Two Quotes for Sukkot

From the now defunct Blogger of the 2000's Mis-nagid:

"People who believe that they have a personal relationship with a 2000-year dead man are rightly labelled insane -- unless they call their bizarre belief "religion," in which case it's labelled "faith." Mad frummies will laugh at a Hopi rain dance, opining, "Silly Indians with their ridiculous dances and chants. Don't they know that to bring rain you have to shake a fruit and intone Birkat Geshem?"

And in the same vein Spinoza in the Theological Political Treatise:

"Furthermore, human beings have very different minds, and find themselves comfortable with very different beliefs; what moves one person to devotion provokes another to laughter."

Chag Sameach Everyone! 

Jonathan Sacks and Richard Dawkins

Watched Jonathan Sacks vs. Richard Dawkins debate. (This is not the same as Sacks' half hour program on the BBC that also included a discussion with Dawkins)

Let me start by explaining why I dont like Sacks. He does not address the questions and challenges of his opponents, is never concise, and inevitably goes off into long eloquent speeches which have almost no relationship to the topic at hand. Dawkins makes his point in few words and stays on topic. He makes arguments not speeches, and it is always clear what he means. Sacks is a preacher not a theologian and definitely not a debater and although he sounds nice, he is ill equipped (or perhaps doesn't want) to argue with the likes of a scientist and an experienced debater. 

Sacks, answer the bleeding questions! There is a segment in the discussion where Dawkins and the moderator ask Sacks whether he believes in the literalism of certain Biblical stories. Every time the moderator asks Sacks whether something literally happened in the Bible Sacks says "Yes, but..." and then proceeds to talk about how morally edifying and important the Biblical story is. That's not the question and its irrelevant. The moderator even tries reminding him to answer the question and tries to keep him on track. But he keeps talking. Because he just wants to hear his own voice and just wants to talk about how great Judaism is without addressing the crux of atheist arguments against religion.

Was the Binding of Isaac literal? "Yes.. but I want to talk about how it stopped Jews from sacrificing their children". "Did the sea really split? Yes.. but I want to talk about WHY it split..." Sacks refuses to let himself be pinned down and discuss factual claims. The second Dawkins tries to discuss things that can be addressed by science, Sacks goes off track. It's a classic diversionary tactic. Sacks wants to avoid discussing the nitty gritty of whether the Bible is history or not and wants to say short laconic "yes"s and then run away from the topic at hand and preach about morality and Judasim and blah blah blah. Sacks is clearly not used to hearing anything besides the sound of his own voice from his pulpit.

Sacks also uses the classically problematic "line of literalism" approach which I've discussed elsewhere. His criteria is "if it makes sense its literal, otherwise it's a metaphor". How convenient. Such an approach of allegorizing anything which is problematic essentially leaves one defended from all criticism. Maimonides could say it, but we cannot.

Also enough Bullshit about how enlightened Judaism is. "Judaism encourages questions" "Judaism encourages challenging beliefs" Sacks even has the audacity to say that were Salman Rushdi Jewish "we would have welcomed him with open arms". Well, Sacks, we are glad that if YOU were running the show things would be so hunky dory, but unfortunately you don't run the show and MOST Jews do not share you enlightened views. Were you sleeping during the Slifkin affair? Have you ever seen a pashekvil in your life? Are Charedim not part of Judaism according to you, cuz I promise you that were Salman Rushdi a Charedi or even anything besides a Left Wing Modern Orthodox Jew, they would've kicked him out in a second.

This is classic sugar coating, classic no-true-scotsman-REAL-Judaism-is-enlightened-and -lovely - rubbish. You cannot take your own views and just DECIDE that they represent a huge and variegated religion.


But wait a second this bring something to mind actually... Louis Jacobs remember him, Sacks? What about Hugo Gryn? Were they encouraged to ask questions? Did YOU encourage them to ask questions?  Do YOU even believe the stuff you're saying about how enlightened Judaism is and how it accepts kofrim with open arms?


Jonathan Sacks is nothing more than a more educated, more eloquent version of Shmuley Boteach.  

A Conversation on the Way

I was asked to do a review on the book A Conversation on the Way by Martin Bodek. 

The book is essentially a long dialogue that takes place between two Yidden (Jews) on their way to shul.

The one Yid is a fairly well (presumably self-)educated guy who loves to learn new things and loves to indulge in theological and philosophical Jewish questions. Despite his claims that he believes in God, Judaism, etc. he evinces characteristics of a typical Jewish skeptic, who has read more than the prescribed Yeshiva reading list and knows that evolution is true, the world isn't 5773 years old and lo and behold Chazal didn't get it all right. Despite his skepticism he seems very (almost overly) enthusiastic about pursuing these issues and does not seem bothered by the threats that these things pose to Jewish faith. He reminds me a lot of the blogger DovBear, pretty much adopting every skeptical approach possible, but then saying at the end "But I still believe because of my upbringing and that's perfectly ok!"

The other Yid, who has a  lot less to say, seems to be some sort of yeshivish Yeshiva guy. His favorite answer to Yid1's various challenges are answers like "God can do anything", "God can make it look 1 million years old" etc. Although many of his responses are typical of the average Yeshiva guy, with little education beyond the pages of a Talmud, he nevertheless is unique for a Yeshiva bochur in that he doesn't run away from Yid1 who is spouting tons of what the Yeshiva world considers Kefira. Yid2 is fairly confident that while Yid1 is a clever guy he's got it all wrong and he's not gonna convince him otherwise.

Anyways Yid1 and Yid2 walk to shul and basically discuss everything that Jewish skeptics and believers have been  talking about for years. The book doesn't get into academic depth, but it is a rather realistic portrayal of a real conversation an average skeptic and an average (yeshivish) believer would have. They broach on dozens of topics at a dizzying pace discussing the age of the world, questions of morality, what constitutes a miracle, whether Genesis makes sense (they discuss Genesis 1-7 at great length), what Science and religion have to do with each other, the DH and everything in between.

I particularly liked Yid1's argument against the 5770 year old word and the "God-can-do-anything-even-trick-us-with-fake-bones defense". Technically one can always assert this and say "Well we can't trust our senses and maybe God's testing us and God can put bones in the ground etc. etc." However what Yid1 did was to show HOW MUCH we have to mistrust the world around us in order to assert that the world is only 5770 years old. Its not just dinosaur fossils and the Mabul can't explain it all and the Yeshivish position leaves one with a world that is more misleading than the Matrix.

In general Yid1 doesn't defeat Yid2 in arguments (in real life no one wins arguments). He just takes them ad absurdum and says "so basically if you believe abc and d then you would HAVE to believe efg and H!"

Too which Yid2 usually answers triumphantly "Yup!"

I think this book is the type of thing a Yeshivish guy entrenched in his dogmatism should read. It's sort of a introduction, or a "cliff's notes" (to quote Yid1) of the questions of skepticism, and is a good way to begin to approach a critical understanding of religion as opposed to traditional acceptance of everything. To the skeptic it is an interesting presentation of skeptic-believer arguments. I thought of it as a sort of compilation of the arguments raging between believers and non-believers on the skeptical-jewish blogosphere over the past 8 years.

I wish the book would have been more of a dialogue. Yid2 was not the most educated fella in the world and due to ignorance of just about everything he was fair game for Yid1. Although Yid2's ignorance and types of responses accurately reflect the average philosophical position of most Yeshiva people, it reduced the book to very one sided conversation.

P.S. After writing this review I realized that the Yids have names which get mentioned once at the beginning of the book Zachary and Joe (which I assume is Zecharia and Yehoshua!)

There is No Room For the Individual

It's important to remember that religion works for some people. When it comes to these things I tend to be a huge relativist. Although I've found a path that works for me that does not mean that it works for everyone and anyone who says that secularism or atheism is a better way of life is simply dogmatic IMHO.

For some people religion is the best thing. It makes their lives better and sometimes they need it to go on. Some people have such shitty lives that they need a religion to keep them going in the morning and some people have perfect lives but still yearn for the assurances of religion.

The crime of religion is its inability to realize that different paths work for different people. Most religions claim that their path works for everyone which is such a load of crap. No system or philosophy can work for everyone. People are all too different from each other for one system to cover them all and make all their lives better. Religious parents can't understand why their children refuse to be shoved into a template that works for them even if that template doesn't work for their children. They speak in absolutes and do not leave any room for individuality.

And yes Jewish Philosophy is as variegated as people in the world but Jewish Law is not. Jewish law is the same for everyone no matter their temperament or preferences.  This is the nature of Law in general. Whereas philosophy can accommodate different views Law cannot.

The saddest thing is watching people who are dedicated to Jewish Law struggling to keep a system that is not compatible with them. They cry because they are not good enough for the system. They wish they could keep the 613 mitzvot but they are not able. And they pray to God to make them better people. But the system will not budge for them and their personalities will not budge for the system. A person can only modify their own nature so much before they lose it.

The Future of Israel

IMHO it looks bleak.

Facts: Chareidim in general (there are of course exceptions) do not believe that democracy and liberalism have much value. They do not believe that every Jew should be allowed to do what he or she wishes. They say this. They write this. They are not hiding it from everybody. Their ideal form of government is one run by "gedolim". Political parties like Shas, which are driven by the outspoken "Gadol" Ovadya Yosef, are a foreshadowing of what Chareidim expect from politics i.e. a country run by Da'as Torah - which means run by the authoritative decisions of Gedolim.

Problem: Chareidim in general do not use contraception and therefore are growing at almost 5 to 10 times the rate of the secular population. Their demographic domination of the Israeli Jewish population seems inevitable.

The Future: A Theocratic state similar to Iran, where a council of "gedolim" can veto laws OR "gedolim" or askanim are the main political movers and shakers. Israel is not known for its clear cut separation of church and state and AS IT IS a large part of the countries laws are completely religion is nature (Marriage and divorce for just one example) this existing trend will be taken further to include state mandated laws of Kashrut, Shabbat etc. TV and internet will be heavily censored.

Hope: The Chareidim of tomorrow will not be the Chareidim of today. As they begin to become a larger percentage of the population they will be forced to start to working and be less insulated.

Despair: They will still be very religious and have very little respect for democracy or personal freedom. Working and leaving the ghetto does not automatically make you more tolerant.

Am I missing some mitigating factors here?

The xoJane Article

This article (Read it if you haven't) pissed me off to no end. It was tendentious and terribly misleading. This was the comment I wrote on the blog.

This is a very misleading article. I'm very happy that the author does not feel imprisoned and enjoys her "Chassidic" life, but honestly her experience is not indicative of the general Chassidic world. Let's discuss a few of her  points:

1. "We are not imprisoned". Ok I doubt most people think that Chassidic women are literally put behind bars. But what happens when you have a three kids by the time you're 20? You don't think that's a form of imprisonment? What about pressures from the community? What if you are forced to choose between what you want and what the community wants. I wouldn't describe it as imprisonment perse but its a form of oppressive societal pressure. 

2. "Jews never got a message that sex is dirty". Yes, Judaism generally sees sex as a positive thing but mostly only because it helps procreation. There is also a strong trend of sexual-suppression in Chassidic communities. This means that you are never allowed to talk to girls let alone touch them until the day of your wedding. Forget sex outside of marriage you can't have a frikkin conversation out of marriage. 

3. "You think we are sexually repressed and afraid of our own bodies just because we dress modestly? Every single Chassidic woman you see sticks her own fingers in her own vagina at least twice a day for 7 days of the month". Oh gimme a break, that's not to masturbate, its to check your blood. Sticking a finger in your vagina  for a second to check for blood hardly counts and the topic of female masturbation is super-taboo in Orthodox communities. 

There are tons of things wrong with this article, it sugar coats things, and cherry picks the things that make Judaism and Chassidism sound "cool". But unfortunately the reality is quite different. 

Turns out, surprise surprise, that the author of this article is not only Chabad but a ba'alat teshuva. I'm not surprised at all. Here is a list of links of people discussing this piece:

Heshy Fried

Rabbi Fink

Devorah Feldman

The Danger of Alternatives

Garnel said:

The internet is merely a more convenient form of the library.
What is needed by users in both cases is a healthy dose of intellectual honest and skepticism.
So some scholars think Moshe Rabeinu, a"h, might not have existed?  Why believe them?
Some modern Biblical scholars don't believe in the antiquity of the Bible?  What makes them more authoritative than the ones that do? 


[...]


Why are you only skeptical of one side?

This brings up a good point. 

Let's think about this. 

 I, like most people, was raised believing in a heliocentric Solar System i.e. that the Sun is at the center of the Solar System. I don't usually ponder this question. I take it as a given. I've never bothered to even look at the proofs that the Sun is actually at the center of the Solar System. So I go on with my life, I go to work, eat my supper and occasionally watch some TV and assume all along that the Earth orbits around the Sun. 

Then one day I surf the internet. And I find a fascinating article that claims that many major scientists actually question whether the Sun is at the center of the Solar System. In fact they say that the Earth is at the center of the Solar System. And they claim to have ironclad proofs to demonstrate this!

Suddenly my assumptions about a heliocentric solar system are not so true. I have to start questioning what I used to take as obvious. Maybe now I start looking at the proofs for a heliocentric solar system. Maybe I compare them to the merits of a geocentric solar system. 

In short nothing is as simple as it used to be. 

Here's the kicker. It doesn't actually matter whether or not I'm certain that the geocentric folks are correct or not. Now, I'm not gonna be so cocky and certain that the Sun is at the middle of the solar system. An important and dramatic shift has occurred in my worldview. Originally the heliocentric solar system was something I never questioned at all. It barely crossed my mind. But NOW that I know that MAYBE just maybe there is another opinion. Now I'm in the realm of doubt. 

So you see it doesn't matter whether I fully believe the scholars who says Moses didn't exist are right. When I'm growing up I assume that Moses existed. Its as obvious to me as the heliocentric solar system. I never question it. I never think about it. Now, suddenly the cornerstone of my life, an axiom that tells me what to do in the morning, what blessings to say what God to pray to, is no longer axiomatic. I have to start thinking whether Moses existed. I have to determine it. 

I might decide that the evidence proves that Moses did exist. I might decide the opposite. Or I might decide that one cannot tell one way or the other and therefore the efficacy of me following the dictates of this "Moses" cannot be proven one way or another. 

Learning about alternatives, even if you don't initially believe them, is still "dangerous".