An observation...

Note: This post got a lot of responses; therefore, unlike the other posts, I will try to bring over all the comments on this one, as I feel that they were very thoughtful, thought provoking, and meaningful...

Hey.

I've been reading Rabbi S.R. Hirsch's book, The Nineteen Letters lately, and I came upon an unsettling - and disheartening - realization...
You see, the book is presented as a fictional correspondence between a young rabbi and his childhood friend. this friend, after leaving his parents home and going out into the world, has basically shirked his religious observance. The "enlightened" friend maintains that Judaism does not tend to the needs of it's adherents in the way that a valid religion should. He writes that the customs and traditions are nothing but archaic hindrances to the people, and that it's aim is to keep it's people stuck in the past. By instituting a rigid code of theocratic law, it in effect holds back the Jew from embracing societies pleasures and culture as a whole. therefore, it should be left in the past in order that the Jew may take full advantage of the world's possibilities. In regard to the Reform Movement - which was rising at that time - he feels that since the whole movement is already so many steps away from traditional judaism, it should bee ignored and judaism should be dropped completely.

Rabbi Hirsch responds with all types of answers. From simple straightforward logic to emotional and spiritual reasoning, Rabbi Hirsch invites his friend - and the reader him/herself - to forget everything he knew ( or thought he did ) about Judaism, and look at it from a fresh perspective. By doing this, he will be able to understand and appreciate Judaism in a way he never did before.

Obviously, it's an amazing book. But here's the snag: In an introduction, an observer recounts a meeting between Rabbi Hirsch and Reb Yisroel Salanter. For those of you who don't know him, Reb Yisroel was - among many other things - the father of the Mussar Movement. Mussar is the study of morals and ethics, and is geared toward helping one perfect himself on a spiritual level in his day to day dealings. Reb Yisroel championed this cause, and nowadays every Yeshiva ( at least of the Lituanian [ Litvish ] school of thought ) has a period devoted to nothing but the study of various texts.

In any event, Reb yisroel traveled to frankfurt Am Main from his native Russia to see Rabbi Hirsch for advice on how to combat the emerging "enlightenment" happening in Russia; obviously, Rabbi Hirsh was familiar with the subject, as he spent most of his life combating it in his own Germany. The author continues to illustrate the various ideas they discussed, but he also makes a very important observation: Although Rabbi Hirsch and Reb Yisroel were coming from differents points on the spectrum of religious Judaism, and in fact had many hashkafic differences, the mutual admiration and respect they had for each other was outright. They may not have agreed on how things were supposed to be done, but they both recognized they had the same core values and goals, and gave each other the due honor.

Rabbi Hirsch was revolutionary in his time. at a time when religious Jews were very insular, Rabbi Hirsch recognized the problems facing jews who were exposed to the world. Why should a jew who is out in the world have to compromise his belief system? He maintained that a jew could have an absolutely rock solid foundation in his religious observance and still be able to interact with the world. He instituted schools where children were taught the fundamentals of Judaism, and then had a secular curriculum where they'd learn all manners of wordly things. It's hard to say how many jews were saved from shirking theire relious duties as a result of Rabbi Hirsch's idea, Torah Im Derech Eretz. Although many disagreed with his approach, and some even outright opposed him, we see from cases such as the meeting with Reb Yisroel that the respect was still there.

So, we arrive at my realization. Hopefully, I'm wrong. However, it seems to me, that if Rabbi Hirsch were here today -instead of back then - not only wouldn't he be accepted by us, he'd probably be vilified and labeled as a heretic.

I know, that seems harsh, right? But think about it for a second. Reb Yisroel, who was in many ways a paragon of Litvish values recognized what Rabbi Hirsch stood for. Would anybody today be able to see past all the rhetoric to see the truth? I understand that my point is a little paradoxical, because if Rabbi Hirsch hadn't existed then, the whole jewish world today would look different. However, I think my point is still intact: where's the respect?

Anyone who doesn't fit with our exact way of life is treated differently. According to some, "MO" jews are being merachek the geulah ( furthering the redemption ) because of certain things that don't fit with the way we do things. Honestly, I don't know. I do know that despite the way they do certain things, they have a fire for Judaism and God. I recognize among the "MO" people I know that they have the same core value as I do, and most of my friends as well.

It's not so black and white, people.

I can't stand this desire to label things, to put things into boxes. That alone contributes to the separation that goes on every day. To an extent, it exists, but the differences are just that: differences. As long as one is remaining within the guidelines of halacha, to me, that person is a Jew, and I will love him for it.

Maybe that's naive on my part. I don't care, and I don't think so. We make these walls around ourselves, cutting off our family, our blood. And yet, we embrace wordly values. the scruples we hold others up to don't always matter to us.

Where's the respect, people?

Part of love is mutual respect. You may not agree with someone or the way he's doing things, but at least respect him enough to see past the other crap.

I bless all of us that we should see past the outside stuff and realize what is essential to our survival: unity and love.

I've said my piece; what do you think? How can we go about working on this trait that we're lacking?

Originally posted Thursday, 8 February 2007

These are the responses:

jjl made this comment,
I never saw a problem with the MO world because i live in it, on the other hand what i do believe is that the MO world can divelop an immunity from gashmius because the MO world can sample it and learns ,when educated properly, when enough is enough. Its sort of like purim, we all know of people who only drink on purim and get very very very insanely drunk , because they dont know how to handle their booze. on the other hand those who drink regularly (myself included) know how to handle their booze and can drink constantly at a rate where they are inebraited enough not to drive but dont get sick for atleast two or three days straight.
One thing i must point out you may think you are in the yeshivish world but you grew up with cable tv, movies and novels. I am not even mentioning the internet. That all sounds like pretty modern stuff. Even the yeshivish world isnt in a box and no matter what you do you can't issolate yourselves from outside influences. You can learn how to operate the heavy machinery that is out in the world. Just need to know how not to do stupid things with it like lose a finger or damage your soul. For more on this type of conflict please read THE DIAMOND AGE by Neal Stevenson, you should get some of it when your done reading it.

jjl

trix made this comment,
quiet possibly what you are saying is right, but they were much more into isolating themselves in those days. I'm sure there were others besides R' Yisroel who thought badly of R'Hirsh. now we look at the Basht and the Vilna Goan and think they were both tzadikim, but they were mortal enemies of each other (in the name of torah) the books now say stuff like "deep down they really respected each other but each felt he was doing the right thing for judiasm." I really think that whatever the situation today, it was the same situation in europe. I don't know who the MO gedolim are, as I am part of the yeshivish world, but in 100 years either MO will be not frum or they will be accepted the same way chassidus is accepted today, and the books will look back at now and write about how although the brisker rav put down MO, really he respected them (I made that stuff up, I have no clue if he really put them down, it was for example sake). History is just a cycle that keeps repeating itself. The best proof is that the rambam's books were burnt.
Although I do wish that people would stop putting each other down and just get along.

karma dude made this comment,
Sorry the layout got screwed up.
What does it take

To a good Jew make

There are different points of view

Just pick the one that’s best for you

Some think its settling the land

Others think its giving with an open hand

Some think its davening with a bren

Others say its learning, no matter where or when

There are those who say being happy is all it takes

But this is nuts and those people are fakes

Who ever heard of serving god with song and dance

All god wants is that you wear black pants

Lying, cheating, and feelings that are hurt

Don’t matter at all if you wear a white shirt

You don’t even need to follow the book

God only cares about how you look

Now this way seems pretty easy

Although the logic makes my stomach queasy

Still I thought this would be the one I would choose

Until something shocking caught my eye in the news

With Ahmadi-nejad and the KKK they sat

Neturai Karta- each with his beard, payis, jacket, and hat

They talked the talk and looked the look

Everyone was astonished, the whole world shook

Jews got up and were quick to explain

They’re not like us, they’re clearly insane

Although they each look, like a nice frum Jew

They have a warped, point of view

Now, this may sound a little crazy

But this logic is getting pretty hazy

What I don’t quite comprehend

Is where does this fine line bend

Does clothing, a good Jew make

Or does it a lot more then that take.

jjl made this comment,
Its a uniform thing, people assume that a guy in a police uniform is a cop, but like my purim a few years ago when i got pulled over by some dude from new york and he looked at shlomo katz's California licence and said have a good purim, it dont mean that their a cop. I have dealt with plenty of crooks dressed as penguins , and more than my share of tzadikim that look like hoods. So if a uniform is your basis for religion you are wrong.
for that fact the MO/frum wall is something artificailly created. What defines a religious jew? That is the question then we can start talking tachlis!

Please dont answer speaking yiddish and a striemel cause 1000 years ago no jew did either.

jjl

Doodlehead made this comment,
I love karma dudes poem.Wow. I'd like to add that if someone's idea of following in the ways of g-d is doing something that may not be considered by many even a small point in religion, however this person feels its essential cuz thats what this person was taught, or cuz it made sense when he thought about it, or when his friend thought about it, hes still being a good jew. So it can be anything- that a good jew makes.

trix made this comment,
nice poem. I actually liked it paragraph form better, makes it less formal.

Jewmaican20 made this comment,
JJ, just because I spent last Purim on our cousin's porch doesn't necessarily mean I can't handle my booze at other times. With that said, there are plenty of non MO jews (i.e. more yeshivish, or whatever ) who are able to maintain a good balance between their exposure to the world and their religious obligations; I think you know that as well as I do. Conversely, I don't think any one way is the "right" way to practice Judaism. I think you agree with this sentiment. as long as someone lives within the parameters and guidelnes of halacha, that person is deserving of my respect. The point I was trying to make - and you echoed it when you said " the ... wall is something artificially created.." - is that it is artificial. My question is: when will we learn to look past that? I know this question has been asked many times over; I'm not trying to beat a dead horse. We can be armchair analysts all we want, but if we want to affect change we have to be proactive, not reactive. As Bob Marley says "...it takes a revolution to make a solution." Once we've meditated on why this status is quo, we have to figure out a way to change it. I know that sounds terribly idealistic, but it's the truth. This is a part of our tikkun, don't you think? Karma Dude, thanks for the poem; you've got the right idea. I know you're not shallow like some of the opinions you injected into your poem. What will YOU do? Trix, you're right, in some ways. Over and over, history repeats it's pattern. But it's not supposed to be like this. If we can do something about it, don't you think we should?

trix made this comment,
yes I think we should do something, but there is nothing we can do except stay out of it and not put anyone down. cause once you get involved in a fight you are spreading the fight. what we would really need is a leader who could be accepted by everyone and accept everyone. I guess he will be Moshiach. Although I really don't think there was anyone who was ever accepted by everyone. even moshe had korach against him.

malka made this comment,
Yep, we can disagree and still respect each other. Something we should all work on

jjl made this comment,
it reminds me of what Rav Kook said" there are no charadim and no chilunim there are only jews who do these mitsvot and jews who do those mitzvot" it was similiarly echoed by Rabbi shlomo carlbach, and i was exposed to the notion three times, once in a nightclub in tel aviv by yehuda katz, another time in a bomb shelter in nachloat in an open beit medrish program, and finally when i understood it in the army. See shimshon (sefer shoftim) for clarification.

karma dude made this comment,
Trix: With all due respect, you are way wrong. History only repeats itself because we are too lazy to study it and learn from it. If we would learn from the mistakes of previous generations, maybe we can make a difference for our children. And even if we don’t change the world for children, at least we will have set precedence so our children can learn from our mistakes instead of sitting back and saying “there’s nothing we can do, history repeats itself”. HISTORY DOESN’T REPEAT ITSELF, WE REPEAT HISTORY. Peace, Karma Dude out

trix made this comment,
I dunno, we can always change ourselves but we can't change other people. true we can teach our children tolerance, and even if we don't, just living in America they will learn it, but there are so many people who feel that tolerance will lead to assimilation, so they teach intolerance, and that we are better than everyone else, and I don't know cause I'm not good at these things, so maybe its just me, but I think if I were to teach my kids to love everyone and there were people out there who they hang out with who are totally against that, they would either come to resent those people, spreading resentment and dislike, or they would go join them.

karma dude made this comment,
First of all there is a huge difference between tolerance and love. I hate most people, but I tolerate them. Secondly, you can respect someone’s opinion even if they’re dead wrong (like I did in my comment). Just because you respect someone it doesn’t mean they are always right, for that matter no one is always right and there’s got to be someone you tolerate and respect

trix made this comment,
so what you are saying is that you respect my opinion by not saying that I'm a stupid idiot for even coming up with that idea? by politely saying that you don't think the same way as me but we are all entitled to our own opinion?
Theoretically it is a beautiful idea, but it is hard to give the idea over to kids and say "the way they do thing is not the way we do things, and we are all serving hashem the way we each should be serving hashem, but you can't watch TV or wear that clothes or eat that food, although really they are doing nothing wrong." and have the kids want to do it the frumer way when there is no difference between the ways of doing things, and I know thats not exactly what you are saying, but how would you give the message to your kids?

although thanks for the food for thought cause is gives me new ideas and I really would like my kids to grow up with tolerance, yet frum and yeshivish.

jjl made this comment,
Lets seperate the tolerance into a few division
1 i'm ok your ok. complete moral equality

2 Im ok your not ok but i wont tell you cause impolite

3 im ok your intitled to your possition but that doenst mean i agree
4 im ok your a big stupid fool. Your a fool for disagreeing with me

5 Im ok and i dont care. Others oppionions mean nothing.

all of these have problems i go for # 3 as for civility. if you hold by one your a wishy washy guy and nothing can ever be wrong. number 2 is fake tolerence and being a push over 4 is a pigheaded person (most people who hold office and 4 year olds) 5 is a self centered person.

NOw no one defined frum or yeshivish yet

trix made this comment,
I'll attmept to define frum the way I think it is. frum: you keep the mitzvos in the torah. since most people have trouble always keeping every mitzvah in the torah (as we all do aveiros),you will be considered frum by most people if you keep the three biggest mitzvos. the more mitzvos you are careful to keep, the frummer you will be considered. it gets kinda gray when I keep this mitzvah more carefully and you keep that mitzvah more carefully. and you have to believe in the 13 principals of faith I think.
yeshivish is a lifestyle. It comes with a mode of dress. it also comes with a certain outlook on life. the mode of dress is black and white for men and whatever the current tznius fad is for women (or an a-line skirt and button down shirt). the outlook on life is that torah is the center of your life and everything revolves around torah. because most people can't tell by looking at you how much your life revolves around torah, they will judge how yeshivish you are based on the other factor (dress), which although the less important factor in the sceme of things, it is still a factor, and the more obvious one. like if you really don't go for saving the whales but wear a save the whales t-shirt just because you got it free people will think you want to save the whales. so you would have to dress how you would like to be percieved (my own 2 cents)

jjl made this comment,
so which are the three biguns shabbas and kashrus i know , whats the third diffiner (married people know the third one, im wondering about for buchrim) that means that the frum pretty much includes the mo world, which the frum world doesnt quite think is frum.
One of the most problematic problems of uniforms is that people make assumption about the wearer. You see some one in scrubs they are thought to be a doctor(atleast a nurse). For a yeshivish dresser one assumes a higher moral credibility, which doesn't always fit with reality. Then we get into the world of chilul hashem. When someone who uses the uniform and does not fit the assumed moral code, it degrades the entire community of the uniform. Its like in high school when me and my friends would be smoking we do the kippa palm move , so the goyim wouldnt think good jewish boys partake in that nasty habit. NOw the real problem is that the uniform also includes a superiority complex. It differenciates, and whenever some one is different than another it must be for a reason. Any yeshiva bocher knows that there exist the frummer than G_D personality. Where someone assumes because they hold by this or that chumra they are frummer than the next person. the problem with that is we start slipping into baal tosiph issues. When you hold a chumra you need to know whether it is a minhag, recent stus, derabunun , or from the torah. Once you lock halacha all into one bag then you are making a minhag the level of a deuriasa, and thats baal tosiph. I remember way back when i was telling a person i was going to eat at a resteraunt which had a hechsher, and he said that place is traif and i dont eat there. He didnt reply i hold by a chumra that i only eat bdatz(fill in blank) and i dont hold by that hashgucha. I know he never learnt chulin or any of the machlokot that are involved in each hechsher. but he said something that is considered kosher by rov haam is traif. SO what should happen is the yeshivish uniform should be aquired only after you earn it by passing a midos and halacha test that shows you know what your talking about and what your doing. Then you can be like a doctor and use your uniform as an identifier.

jjl

karma dude made this comment,
My 2 year old nephew has a pair of pajamas that that look like a medi-vac jumpsuit with a big star of life that says “my daddy is a paramedic”. I think they should start marketing white shirt black pants outfits (memo to self: why they, me) that say something like “the home I was raised in has the hashkafa this uniform represents” just to avoid confusion.

Jewmaican20 made this comment,
Wow. I'm pretty sure this is the biggest response i've ever gotten to one of my posts... First of all, a big thanks to everybody who put their opinions and suggestions forth. while I was hoping to give us all some food for thought, you guys, in turn gave me some as well. While nothing being said here is particularily groundbreaking ( I think we're all well aware of the arguments on all sides ), it's still heartwarming to see the differing perspectives, and to see that other people think about this stuff. Again, thank you all. I'd like to point out, though, one thing: throughout this thread, the arguments have been clear, passionate, and lucid, but above all, the arguments were very civilized. As I know some of the people who responded here in real life, and I know that they are from different ends of the spectrum of religious Judaism, this impressed me very much. In ways, this thread was a template of sorts, one in which we see that mutual respect is a possibility. Who knows? Maybe because of the anonymity of the internet this was possible; if i can't see you, why should I judge you? However, I believe that this non judgemental approach does not exist solely in cyberspace. We can do this in the real world as well; it will take time, as we're already so caught up in the hubris that comes along with the externalities with which we identify ourselves and others. But, this thread can serve as a reminder to us all. In the police force ( especially when things were racially charged, with African Americans and other minorities struggling in the ranks) they had attempted to achieve a mentality thatthe only color they saw was blue. Not white, not black, etc. A cop was a cop. We can do the same; it'll take time, but so does anything else that we're trying to do. why should this be different? Trix, you brought up a good point when you asked how can we maintain a balance, especially when teaching our kids values. That is a very strong point you make, and I don't know if I'm equipped to answer that. However, if I may make a suggestion: the best way to teach your kids is to lead by example. If they see that although you do things differently than the other guy, yet you treat them with respect, they might follow your lead. How do you answer their questions when they ask why you don't do things that they do? It's a good question. You can try to explain to them that you're taking certain chumros upon yourself, and not everybody does that. Whatever you do, don't let them hear disdain in your voice. Oh yeah, and JJ? Bochurim do know what the third big commandment is...