Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The controversy is about values - not about being part of the modern society per se

Itamar Ross wrote:

For once, I agree with your blog. Though it is not just a clash between charedim and Zionists per se, but also between charedim and modern society in general.

I quote the following from the excellent blog of Rabbi Prof. Jeffrey Woolf of Bar-Ilan University, a talmid of Rav Soloveitchik zt"l (http://myobiterdicta.blogspot.com/):


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I am not sure what there is to agree or disagree with my blog. Since I am mainly trying to present and clarify issues. I don't claim that I know THE answer. If there are legitimate viewpoints that you think I have left out - feel free to present them. The impetus for this blog came because I could not get a simple answer from EJF as to what the halachic basis of their activies is.

In addition it is not a clash between chareidim and modern society per se. As if somehow the chareidim are primitives who would rather remain in their caves. This is a clash of values. Zionism versus the traditional understanding of conversion. It doesn't help the situation to question the integrity and competence of chareidi gedolim.


I found the comments of Prof. Woolf to be rather problematic and intemperate - at least on this issue. I generally find him to be very erudite and balanced on other issues. In fact I deleted his comments which occurred in the Jerusalem Post article because aside from expressing rage and moral indignation they didn't express much insight into what is actually going on. The rest of the JPost article was right on the money.

Instead of heaping scorn on the many rabbis who disagree with Rabbi Druckman and his concept of gerus - it would be more valuable to acknowledge that there are in fact strongly held and incompatible fundamental differences in values between the Religious Zionists and the Chareidi world.

The Balkanization of the religious groups might be the obvious solution to you but it would spell the end of the concept of one Jewish people - henceforth it would be multiple Jewish peoples.

Israel is too small and the world is too interconnected for your solution to be viable.

5 comments:

  1. Rabbi Eidensohn...and the solution is KIRUV!

    It is time to unleash all the Charedi backed and sponsored Kiruv organizations that must be an up-front-and-center adjunct to rulings from Batei Din...MeKarev BeYemin UmeRachek BeSmol, and not the other way around!

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  2. >"I am not sure what there is to agree or disagree with my blog. Since I am mainly trying to present and clarify issues. I don't claim that I know THE answer..."

    Well, that sounds nice. But then you add:

    >"In addition it is not a clash between chareidim and modern society per se... Zionism versus the traditional understanding of conversion."

    That last sentence said it all: You seem completely oblivious to your own biases. The halakhic viewpoint you agree with is automatically "the traditional understanding of conversion" while the alternative is nothing more than "Zionism."

    >"In fact I deleted his comments which occurred in the Jerusalem Post article because aside from expressing rage and moral indignation they didn't express much insight into what is actually going on."

    Well, the exact same thing might be said of the bulk of Rav Sherman's so-called "psak din." In fact, this is exactly what R. Woolf quotes Rav Lichtenstein as saying about it!

    As far as "the Balkanization of the religious groups... would spell the end of the concept of one Jewish people... Israel is too small and the world is too interconnected for your solution to be viable."

    That is a classic concern, but it is more cliche than truth. It seems to me that no Balkanization would occur in general society. The only part of Israeli society that would truly Balkanize are the Lithuanian charedim (not even Shas would follow them).

    But that population whose gadol is Rav Elyashiv or the Badatz is ALREADY totally Balkanized, and has had little or nothing to do with the real lives of most people in Israel for generations already. And they certainly don't intermarry with the rest of us! The price you pay for Balkanizing is that once it is already accomplished, it can no longer be taken as a serious threat for the future.

    If the Chief Rabbinate disappeared (be'ezras Hashem) very little would change in Israel, except for the better: You could finally choose your own rabbi!

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  3. P.S. Now see the RCA's condemnation of the ruling:

    http://www.rabbis.org/news/article.cfm?id=105297

    and comments on it here:

    http://myobiterdicta.blogspot.com/

    It seems many feel that "Aside from expressing rage and moral indignation [Rav Sherman] didn't express much insight into what is actually going on..."

    So who is simply "presenting the issues"?

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  4. Gaslighting the Jewish People

    What Is Gaslighting?

    Imagine that one day your spouse whom you have grown to love and trust begins telling you things that never really happened. For instance, he says that last week he told you he was going to go somewhere with his buddies this Monday night, but you never remember him telling you that. Or perhaps he gets angry because you didn't pay the electric bill. Now you've incurred a late charge. When you remind him that he takes care of the bills, he snaps that he told you to take care of the electric bill a few days ago because he was too busy. However, you know he never asked you to do so.

    Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse or brainwashing where one individual or group attempts to get another individual or group to believe he/she is "crazy" or "wrong" in doing things in a way that she has always done.

    This is most often done through the denial of facts, events, or what one did or did not say. The gaslighter might also directly or indirectly imply that the individual is defective, crazy, or suffers from mental illness.

    A husband who tells his wife that she suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder when she becomes frustrated because she is consistently being told that things that were said or done didn't happen, is gaslighting his wife.

    Likewise, a wife who tells her husband that he is paranoid because he confronts her about spending large sums of money without telling him where the money is going would be a case in which a wife is gaslighting her husband.

    Gaslighting is a common form of brainwashing in which an abuser tries to falsely convince the victim that the victim is defective, for any purpose whatsoever, such as making the victim more pliable and easily controlled, or making the victim more emotional and therefore more needy and dependent.

    Gaslighting is often done by "friends", who claim (and may even believe) that they are trying to be helpful. The gaslighting abuser sees himself as a nurturer of the victim, and uses gaslighting as a means of keeping the victim under control and in the dependent role. (Evangelical Christians who donate millions of dollars to "help" Israel and try to convince us that Christians are Jews as a means of convincing us that REAL Jews are Christians and who would like to distort our reality of Judaism by labeling normative halachic Psak by our Gedolim as "cruel" or "extreme").

    If you think something like this can't happen to an entire people, think again. Gaslighting is when someone wants you to do what you know you shouldn't (ie mass conversions or conversions without any Kabbalat Mitzvot- it was the Evangelical Christians who recruited and paid to bring hundreds of thousands of non Jews to Israel to begin with) and to believe the unbelievable.

    Gaslighting is an insidious form of manipulation that is difficult to recognize and even harder to break free from. That's because it plays into one of our worst fears - of being abandoned - and many of our deepest needs: to be understood, appreciated, and loved.

    Just a thought.

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  5. tamar Ross said...
    That last sentence said it all: You seem completely oblivious to your own biases. The halakhic viewpoint you agree with is automatically "the traditional understanding of conversion" while the alternative is nothing more than "Zionism."
    ======
    I guess you haven't bothered reading the many halachic sources I have cited on this blog. Nor do seem aware of the defense of Rabbi Druckman mentioned in the Jerusalem Post article.
    If you can show me where Rabbi Druckman's position of not being concerned with whether the converts will keep Shabbos is the normative position I will be glad to apologize for my criticism.

    I am simply paraphrasing the positions expressed in the JPost article and agreeing that they are consistent with the halachic literature. Are you in agreement or disagreement with the JPost article?

    ReplyDelete

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