is eminently readable (not at all technical), and perhaps most importantly that he recognizes this crucial point: that humans are mostly looking for ways to live their best lives possible. The question of whether or not god exists is irrelevant and the main question is how is one to live one’s life. Even most moderate religions nowadays don’t believe in a personal god, so you’d think they agree. My main problem with the book was that I hoped for more clear direction or perhaps a more vigorous hashing out of the issues; instead there was a lot of hocking about philosophy and history. I wanted to see more practice, less theory, but hey, nothing’s perfect. I still think the book serves a great purpose by reminding us of our ethical obligation to continue to strive for a moral existence, regardless of whether or not we believe in Mother Goose, I mean God.

In keeping with my long-standing tradition of book reviews, here’s a shitload of text for your perusal.

Our own point of view, once so robust and filled with energy, is diffident and measured, able to respond to religious enthusiasm only with our denial of God followed by our own uncertainties. In contrast to our principled tentativeness, our religious friends affirm their belief in the coherence of the universe and the world, their deep sense of belonging to it and a human community, their refusal to be stymied by the limits of their knowledge, their confidence in dealing with life’s mysteries and uncertainties, their willingness to take complete responsibility for the small things while leaving forces beyond themselves in charge of the large ones, their security in knowing right from wrong, and perhaps above all, their sense of hope about the future. Even if we would reject these beliefs as unfounded and irrational, we have to be struck by their force. And envy their coherence. In response, what do we have to say about the latest research into religion’s effectiveness, for example, in helping people withstand and bounce back from illness and disease? Why are we unable to be more persuasive? Besides disbelief, what do we have to offer? What should we tell our children and grandchildren as we see them swept up in a pervasively religious environment?...Religion is not really the issue, but rather the incompleteness or tentativeness, the thinness or emptiness, of today’s atheism, agnosticism, and secularism. Living without God means turning toward something. To flourish we need coherent secular philosophies that effectively answer life’s vital questions… My starting point is that one-quarter of a millennium after the beginning of the Enlightenment, it is still so very, very hard to be human. Death, loss, suffering, and inhumanity form an essential frame within which our lives take place. And, after so much civilization, we live in a dizzying universe of “despites”—despite all that humans have done to transform nature into a habitable environment; despite dazzling accomplishments in medicine and public health, most humans are insecure about having adequate healthcare; despite a global economy that places the rest of the world in our lives, our ancestor’s dependence on nature has been replaced by our own economic vulnerability; despite generations of struggles for dignity and equality, the global distribution of wealth and power are fundamentally unequal and unfair. And so on, endlessly, multiplying paradoxes until the insecurities and miseries of most lives rival those of the past.

In such as world is it any wonder that people turn to religion? It consoles and offers hope. It provides answers to some of life’s most perplexing problems. It gives meaning and promises justice. Its roots lie not only in the deep past, our ignorance, or even in our refusal to live without myth. Religion’s roots also lie in the stresses of our experience. Young Marx called religion “the heart of a heartless world,” and we might also think of it as the meaning of a meaningless world, and the order of an absurd world. It is hardly a surprising response to this life and this world, which remain hard and inhospitable.

So living without God means not simply rejecting God, but asking and answering vital existential questions still at the heart of today’s religions. These were once persuasively addressed by secularists, but they have re-emerged to taunt the twenty-first century with new urgency. Why is life so harsh? Where does human destructiveness come from? Why does our organized and rationalized world seem so irrational? Why, despite movement after movement on behalf of justice, is life still so unfair? Is there reason to hope that any of this can be improved? What is the meaning and direction of human life, without God and after Progress? What are our prospects for understanding the world today? How can we act morally? How can we come to terms with the specter of our own death? These are questions about how to think, how to see ourselves, and how to live in this century. My answers will…form a kind of twenty-first-century guide for the perplexed. (pp. 16-20)

Living without religion, I dare to speak of morality! The exclamation mark is dedicated to all those who express astonishment that unbelievers can be moral without God. A frequent paper topic among my students is precisely this: How is it possible to be moral without religion? Those who ask this usually come from the unexplored assumption that accepting the Ten Commandments as the word of God is essential for ethical behavior. The doubt that any other path exists is so widespread that our culture endlessly recycles the old saw imputed to Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov: If God does not exist then anything is possible.

The primary relationship in the Ten Commandments, freshly analyzed by Sam Harris in Letter to a Christian Nation, is between the individual and God. The first four commandments focus on this, followed by six rudimentary demands for good behavior common to every culture: for honoring one’s parents, against murder, theft, adultery, lying, and envy. When God drops away from our lives, what becomes of our morality? Atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists are frequently pressed to show how they are able to keep the other six commandments without the strong presence of God. But accusations about who is and is not moral could just as easily start from the opposite direction. The point is not that unbelievers are less moral than religious believers, but rather that conventional religious belief is morally quite narrow. Its Thou shalts and Thou shalt nots leave most of the world’s injustices untouched. The Ten Commandments do not prohibit slavery, for example. Focusing only on specific strands of individual behavior, those ten commandments have long been wholly compatible with unjust societies. Obeying them is no recipe for making either an individual or a society moral.

If we leave behind the Ten Commandments and the relationship with God at their core, we may discover that the preeminence of God has long obscured our primary relationship: our belonging to society. Morality would then not emanate from a supreme being, but rather from our own belonging to a world larger than ourselves. Our dependencies confer obligations upon us—these are built into being human. We may choose to ignore them, but to do this is to become deadened not only to our place in the wider world but to a part of ourselves. Being grateful is about seeking our links, our connections, our identity. This should lead to accepting our responsibilities toward all that make us ourselves.

If there is any kind of ultimate lawgiver, it is our social being, simultaneously higher and more enduring than our individual self, and also its deepest source. Socrates paid homage to it in Crito when he refused to escape from his death sentence, saying such an action might encourage disrespect for the polis that had nourished him. This was a very early way in Western civilization of expressing our social interdependence. As individuals we have obligations to the community to which we belong, not only in some external way, but as community members: it is us and we are it. We don’t live our uniquely individual lives over here and then make forays to the wider world out there from time to time. Belonging to society means that in our deepest individuality we are always living social lives, here, in this particular place. (67)

Whether indirectly, in the shape of nature gone haywire such as global warming or cancer, or directly, most of what frightens us is human. Horror movies and UFOs notwithstanding, until the end of time we are doomed to fear—other people. Sartre described it unforgettably: “Nothing—not even wild beasts or microbes—could be more terrifying for man than a species that is intelligent, carnivorous and cruel, which can understand and outwit human intelligence, and whose aim is precisely the destruction of man.” The last century’s great lesson is, as Sartre says elsewhere, that “hell is other people.” As he became more specific, he had in mind exploitative and oppressive social systems based on domination and inequality and rooted in scarcity. And beyond these, the mushroom cloud is, however grotesque, human power incarnate. Global warming and environmental destruction are a hell that we are making, and cancer and heart disease come less from nature itself than from how we live. And now we also fear crazed men eager to die in order to take with them hundreds and thousands of others.

All of this tells me that humans and the structures we have created, nothing else, are the obstacle to things finally getting better. Whether at Auschwitz or Rwanda, I would still insist that genocide is not generated out of sin, or because of falling away from the constraints of religion, or out of ineradicable hatreds and drives, or because of technology itself—but from what are ultimately social and political reasons, which can be understood and combated. I would insist that domination, inequality, and oppression, rooted in scarcity—humans against humans—remain the key to what is wrong with our world, and that reversing these conditions remains the key to making it right. (200)

This brings us to the most difficult question of all. Without God, how is it possible to sustain hope over the long haul of a lifetime or the lifespan of a social movement? How can our modest hopes be enough? There are two answers, and they pose ways of thinking about the meaning of human history as well as the meaning of our individual life.

A vital part of the South Africa story, like the story of peace, labor, civil rights, and women’s movements, lies in its links with the historical development of human social morality. In the last 250 years, a complex logic has moved from place to place and time to time, from demanding more democratic government, to rejecting the harshest and most brutal forms of oppression such as being others’ property, to rejecting permanent and inherited relationships of dominance and subservience—to demanding equality, self-determination and a decent living. People pick up the baton set down by other people and other movements, at other times, and they go further.

What do we mean when we say that specific forms of oppression, such as slavery, as well as their definitions of human superiority and subservience, have become unacceptable? What do we mean when we call patriarchy a violation of human rights? We were not given these rights by God. If we face them fully, without flinching, we will see them as real and historically won norms of social relations. Colonial rule met a fate similar to that of slavery, as is at this moment happening to patriarchy and homophobia. These have been made, or are being made, unacceptable, immoral, illegal, obsolete. Always a specific result of specific actions by specific people, at any historical moment, human rights reflect a collective and historically expanding determination to be free from domination.

In our own lives we make our molecular contribution to such changes just by teaching our children to accept people of different racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds, and by living new forms of love relationships. As did our grandparents by going out on strike or fleeing oppression, as did our parents by absorbing and living new ways of treating people as equals and demanding the same treatment for themselves. Sometimes fitful, sometimes sustained, sometimes partial, the determination to be free becomes part of people’s identity, occasionally becoming aggressive enough to change habits, laws, and social structures. At times it takes on a moral certitude so powerful that, as in the American South, in South Africa, in countless factories and homes, it gains—always with difficulty because this demands changing people themselves and institutions—new workers’ rights, gender equality, equal citizenship, and national self-determination.

Such efforts can be crushed, or may run out of steam, or may be…partially reversed. But, spurred by our modern world’s amazing increase of human power expressed in technological capacity, media, productivity, and rising health standards, some among us will not hesitate to push further. As we see with the Human Development Index, people demand placing on the worldwide agenda, against other agendas that are currently riding high such as free-market globalization, the possibility of full development and a truly human life for every last person on earth. Yes, actively hoping that things will turn out all right, finally. Hope is frail, but I think that every time it is experienced collectively, we feel all of it. Then we know in our bones that all people are entitled to live free and fully, and well. In the long run this may be as powerful as any belief in God. (207-9)

Rock and a Hard place

2010-04-30T10:44:00.008-04:00

The largest group reject OrthoDOXY because there's no hava aminah that it should be true in the first place. Kinda like why we all reject Christianity or Islam. --XGH

There is a powerful article in last week's Jewish Press (found here) by Bracha Goetz, a well-respected baalas teshuva in Baltimore. She writes of how she had such great faith in rabbis, was sorely disappointed, and where she goes from here.

Apparently, something traumatic happened to her or her family:

But then something hit us in the face that was so traumatic, we couldn't look away anymore. The intimidating cover-up that followed was probably even more shocking and horrifying than the initial trauma, however. We learned overnight that we were trying to be dan l'chaf zechus (giving the benefit of the doubt) too often, even when it wasn't appropriate. We found out that could sometimes be extremely dangerous.

I think the saddest part of the article is this:

Naïve and way too trusting, we were hurt to the core of our beings, but not disillusioned enough to leave. We knew there was nothing better out there anyway– we'd been there and done that already.

So you're stuck, aren't you? You've "been there and done that" and you know it doesn't get better than teh Orthodox, eh? So what's there to discuss? Is there anything they could do that would get you to opt out? Or have you just admitted you have NO CHOICE? How's that for a kiruv sell: "Our world sucks BUT SO DOES YOURS!!!!! so be frum already!!!"

I just can't get enough of that. Not "disillusioned enough to leave"? WTF?! And go where? You've just admitted "there's nothing better out there anyway." Setting the bar rather low, dontcha think? How disillusioned would you have to be to leave and go "nowhere"? I don't want to know.

>We can't blame our rabbis or the institutions and organizations they lead for not having courage if we don't have it.

Um...yes you can.

>since it is emphasized repeatedly in the Torah that bribes are strictly forbidden, we actually thought that those in positions of authority who dressed like they believed in these precepts, would actually be scrupulous about following them.

LOL!

>In the future, things can really be the way we thought they once were.

Oh, and I have a bridge to sell.

Looks like we have a new OTD blog

2010-04-30T10:27:00.000-04:00

http://www.rebbestories.blogspot.com/

Link to a story by a friend of this blog

2010-04-27T01:20:00.000-04:00

http://www.jscribes.com/if-i-forget-thee/

Questionnaire

2010-04-16T07:34:00.000-04:00

I submitted these answers to the blog You, Me, Religion. They will be appearing there in June, but the blog administrator kindly allowed me to post them here. If you are interested in taking this questionnaire, email ymr@bell.net.

1) What religion do you practice?

I am an atheist. I don’t think it qualifies as a religion, but I like to think of it as a religion. I’m not non-religious because I’m lazy or indifferent, but because I believe in non-religion.

2) Did you convert or were you born into this religion? If you converted, what did you need to do to convert? And what did you practice prior to converting?

You could say I’m born-again. I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, but from the youngest age I had doubts about what I was being taught. So many things just sounded incredibly absurd, and I wondered how we could be so sure we were right while the rest of the world was absolutely wrong. Their gods didn’t help, but ours did? What are the odds? My parents were born non-Orthodox, and I was raised with a great respect for science and the major accomplishments of science. I was also instilled with a healthy reverence for doubt and following the evidence wherever it would lead. I remember my father telling me that we were in a world that was spinning at a dizzying rate, when I had thought the earth stood still. Like all scientists, I was taught to disregard all hypotheses that turned out to be wrong. I was raised to respect truth above all else, and I sometimes enjoyed religious discussions, especially when I believed they would bring me closer to the truth. I spent many hours poring over a religious book titled “Strive for Truth!” until I got to the part where the author defines truth as whatever his religion says it is.

3) Would you consider yourself a moderate, conservative or other.

Devout? I had doubts for a long time, but it wasn’t until my early twenties that I had enough information to safely dismiss the claims of my religion. I had grown up in a house that had no TV, movies, Internet etc., and I was very sheltered. The outside world was something to be feared. Even the library was off-limits. I had little access to resources that might question my religion or very strict way of life, and that may have contributed to my leaving as late as I did. When I was in my early twenties, I stumbled across websites and books that openly challenged some of the fundamentals of my faith (things like the historicity of the Bible, especially Sinai, as well as the creation story). The little faith I had dissolved, and I no longer had an excuse to believe in religion. In a matter of months, I moved out of my parents' home, and began my life free of religion. It’s been a few years since this happened, and I have no regrets about my decision. About a year ago, I discovered Richard Dawkins' books and I was captivated by his ideas. His passionate zest for truth, as well as his awe of the world, his respect for nature and his compassion really captured my imagination. He got me to label myself an atheist, as I realized that to be an atheist one need not lose their awe of nature nor “deny” God 100%. I don’t know that there is no God. I just don’t think that there is one, and there are much more important things for human beings to do than discuss God.

4) In your opinion, what makes you moderate/conservative/other?

5) In your opinion, what makes someone conservative? What makes someone moderate?

There are lots of atheists who don’t believe in getting in the hair of religious people and making them uncomfortable. Although I don’t quite understand why. If it’s okay for religion to proselytize, why shouldn’t atheists? That's not to say people should necessarily be treated with disrespect; but why should ideas be immune to criticism? Why should religious ideas get any more respect than atheist ones—in other words, no respect at all?!

6) What's your heaven/paradise like?

I don’t believe in heaven, although I think it’s a great idea. It would be wonderful if there was a heaven, or if there was a kind, benevolent God looking after us, but I think both concepts are silly. They also become turn sinister when you contemplate the less-publicized flip side of the bargain and that is hell and a nasty or at the very least demanding God-figure. I think they often go together like bagels and lox. If I could do away with one and keep the other, I would. But since they’re almost inseparable, I’d rather do away with the whole kit and caboodle.

7) In your opinion, does everyone make it into heaven/paradise? If they do not, why?

I don’t believe in the supernatural, though I think heaven is a nice concept. I sometimes think we’re all correct. I’m right when I think there is no heaven (or hell) and my father is right when he thinks that his way of life will get him into heaven, even though the two concepts are contradictory. Although as CNN likes to say, the truth doesn’t take sides! This reminds me of another problem I have with religion: if God was really a nice guy, wouldn’t we all make it to Heaven? (Assuming we all were of decent moral caliber.) God's our friend! Conversely, if he’s more of a prick and sends us off to hell if we don't obey him (or his self-appointed spokespeople), then a) do we really want to worship such a despot? b) how do I know I’ll get into heaven even if I do everything I'm told? Perhaps God is partial to another religion, and I’m up the creek in spite of all the prayer and selfless worship in the world! Consequently, I see religion as one big pile of irrelevance: if God is kind, we can safely ignore him. If he’s not, we’re pretty much screwed regardless.

8) What makes your religion a good fit for you?

I think it’s great because anyone can join. There are almost zero requirements. Talk about accepting! One merely needs to be brave enough to call themselves an atheist and that’s about it. You can be a weak or strong atheist, with weak atheist being uncertain about the existence of God—in other words, agnostic. What other religion allows for so much uniqueness?

9) What are your holy days and what do you do to celebrate them?

10) Do you consider people of other faiths to be your friends?

I have no problem with people of other faiths. I generally don’t disclose that I’m an atheist, though I like to think my friends wouldn’t mind if they knew. I don’t consider religion to be the only significant aspect a person and if I like them enough in other areas, religion may not be a determining factor in whether we become companions.

11) Would you ever join people of another faith to celebrate one of their holy days? Please explain why?

Certainly. I’m all for special occasions and celebrations and as long as religion isn’t front and center, I’m happy to celebrate with friends.

12) What are your thoughts on the burka, and Shariah Law?

I find this to be a rather thorny issue. I think Sharia law is absolutely despicable, and it reminds me of the great chasm between modern perceptions of morality and more traditional, religious views of morality. There are major differences between the two, and it is important that we do not lose sight of that. As far as burkas are concerned, I think it’s important that people should be free to dress as they please, and that women that do or do not want to wear it should be free to choose accordingly. Unfortunately, religious leaders cannnot generally be relied upon to enforce freedom, and it’s hard to know whether or not a given woman is free to not wear it. Though if freedom was not an issue, I'd have no issue with it.

13) What are your thoughts on women not being allowed to become priests?

I think women would do a far better job than men. One of the many problems with religion traditionally has been its offensive treatment of women.

14) Does your place of worship segregate? If yes, how does this make you feel?

15) How much does your religion affect your daily life and how much thought do you give it when
making a decision? Does it affect in any way your decision on abortion, gay marriage, etc?

It doesn’t affect me much, although I’m constantly aware of my godless worldview. It especially rears its head when news about political issues such as stem cell research comes up and the debate over morals and values is revived. Humanists like me believe in morality for one reason, while theists often have an entirely different concept of morality, based on absolutes, dusty books, and sometimes disgraceful mythology. I find dialogue next to impossible in this realm.

16) How would you react/feel if your child wished to marry outside your religion?

I would be fine. If she is happy with her decision, why wouldn’t I?

17) In your opinion, if someone is not of your faith, will they go to hell?

That’s one of the great things about my religion (though it’s not really a religion): no heaven and hell! No carrot and stick, nothing supernatural whatsoever. Nothing that’s not based in this world alone. And I think we’ve all seen really good and bad instances in this world alone to feel the consequences of our moral and immoral actions in this world. I know I used to feel immense amounts of guilt just looking into the mirror as a theist, knowing that I was living a lie for the most part; pretending to believe in the Jewish God when I really did not. Structuring my entire life around a religion I did not think was worthwhile or true in the slightest. I don’t think I miss much of it. I have enough faith in the human mind to believe in reward and punishment without an afterlife; I know that if I do something horrendous, I will live with the guilt for the rest of my life, whereas if I do something wonderful, I am graced with the memory for the rest of my life.

18) Who do you think is not a practising ----- in your religion and why? ie who in the public domain claims to speak for your religion? Do you agree with them or not?

I think many atheists stay in the closet and don’t challenge religion as much as they should either from a misguided sense of respect or because they aren’t comfortable or proud enough of their own beliefs. I think it’s important that free speech should be respected in the field of religious belief. Those who are unwilling to tolerate differing points of view should be marginalized as bigots. No one should feel afraid to share their opinion. Respect is a two-way street, and it should be accorded to people, not ideas.

19) Have you ever been the target of a hate crime? Please explain.

I have received a lot of anger and criticism from theists online for not believing in God. What hurt the most was when they attacked my morals and character by saying “you don’t believe in God; you’re automatically a bad person!” Such offensive, desperate people those were. I've also found the angrier their tone, the less convinced they were of their own opinion.

20) Do you ever feel like your religion devalues you?

No. I find religion devalues people by telling them they’re mere pawns in the hand of a master planner. I find the opportunity to be masters of our own destiny exhilarating and empowering.

21) Does your religion give you peace of mind?

In a strange way, yes. I don't believe in any simple answers to complex questions. It would be nice if there were shortcuts to knowledge, but I'm content knowing that those answers are unsatisfactory and seriously lacking. It would be nice to delegate responsibility to a Higher Power, but I'm mature enough to take responsibility for my own life, believe it or not. My school principal once told me, "nothing in life comes easy" and I don't think that changes whether or not a God exists. Our Sages taught, "the day is short and there's lots to be done." I embrace the impossibility of the task.

22) Do you believe in reincarnation? Why or why not

Hitler

2010-04-16T04:41:00.007-04:00

I've devolved into some sort of fight with Garnel here. Feel free to go over there and bash his brains in.

He is claiming he never called me Hitler. Which is ridiculous, because he clearly COMPARED me to Hitler, and he never denied it, until recently. (No, he never said "you are Hitler." But he said Hitler was an atheist (which is false) and that since my morality doesn't come from a book, I'm no different than Hitler, and that anyone whose morality doesn't come from a book is the same as Hitler. His words, not mine.) In his first comment here, after invoking Hitler's name, he says, "Nazism and Communism, avowedly atheist political movements, are the no. 1 murders and torturers in history. The Catholic Church only wishes it could have done what these monsters did." In this post, I say "You ignore my main point (what else is new?) that religion is not about truth, and try pathetically to convince me that there's still a niche for religion in a modern world mostly by comparing me to Hitler." That would have been a perfect opportunity for Garnel to backpedal and deny ever calling me Hitler (as he does now) or at the very least apologize (which he'll never do), but what does he say? "Ah, I knew the murderer/Hitler thing would get your attention." Followed by "There is no fundamental difference between the atheist running the local corner store and Joseph Stalin, y"sh." He also says, "any atheist has to accept he's in the same club as Hitler, Tse-tung, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. To deny this is hypocrisy." Oh, and a real rabbi SLAMS Garnel for calling me Hitler here. What do you want from me?

Garnel also seems to think that the Holocaust was the fault of atheism. Never mind that Hitler was not an atheist, and the Nazi party had nothing to do with atheism. Never mind that the Holocaust is often viewed as the culmination of 2,000 years of religiously-inspired anti-Semitism, and the Catholic Church even apologized recently (unlike Garnel) for its part in the atrocities. Never mind all that! IT'S THE FAULT OF ATHEISM!!! Someone tell Warren Buffett, so he can apologize for the Holocaust. Should he do so before or after he donates $37 billion to charity? That is the question.

Garnel attempts to support his theory here. I'd especially like if someone tears him a new one on this comment in particular:

Look at it from a sociological basis: Ask any old survivor from Poland or the Ukraine what things were like before and during the War.

Before the war it was lousy but tolerable. The Poles and Ukraines might attack someone on the street or have the occasional pogrom but otherwise life was quiet for the Jews. Then the Germans, y”sh, came to town and suddenly these same people who couldn’t organize a proper riot became death camp kapos and expert murderers. Why?

Because before the War they had some fear of God. They knew they weren’t supposed to like Jews or be nice to them but they also knew that if they rose up and massacred all the local ones, God just might get mad at them. When the Germans came to town and got away with murdering Jews left right and centre and there was no retribution from above, they lost their fear of God and unleashed their savage hatred.

Great article on Footsteps

2010-04-10T14:52:00.002-04:00

In the Jewish Chronicle.

Sam is a clean-shaven, articulate 20-year-old university student and Footsteps participant. Just four months ago, however, he was dressed in full Chasidic garb, with peyot and a beard. Just four years ago, he barely spoke English, only Yiddish: "I was able to buy a bottle of milk, that's about it."

Hailing from Brooklyn's Satmar community, Sam says his journey began five years ago. "I just wanted to read. I used to go to libraries, it was a good escape. But if you'd told me that libraries would lead to me going to university, I would have stopped."

HT: DK