Dispelling some myths about Footsteps

Last night on the radio (and online) was a talkshow in which Zev Brenner interviewed Malkie Schwartz, the founder of Footsteps. Also present was Michael Jenkins, director of programming at Footsteps. Footsteps is an organization designed to assist people who have left the ultra-orthodox world and are trying to integrate into the general mainstream society. They provide educational resources, such as GED and college tutoring, scholarships, assistance with the college application process, and more. Another area they help people with is employment assistance (interview workshops, resume writing assistance, job placements, etc.). They also provide social services, such as support groups, counseling, mentoring, referrals, etc. Most importantly, what Footsteps provides is a new support structure that helps people whose traditional familial and communal network no longer exists to assist them in undergoing what can be a most traumatic and trying time in their lives. The list of services they provide is too long to go through here; you can check out their website at www.footstepsorg.org, or give them a call to find out more. If you'd like to listen to the entire interview with Brenner, it is available to be downloaded here.

At the start of the interview, Brenner immediately asked them the commonly heard question of "Why don’t you have someone on staff who is presenting the religious argument to the people who come to you? Why only have non-religious people?" Although Malkie tried explaining that Footsteps does not push any agenda either way, neither to leave religion or to stay, Brenner kept getting all hung up on that, repeatedly harping on the fact that if they are truly neutral then people should be presented with a religious perspective when coming to discuss their situation with Footsteps.

What Brenner, and the frum callers (and I imagine, most of the frum world), seem unable to appreciate is that while Footsteps does have a clear agenda (which is to assist those who are trying to leave religiosity), it can still be, and most definitely is, neutral in regards to whether people should leave or stay in the first place. Frum people need to understand that unlike kiruv organizations that attempt to persuade people to become (or stay) frum, Footsteps simply does not take a position on that issue. They do not encourage people to leave. Nor do they encourage people to stay. What Footsteps is designed to do is to try to help those people who have already decided to leave get whatever help they need to achieve that. So if the person is seeking to leave, then Footsteps has a whole host of resources that are there to help the person achieve this successfully. However, if the person wants something else, something Footsteps isn’t designed to do, then they will help the person find the right resources to achieve that goal, wherever that may be. The primary goal of Footsteps is that, if you have already made the decision to leave, then there is an organization designed to assist you in accomplishing just that. But they will not advise you one way or another to take that step. Therefore there is no need for any kind of rabbi or religious figure to be present in order to present the "other" side. There simply is no need for an "other" side because there is no "initial" side being foisted on anyone.

I think that frum people have a particular hard time comprehending that because in the frum world everyone is actively, and unabashedly, trying to win over converts all the time (yes, I know, not actual non-Jewish converts). Aish Hatorah, Ohr Somayach, and all the countless other kiruv programs out there all go to great lengths to win people over. All the "kids at risk" programs (by the way, we hate that appellation) don't ever present the option of being non-religious to the individuals they are reaching out to. Although they might at times be tactful enough not to say it outright, everyone knows that there is ultimately an unambiguous agenda at these institutions, which is to make as many people as they possibly can frum (preferably the black-hat, yeshivish kind). So it’s understandable that a frum person would think that an organization that helps people leave frumkeit is operating under the same assumptions, just in the other direction. But this notion is simply wrong.

That being said, there are admittedly people who come to Footsteps who may not yet have come to an absolute decision that they will permanently leave the community. They may feel they want to leave but are wracked with guilt about how it will affect their family. Or they may face social pressures which obligate them to stay. It may simply be that they believe a lot of the propaganda that they have been told about how anyone who leaves is destined for a life of unhappiness (this sentiment was echoed by a number of the callers). Even in such situations, Footsteps does not encourage the person to leave, but what they instead do is to try to help the person come to a clearer decision if this is what is right for them. Obviously, there is no denying that the atmosphere at Footsteps is going to be more conducive towards leaving the community, but this is not because of any overt pressure or coercion to choose that path. There is in fact effort made to do just the opposite, to ensure that the atmosphere at their programs is not overtly hostile towards those who have not fully committed to the path that most of the participants have already embarked on. Admittedly, sometimes it may be difficult to maintain this tone (considering the feelings and experiences of most of the participants), but it is always something that they as an organization strive for. Indeed, as Malkie mentioned in the interview, there are a small number of people who have decided to return to (or remain in) the religious community after being involved with Footsteps, and I can attest to this fact. For those people who want to maintain aspects of religiosity in their life, Footsteps is more than happy to help them do so. For example, I have a friend from Footsteps that expressed an interest in finding a nice shabbos meal to go to, and efforts were made to set them up at a nice, "open-minded", frum family that would be ok with their level of religiosity.

Another important point that was only touched on in their discussion was that the people who come to Footsteps are not kids. They are all adults, at least 18 years of age, and most are probably in their twenties. More importantly, almost all these people have already extensively been through the exercise that Brenner is suggesting Footsteps provide. These people didn’t just wake up one day and decide to suddenly call Footsteps because they were having a particular frustrating day in yeshiva. They have already been through months, if not years, of agonizing deliberations on this decision. They’ve had heartfelt talks with friends and family, been brought to top rabbis who were supposed to enlighten them to the truth, been sent to Israel to be "fixed up", been forced to sit through Discovery programs and other kiruv efforts. They've been threatened, cajoled, and even bribed. They’ve already had countless discussions with religious figures presenting "the frum side" of this choice. There is nothing to be gained by having them go through another frustrating, demoralizing experience of being told that they should still try to remain religious.

Amazingly, Brenner spent almost 20 minutes obsessing about the fact that Footsteps provides non-kosher food, even claiming that it would be more neutral to provide only kosher food than to give people a choice. I’m not sure why he thinks that presenting only one of two options is more fair than presenting both options but it seems clear that he’s missing the point: people who come to Footsteps don’t come because there’s kosher or non-kosher food. They come mainly because they are seeking an environment which will allow them to freely explore the option of leaving frumkeit, free of any judgmental attitudes towards that choice, and likewise free of any pressure to necessarily take that route. Providing kosher food at their venues allows people to feel comfortable that they are not being pressured to do something that they are not yet ok with. (Also, they didn’t get to address it in the discussion but the email which mentioned the pork and matzah thing was absolutely wrong. That "event" is NOT a Footsteps thing. Although there is some such gathering every year among certain people, Footsteps has nothing to do with that whatsoever.)

Another detail which was not fairly addressed was that a caller took them to task for coming on to a frum station, saying that an organization such as theirs has no place reaching out to the frum community. The truth is that Malkie was asked by Brenner to come on the show and not the other way around. Brenner should have corrected this misconception instead of letting Malkie take the brunt of it.

Just for the record, I want to clarify that I am speaking here as a private individual and not in any way as a representative of Footsteps, so if I have misrepresented something about Footsteps here it is my own error. I do not work for Footsteps in any official capacity and do not pretend to speak on their behalf in any way. All of the above is merely my opinion, from the perspective of a long-time, and immensely grateful, participant in the organization.

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Update: Here are two related posts which provide a counterpoint to some of the misconceptions that Brenner and the frum callers seem to subscribe to: Pen Tivokeish, Chassidic Whistleblower.

It's Not Just Individuals - It's The Community

Oftentimes in my life, when people discover that I used to be religious, they inquire as to why I chose to leave that lifestyle behind me. When I first encountered people asking me this, I would try to explain that the choice I made was a very personal one, based on what I concluded was right for me specifically, and that my decision wasn't intended to make a statement about the objective truth of Judaism in general. It's not that theological and ideological arguments didn't play a contributing part - they most definitely did, in that they significantly loosened the grip which my fundamentalist upbringing had held me in. And it's not that I was oblivious to all the scholarship (from science, history, biblical scholarship, and other fields) which challenged the veracity of Orthodox Judaism. While I never did get too involved in those discussions, I was well aware of how powerfully they undermined many of the foundations of Orthodoxy. But more importantly, I knew myself, and I knew that what was really motivating me was the particular social and psychological needs which I was facing in my life. Orthodoxy was doing nothing for me (intellectually, spiritually, socially, emotionally, and in other ways) and even worse, I felt it was actively crippling me, by forcing me to subscribe to a lifestyle and value system which I didn't believe in at all.

So when someone would assume from my decision that it was an indictment of Orthodoxy as a whole, I would go out of my way to correct the mistaken impression. I would try to make it clear that while I was most definitely critical of aspects of that world, the community as a whole was not deserving of condemnation and that there were still many Orthodox people who I wholeheartedly respected (well, maybe "a few" is more accurate). But to presume that I was critical of Orthodoxy as a whole was an assumption that was not justified.

However, these days, when faced with this question of "Why am I not religious?" I find myself frequently questioning this approach I had previously settled upon. While it's obvious that the motivations for my choice couldn't have retroactively changed, the simple fact is that I am finding myself less and less able to look at the chareidi community that I came from and be able to describe it as anything other than a corrupt, dysfunctional, and totally unhealthy environment to be a part of.

The many recent indiscretions, dysfunctions, and outright misdeeds of individuals within the Orthodox community have been well documented in the media: Hundreds of sexual abuse cases being reported, including many by rabbis and principals (Kolko, Mondrowitz, Weingarten, Beis Yakov Principal, Satmar Principal in Williamsburg, West Bank Rabbi, Baltimore Rabbi), acid and bleach thrown at those not dressing modestly enough, beatings by modesty squads, attacking women who sit in the front of the bus, tax fraud by Hassidic Rebbes, infants killed by abusive fathers, indictments at glatt kosher slaughterhouses, eviction threats because of not being frum enough, etc., etc. I can keep on going, but I think the picture is clear. There's a lot of ugliness to be found within the chareidi community. A hell of a lot. This is way more than just a few isolated incidents.

However, despite the fact that these stories are appearing with ever increasing frequency, I don't think that these incidents are truly representative of the entire community. They are unfortunately more than just a few people, but I don't think that these sorts of extremely awful behaviors are actually widespread in the frum community. And I honestly don't think it's fair to tar the whole community with the transgressions of a small minority who make the rest of the community look bad.

The thing is though, that small minority of deviants aren't the reason that I think so negatively of the community as a whole. If it was only these incidents, I probably wouldn't be as critical as I am of the frum world. Rather, what fills me with such a repugnance is the behavior of the entire community itself, specifically in how it reacts to the many truly awful crimes happening in their midst.

For example, let's look at the child molestation issue: It's not just that there are child molesters in the community. Yes, that's awful, but as bad as it is, I'd concede that it's not more than a tiny percentage of the community, and I wouldn't judge the whole community based on just that. But what isn't a tiny percentage is the number of people who willfully and knowingly hamper efforts to bring these molesters to justice. What isn't a small number is the amount of people who would prefer to let these criminals remain free rather than risk sullying the reputation of their venerated institutions. When a community as a whole allows such crimes to go unpunished and penalizes those who are trying to help innocent children, they can no longer hide behind the defense of "it's just a few lone individuals". At that point the community is also guilty. When the leadership (both rabbinic and lay) which the community looks up to is continuously silent on such a grave matter, it is a clear indication of where the community's priorities are. When a community leader publicly admits that he has knowledge of hundreds of abuse cases, and yet his constituents prefer him to keep it all away from the police, the community has then become complicit in the crimes. When everyone cares more about what their neighbor is going to say about them, or their children's shidduch chances, or what yeshiva their kids will get into, or about being shunned by their friends (all commonly heard excuses for why no one wants to step up to the plate on any of these issues) - when they care more about all that than they do actually solving the problem, they're saying that they care more about maintaining the community's standards than doing what is right and just. That it's better to keep these things quiet. This is why I can no longer look at the chareidi world with even a modicum of respect. The community as a whole has clearly expressed that they place the reputation of their society, and their place in that society, above the well being of their own children. How can anyone not be disgusted by such a society?

If the community truly cared, then it wouldn't ostracize people who try to bring the criminals to justice. If the community cared, a chassidish family wouldn't be afraid to tell the police who raped their 14 year old daughter. If the community cared it wouldn't stand behind and support a man convicted of killing his own baby (UTJ Knesset member Meir Porush called him a "good, quiet and disciplined" young man). If the community really cared, people wouldn't have to continuously be ashamed to report abuse to the police.

When last year, a chassidish man was found to be selling the Monsey community non-kosher chicken, the community showed how much they cared. The man and his family were run out of the community, in shame and in fear for his life. The community showed what they cared about then. And when the community allows accused child molesters to peaceably remain a part of their community, but those who try to help victims are harassed and attacked, they make it even clearer to the world what they care about. When a frum politician is able to back down on a promise to stop a molester from teaching kids, and no one demands that he keep his word, it shows where the community's concerns lie. When the rabbonim get more worked up about "illicit" music and "heretical" books than they do about yeshivas harboring molesters they reveal to us just what matters most to them.

This is why I have become so absolutely and utterly disgusted with the frum community as a whole. It is no longer just individuals committing these crimes. It is also the general public, and the leadership, which is responsible for allowing these horrible injustices to be perpetrated. It is the community and rabbis which turn a blind eye (or worse) towards these indiscretions. Their inaction, and relative silence (aside from a few vocal and brave activists), is a shocking admission of where their priorities truly lie. Their unwillingness to step up, and yes - risk condemnation and possible political fallout - is a clear indication of what the community values. If your community is going to condemn you for bringing a criminal to justice, isn't the community unambiguously saying that they prefer to protect criminals? Aren't they also then complicit in their crimes?

Admittedly, I know that there are many individuals in the community who are as horrified and sickened by all this as much as I am. Probably more so. But then why don't you speak up? I know the answer to that - because it's too costly for you. You will be shunned, ostracized, maybe even worse. I understand that. But how can you not be ashamed of yourself? With your silence, you are making a choice, a choice to be part of a society that prefers to let some of the very worst crimes of humanity - rape, violence, murder, abuse - go unpunished.

How can any self-respecting person - let alone one who considers themselves spiritual and religiously principled - stand to be a part of this world?

Some interesting links tying together science and religion

I'm too lazy to write up a whole post, so I'm giving you some interesting articles (tangentially related to religion) to read over instead. Enjoy!

• Research indicates that people who find themselves losing control tend to develop superstitions and to find patterns in random things (think images of deities in grilled cheese). It's a subscriber-only article, but you can read a synopsis here.
  
  
• A biologist reviews an evolution textbook from the Intelligent Design camp. I wonder if evolution can still be considered "only" a theory if it is actually witnessed. Because that's what this article discusses actually happened recently - evolution caught in action!
  

• For many people, facts don't matter as much as ideology (PDF article). You can read a summary of that here. This should be fairly obvious to anyone who followed the discussions at XGH, no?
  
  
• This research examines the developmental roots of fairness and altruism. Summary here. On the other hand, here's a study which show that those who believe in an all-seeing god might be nicer than those who don't.
  
  
• These guys demonstrate that the concept of a dirty sin might not just be metaphorical.
  
  
• Researchers at Oxford University have discovered that believers in religion can draw upon their faith to endure suffering. Interestingly, while googling this topic, I found an old article that mentions this research before they actually began the tests.
  
  
• And finally, in this great TED video, psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center.
  
  
• Update - Just found out about this: Can virgin births be real? A female shark that had been in captivity for eight years with no contact with any males of her species gave birth to a single shark pup this past week.
  

The Evolution Of My Disbelief - Part II

When I last left off discussing this topic, I had described that I had been going through a tumultuous period in my life. Many long established ideas and perspectives were being challenged in fundamental ways, and as a result, my belief in the veracity of chareidi Judaism was being drastically affected. Before I continue on, I’d like to step back briefly and expand on that period a bit further.

Although I described some of the challenges which I encountered as primarily intellectual in nature, it’s important to recognize that although the challenges were rooted in intellectual issues, they didn’t just affect me intellectually. Like any other seriously committed chareidi Jew, the ideas that I believed in were directly expressed in my behavior and psyche. When I subscribed to ideas such as the notion that secular studies held nothing of any lasting value, or that people who owned TV’s didn’t really care about halacha, or that people who interacted with the opposite sex were licentious and immoral, it wasn’t just an abstract notion of no practical relevance to real life. No, it was a very real and tangible concept that translated directly into how I acted, what I valued, what I believed, and how I thought about the world. For example, when my rabbeim explained how dressing stylishly was an obsequious attempt to fit in with the goyim, I stopped wearing any kind of brand name clothes, and even let myself dress kind of shabbily (which was the accepted style among the yeshivish crowd I was in at the time). I even lost much respect for people I previously admired, simply because by caring about dressing nicely, they had proven themselves to be too materialistic for me to emulate. These numerous ideological perspectives had direct effects on my actions and thought. But even more critical than my behavior and beliefs though, was how the ideas they taught me directly affected my emotional state. Because even though on the outside I might have been going along with all these new ideas and adopting all these strict new ways of behaving, inside, a part of me still felt some connection with all these now-forbidden practices. And this tension often caused me quite a bit of guilt:

That I still did in fact care about my appearance clearly demonstrated how, inside, I was just a vain and self-absorbed person. The fact that I would rather be studying math than learning gemara was a painful reminder of how I wasn’t really a true ben torah. That I tended to not be super careful with every little halacha was one more sign of how spiritually deficient I was. That I let myself sometimes sneak a little Entenmann's donuts despite my vow to only eat chalav yisrael just proved that in my heart I really was just another "oisvorf".

All my time in yeshiva, I sincerely did want to become what they taught me was the only kind of person who really mattered - a proper ben torah. But throughout it all, I knew that a part of me just wasn’t really trying as hard as it should. And despite the fact that in many ways I was truly striving to become that ideal person, the subconscious awareness that I was never really going to become that ben torah, that person who had any true worth, filled me with a deep unhappiness.

So when I started having the intellectual challenges that I described previously, the effect was not limited to a purely cerebral debate of how to reconcile an intellectual quandary. It disturbed me on a multitude of levels. Yes, it was a theoretical puzzler to me - how could something which all my rabbeim had told me was bad actually not be so? But more fundamentally, it raised extremely upsetting questions with more practical ramifications - if it really wasn’t bad, then couldn’t I have it in my life? And if I can have it in my life, then I didn’t have to feel bad about it! And if I didn’t have to feel bad about it, why had my life been shaped in a way which had caused me so much guilt?

The most fundamental example of this crisis was, unsurprisingly, in regards to the idea of learning torah. As I’ve mentioned here many times, I had been through many years of indoctrination where I was told that there is nothing more important in my life than learning torah; that learning torah should be the prime focus of my life; that learning torah is so great that it outweighs all the other mitzvos of the torah; that people who don’t devote their lives to torah are wasting their lives; that every spare moment of my life I should be trying to squeeze in another pasuk, another daf, another halacha, another Rashi. The messages were endless, and they were very effective - I knew what my life was supposed to be about and that I should desire nothing more than to be able to sit in the beis medrash for as long as possible and imbibe the wisdom of the sages. The only problem with this lofty goal was that I actually sucked at this learning thing. I didn’t have a clue how to do it right, and after years of banging my head in frustration, I absolutely abhorred gemara. (Truth is, I wasn’t too fond of the other yeshivish areas of study either (halacha, chumash, mussar, etc.), but those I could get through with a modicum of competency.) But the very notion that my ultimate purpose in life was meant to revolve around something that I could barely stand caused me a fair bit of cognitive dissonance.

As a loyal devotee of the yeshivish hashkafa, I fully believed that this message of torah learning primacy was the truth, yet I also couldn’t deny that it clearly wasn’t working for me. I lived with this tension for many years, struggling to succeed at what I knew to be my divine mission in life, but all along knowing that my heart wasn’t really into it. Somewhere along the way I resigned myself to the idea that I would never be the kind of person god really wanted me to. As difficult as this was to admit, I knew that I had no one else to blame but myself. After all, the gemara teaches "If a person doesn’t succeed, it’s because they haven’t tried" (Megillah 6b). I obviously hadn’t tried hard enough. Yeshiva lore was filled with tales of students who had overcome insurmountable obstacles through the sheer determination of their commitment. Despite my extra kavana when davening the words of, "v’sen chelkeinu b’sorasecha," I was quite clearly not meriting the divine blessing I so desperately needed. I knew that this didn’t make me a bad person, but I also knew that my place in heaven (and society) would never really amount to much, that I could never call myself a real ben torah, and that I would have to answer for my failure in the world to come.

So when I was first exposed to the idea that I actually didn’t have to devote my life to torah learning, aside from the disbelief that such a concept could actually be true, what hit me was a tremendous emotional upheaval: If I didn’t have to be a learner, then why had everyone told me I did? Why had so much of my energy been wasted in that objective? Why had people who were supposed to be bastions of truth lied to me about something so essential? Why had people who had claimed to act in my best interests discouraged me from succeeding in other areas? Most importantly, if this idea was true, then I didn’t have to feel that I was a failure; that my life didn’t have to focus on something I didn’t enjoy. If this was actually true, I didn’t have to feel ashamed for who I was.

The perspective of how to view torah learning is just one example, but so many more of the beliefs which were being challenged were not just abstract ideological principles, but concepts which had direct, practical consequences to how I viewed my life and myself:

• The idea that secular studies were of no value had always been difficult for me to swallow, considering that the only classes I ever did well at were in those subjects. They had, by negating the value of secular studies, in essence, deprived me of the one activity that could provide me a sense of accomplishment. If it was true what I was now discovering that secular studies indeed had value, then I could be proud of my accomplishments in those areas (instead of hiding that fact, as those of us who did well in secular studies were often mocked for focusing on such "worthless" activities). Maybe I didn’t have to feel like I was totally useless.
  
• If wanting to dress nicely wasn’t really so terrible, then I didn’t have to feel like I was betraying my heritage (by imitating the goyim!) when dressing more contemporarily.
• If being super medakdek about every single halachic issue was not absolutely crucial, then I wouldn’t have to feel so guilty for being resentful that God was making my life crazy with the endless halachic inanities invading my life.
• If not everything a gadol said had to be followed unquestioningly as the word of god, then...well, I couldn’t even bring myself to conceive of what that would mean.

So when I started realizing all the ways in which my chareidi upbringing were untrue, my life really started changing. It changed in many external ways, such as how I dressed, activities I allowed myself, and people I hung out with. And it began to change in internal ways too, such as my values and priorities shifting considerably. But more importantly, it changed how I viewed myself. I no longer felt a need to hide who I was. I could be open about my true nature and not have to be ashamed of it. When my rebbe asked why I wasn’t paying attention in shiur, I could be honest and say, "Because this stuff doesn’t interest me!" (Not that I would be openly disrespectful, but privately I could admit this to him.) When I’d sleep late and miss the minyan, I wouldn’t feel it necessary to apologize for it. When someone would demand of me why I wasn’t following a certain chumra, I’d just shrug and say I didn’t feel it was necessary. When some big rabbi made a new pronouncement, I no longer felt it necessary to go along with it like everyone else.

And so, for the first time ever, I allowed myself to step off of the chareidi path I had been traveling upon all my adult life. I had begun to escape the restrictive mindset of my past and now understood that there were other legitimate ways to be a halachic Jew. But I had no inkling of just how significant this step would prove to my life down the road. Because even though this transition didn’t cause me to challenge the underlying foundations of Judaism, it had opened the door for me to question principles which I had previously thought unassailable. And once that door had been opened for me, nothing would ever be the same again.

Role Models

You know how every time there is some new crazy tznius policy in the frum world, there are people who get all up in arms about it and compare the extremist chareidim to the Taliban? And of course, there are those who take offense at the comparison and consider it totally unfair?

For example, everyone got all worked up a few weeks ago when it was reported that some guy in Beitar had thrown acid on a teenage girl because she wasn't dressed properly (in his opinion).

Well, it turns out that the comparison is not as far off as some people would imagine. In this US News article about Afghan Warlords, there is mention of one Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is at the top of America's Most Wanted list. The article mentions that in his early days, Mr. Hekmatyar, "distinguished himself by throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women."

The Atheist Questionnaire

I've been tagged by Shtreimel to answer the Atheist Questionnaire which has been making its way through the intertubes lately. Before I even start this questionnaire, I have to express some ambivalence at the very outset since I don't actually classify myself as an atheist. That caveat being said, let's answer the questions.

Q1. How would you define "atheism"?

Don't have a good answer for this, and as I don't consider myself an atheist, the question has never concerned me enough to figure one out. I'll pass on this.

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

I was raised religious, in what could best be described as a yeshivish (a version of ultra-orthodoxy slightly less extreme than chassidish) environment. As a very young child, we were actually much more moderate (we had a TV until I was around nine), but over the years, the nature of my family's religiosity has only become more extreme. I once came home to discover that when I washed the dishes, I had to place a plexiglass cover over the second sink to prevent any splashing from the milchig side getting into the fleishig one. Don't ask.

Q3. How would you describe "Intelligent Design", using only one word?

Desperation. (To be honest, I don't know enough about it to really express any opinion on it, but judging from other examples where religious people utilize pseudo-scientific arguments to reconcile their faith with the facts, it seems apt.)

Q4. What scientific endeavor really excites you?

Cellular Biology. Proteinomics.

Q5. If you could change one thing about the "atheist community", what would it be and why?

I think that some of the more militant voices of that group (community might be too strong a word) could do well to be a little less disrespectful of those who don't see things their way. Christopher Hitchens might well make some brilliant points, but he won't be changing anyone's mind when he speaks like a pompous jackass. They'd all do well to read a little Dale Carnegie once in a while.

Q6. If your child came up to you and said "I'm joining the clergy", what would be your first response?

My first response? "Uh… I have a child?"

Seriously though, I would try to ascertain exactly what is motivating my son or daughter to make such a decision. If the rationale for such a path is sensible and responsible I'd like to believe that I would support it. But if the child was doing it for the wrong reasons, I don't think I'd be able to give my blessing. In any case, I'd like to believe that no matter the motivation, my child wouldn't be rejected or made to feel horrible for their choice.

Q7. What's your favorite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

Well, my favorites are the really dumb ones, and they don't really need much in the way of refuting. Like when someone says, "Well if you believe that the world couldn't have just magically gotten here from nowhere then obviously you should be following the torah!" Do I really need to refute that?

What I find really fun is to show the inconsistencies of thought common to religious people. For instance, when they say that halacha never changes, I demonstrate just how often it actually does. Or when they say that the torah is timeless and should be our moral compass forever; I then show them something in the torah which runs contrary to their moral standards and they use the line of "Well, it was written for that era." Or when they point to prior torah leaders as role models for how we should conduct ourselves; I then point out that there are countless things these figures did which are not acceptable today, then they respond with "Well, they were great enough to do (or believe) such things. We simply aren't!" And the amazing thing is that they don't see themselves as being inconsistent in the least!

As for serious theistic arguments, one of my favorites is when a religious person will respond to the observation that so many atrocities have been perpetrated in the name of religion, with the answer that plenty of godless, atheist societies (Communist Russia, North Korea etc.) have done plenty of damage too. Harris answers this objection really well. He eloquently explains that these aren't actually atheist societies. A genuinely atheist society would allow for exploration of ideas and be based on reason and common sense, and not be bound by any dogmas, whether they be religious, political or scientific. These are simply authoritarian dictatorships which have rejected the tenets of science and discovery as much as they have the teachings of Christianity. None of the perpetrators of such atrocities ever seriously claimed that they were acting in the name of discovery and skepticism. (I don't think I did his explanation justice. You've got to hear it from him directly.)

Q8. What's your most "controversial" (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

Probably that I'm not actually an atheist.

Q9. Of the "Four Horsemen" (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favorite, and why?

That would be Harris. I think he approaches the issues with a certain humility and respect that is lacking in some of the other figures. Hitchens just sounds like an angry buffoon talking down to everyone. Dawkins often reminds me of an impatient professor that is just totally dumbfounded why his students can't see the obviousness of what he's trying to tell them. And Dennett I only heard a long time ago so I'm not familiar enough with him to comment on.

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

Any majorly respected black-hat rosh yeshiva or gadol. Someone like Rav Elyashuv would be just awesome. It's not that I care one way or another what view any particular man subscribes to, but the effect on the frum world of such a figure defecting would be so much fun to watch. You know what? He doesn't even have to abandon all his beliefs. If he would just renounce any commonly held frum ideology it would be incredible. Can you imagine how freaked out they'd all get if he publicly announced that mixed seating in shuls is allowed?

Now name three other atheist blogs that you'd like to see take up the Atheist Thirteen gauntlet:

I'd actually love to hear from Enigma4U and Mis-Nagid, but since they don't have blogs, I'll pass this on to Little Foxling, Orthoprax, and Spinoza.

Halachic Choices

There's a well known, yet unpopular saying in the Orthodox world: "Where there's a rabbinic will, there's a halachic way." It's unpopular because it implies two very unpalatable things:

a) The halachic system itself doesn't rest upon any concrete and lasting principles; that they can be adjusted and modified to meet the popular demands of the day

b) That rabbis can essentially rule in whatever direction they want, and if they don't address certain issues, it's because they just don't care enough about the issue to deal with it

Strictly observant types consider this idea practically sacrilegious. I've always (well, in the past decade or so) believed the aphorism to be quite apt. Once upon a time I also found it to be offensive, but the more I learned about how things operate in the real world (as opposed to the idealized portrayals we are given in yeshiva), and the more I learned about Jewish history (and other areas of knowledge which the average yeshiva guy is ignorant of), the more I realized how true it was. There are so many examples of rabbis responding to cultural and societal needs, and bending the rules to meet the needs of the populace that it's hard to believe anyone can actually think otherwise. Whether it's pruzbul, or mechiras chometz, or eruv, or some previously forbidden activity now being permitted, or some previously permitted activity (or person, or idea, or practice) now being forbidden, the rules often change to suit the popular mood (or need). Sometimes it's just an original and novel heter, sometimes it's a convoluted workaround or legal ficiton, sometimes it's a reliance on an obscure opinion, but whatever methods they employ, it's just too common to deny that the unbending rules of halacha can be quite flexible when the right pressure is applied. Sometimes this flexibility can be used positively, like when it's used to help people out of overly burdensome situations (eruv and mechiras chometz). Other times, and this is what's most common nowadays, the strategy is employed less charitably, and we see it often used to impose stricter standards on the community.

In our contemporary era, one of the most egregious violations of justice that is allowed to be perpetrated in the name of halacha is the problem of the aguna - a woman whose husband will not grant a divorce and who (according to halacha) is forbidden to marry another. There have been countless efforts to address this problem, but overall none of them have seemed to make much headway. One of the solutions that I recall hearing about was to retroactively annul the marriage so that no divorce is even necessary, and the woman would then be free. There was, of course, much opposition to this proposal, with one of the objections to this solution being that it would then mean that the children of such a marriage would then be considered to have been born out of wedlock. In any case, like so many of the others plans, this idea was never implemented, and to this day very little has changed in regards to the general situation of agunos, with the rabbis continuing to insist that their hands are tied by the dictates of halacha.

I was recently reminded of this issue as I was reading the latest reports of the wholesale and retroactive nullification of thousands of Jewish converts by the beis din in Israel. For those who aren't up to date on the latest brouhaha, the Jerusalem Supreme Rabbinical Court (not to be confused with the Israeli Supreme Court) has nullified all the conversions from a particular rabbi, thereby revoking the Jewish status of all the people he has converted (and presumably also the children of the women he converted). Now, I'm not going to get into the ramifications and implications of this decision (there's been more than enough of that in the print and blog media), but I can't help comparing the two situations (aguna and conversion). They seem to be using the exact same methodology: retroactively declaring a halachically approved commitment null and void. In one situation, the rabbis don't want to employ the tactic even though it would have a positive result (the aguna being freed). In the other situation, they are willing to employ the strategy, even though it would have disastrous consequences for thousands of people.

To me, this discrepancy highlights a crucial element of what I find so troublesome about Chareidi Judaism. The goal for them is never about trying to improve things, to be inclusive, to create allowances, to use their talmudic ingenuity in order to produce something positive. It is instead always negatively oriented, to exclude people, to keep ideas out, to place further restrictions and create further divisions. I can't recall the last time I heard a p'sak which made me think, "Wow, halacha really enhances people's lives!"

That this attitude is so ingrained is disturbing enough, but what bothers me even more is when I see the law itself being used in exactly the opposite way which I think it was intended for. Sure, we can use our brilliant halachic minds to figure out a way to write out hundreds of sincere and committed Jews from the community, breaking up countless relationships, possibly delegitimizing their children, and causing untold heartache. But to use that very same logic to help out a suffering woman who is being tormented by a malicious bastard who is himself abusing the halachic system - no, that would be unacceptable according to halacha!

Shidduch Shams

A short while ago I posted about how I think that people in the chareidi world approach the whole issue of shidduchim wrong. It's not just that they get caught up with stupidities (which they definitely do), but that the very basis for their getting married is founded on idiotic and superficial reasons. To be precise, I said that it's not that I think people in religious marriages don't love each other and have healthy stable homes. I'm sure even in situations where the marriage was entered into for the wrong reasons, many of them eventually do. It's just that that's not why they get married. And it's irresponsible and reckless to enter into something like marriage for the wrong reasons, regardless of if there's a chance that it might turn out ok.

Various people took issue with my position and said that my portrayal isn't quite true. Well, sadly, I now have some more first-hand anecdotal experience to corroborate what I wrote. A relative of mine is now engaged at the ripe old age of 17 (and a young 17 at that). Now, the obvious problem with this is simply that the person is just a bit too young and way too immature to be getting married. But putting that aside, what really bothers me about it is that the sole purpose of this marriage is because the person is not in a yeshiva and does not have a job and basically has been drifting aimlessly for the recent past. So the parents evidently feel that it's important to have them enter in some sort of structured arrangement rather than possibly get involved in even riskier behavior than has already been done (which hasn't really been anything too terrible AFAIK).

I expressed my misgivings to a different relative, someone who I thought would share my reservations with this arrangement. He is a respected talmid chacham in the yeshivish world, and someone who I usually consider to have a broader view of things than the typical yeshiva graduate. Well, it turns out I don't know some people as well as I thought. He actually thought it was a good idea. Here's what he said:

"Look, now he may be young and immature, but after a little time married, he'll adapt and become more responsible. It's better that he get married now than continue to be involved with the crowd he's been hanging out with and then who knows where that might lead.... I've seen this been done many times. It'll be fine."

Well, there you have it folks. Unless you think that "preventing someone from hanging out with the wrong crowd" is a valid justification for marriage, please don't tell me that chareidim don't marry people off for the wrong reasons. Yes, I know, this is just one anecdotal case, and doesn't prove anything. It might not, but my friend's attitude about it does prove something. If this is his view, then it is more than acceptable in his mainstream black-hat world. Whether or not it happens often, I wouldn't say, but the fact that people look at marriage this way says a lot.

When you think about it, it's also pretty hypocritical. Chareidim are the ones who extol the importance of marriage over everything else, saying how it's the most sacred and central component of Jewish life, how the institution of the Jewish family must be treated with the utmost reverence, you know, all that "bayis neman b'yisrael" crap.

Really? Is this how you treat something so sacred? By just using it as an excuse to avoid properly dealing with a totally unrelated problem? You consider it responsible to put someone immature and flighty in charge of one of your most venerated institutions? Gimme a break! This kind of attitude shows that to you marriage is actually nothing special at all; it's merely a tool; a tactic to be utilized when the need arises.

Mazal Tov!

Based on Trust

Many people have disputed my analysis in the previous post where I assert that trust is the key underlying factor for many frum people's belief in the truth of frumkeit. Here's another way of making my point:

Consider two scenarios: First one, you go over to a frum woman and tell her that her son, who she has raised all her life, is not her son. How would she react? "You're crazy! Of course he's my son."

"Well," you reply, "what about if all the roshei yeshiva and gedolim came over to you and told you that he wasn't your son. Would that change your mind at all?"

"Of course not!" she'd laugh. "I know my son is my son, and no one can change my mind about that!"

Now consider the second scenario:

Go over to a frum person and tell them that frumkeit is not true. The reaction? "You're nuts! Of course it's true!"

Now follow up with the same remark: "Well, what about if all the roshei yeshiva and gedolim came over to you and told you that it's not. That actually they don't believe in it themselves. Would that change your mind?"

The parent doesn't doubt what they know about their child, because it's solidly based on their own firm belief, and no one else's uncertainty about that idea has any bearing on that conviction.

Does anyone honestly think that a frum person would remain convinced of their belief if faced with the same challenge?

My point here is not to say that frumkeit is true or false, but rather to point out that most people's belief in its truth is based more on a trust of others than a solid recognition of its own inherent trueness.

My Investment - A Short Story

When I was around 14 years old, I came into a fairly large sum of money. I wasn't actually given access to it, but I was able to decide what should be done with it. So I figured I had to find some sort of worthy investment opportunity for my newfound riches.

I knew that the smart thing to do would be to take some time and properly research the different opportunities presented to me; to carefully examine what my financial goals were and what ventures would best meet those goals. I did briefly look into the Wall Street Journal, and picked up an Investing For Dummies book, but being the lazy kind of person I am, I ended up opting for a much simpler route. I was aware of a certain wealthy individual in the community who was known as having the keenest financial acumen ever, a fellow by the name of Dan Thompson. Everyone I knew swore that this guy was more brilliant than Warren Buffet. All my family members claimed that he was unbeatable. When I asked around a bit, there seemed to be unanimous agreement that this guy was unparalleled in the field. He had a perfect track record. He would make me rich! I couldn't go wrong! It was a sure thing!

So I figured, hey, this seems like a smart move. He's obviously trustworthy. I should look into it. But there was an aspect of this endeavor that bothered me just a bit. Strangely enough, this particular investor demanded that all the parties that were involved with him follow an unusual set of guidelines in their personal lives. He emphatically insisted that these rules enhanced and improved the viability and success of each person's investment profile. They weren't terribly difficult things to do, and the potential reward far outweighed any slight inconvenience that they might have caused, but some of them were a bit odd. For instance, he demanded that all bathmats in an investor's home be green; when an investor was dressing oneself, and putting his belt on, he had to skip over the second and fourth belt loop of his pants; all dishes that were eaten off of were required to have some green in their design. Either a stripe, or a pattern, etc. (entirely green dishes were preferred). These were all trivial things that no one seemed to mind much, but there were a few injunctions that were a bit more onerous, like the requirement that every home have the complete collection of his books (24 volumes in all!), and that investors were expected to review them regularly. Additionally, any time one traveled, he was required to bring along a copy of the complete collection. Needless to say, most of his people didn't get around much! Curiously, he also only allowed men to participate; women were not welcome in his inner circle.

But all these demands seemed rather insignificant compared to the potential return on the investment that was promised by his firm. I figured I should look into it. So I went to talk to him.

It was impressive. No doubt about it, the guy clearly was respected in his field. He had people buzzing around him, asking him advice, handing him papers, and eagerly looking for an opportunity to ask him for a quick tip. His offices were astounding, and I was thoroughly bowled over by the regal quality of his surroundings. Luckily for me, I had been granted a few moments of his precious time, and when he saw me enter, he warmly welcomed me into his office. Certificates of commendation and other honors covered his walls. Framed photos of his illustrious father and grandfather, well respected figures in the financial world, were scattered around the room. I knew his time was valuable, and so I jumped right ahead to the reason why I came:

"Mr. Thompson, I'm looking to invest in XYZ Properties, and I'd like you to clarify to me how their company works, and how my money would be invested," I explained to him.

"My dear friend," he said to me. "We could do that if you'd like. Not a problem. We can spend hours delving into the technical details of their corporate structure, going over their financial reports, and examining their stock history. But let me ask you this: Look around this room - do I look like I know what I'm doing? Do you think you can understand the system like I can? I'm sure you know that you don't have the knowledge or experience to grasp all the subtle intricacies of this issue. And you also know that this is a venture that has proven itself over time. Wouldn't it be smarter to just trust me that this is the intelligent thing to do, and let me handle things from there on out?"

Of course it was. He was absolutely right. But I was still a bit unsure about all the preconditions that came along with the deal. I asked him to explain why it was all necessary. He explained to me that it was all a very intricate and elaborate system that had been followed over the years, established by investors far wiser than he, and that by following them meticulously he had been blessed with unprecedented success. And besides, he reminded me, with the prosperity I was about to experience, did it really matter if I adjusted a few of my daily habits?

He was correct of course. This was a no-brainer. What was there to even think about? Our brief conversation was sufficient to convince me of what I needed to know. He was trustworthy. It was worthwhile. I was going to go for it. When I told him of my decision, he pulled out a stack of papers for me to sign and we sealed the deal with a handshake.

True to the assurances of all my friends, the investment was a wise one. Over time I began to see a gradual increase in my value. As my bank balance increased ever more, my reputation grew, and my popularity soared correspondingly. Life was good, and I was pleased that I had made the right decision. It was clear that going with this investment was the right one. And the little rituals that I thought would be a burden actually proved to be the opposite, as I gradually became used to them and found them to be a unique way of declaring my distinctive status as one of Thompsons' chosen associates. People even started coming to me for financial advice, and I unhesitatingly told them of this winning investment. "It's rock-solid," I explained. "XYZ Properties is the way to go. Tried and true. You can't go wrong."

At times, there did seem to be slight hiccups along the way. On rare occasions, I would see a strange discrepancy in the numbers, and I would contact Dan to ask about it. Invariably, he would allay my fears, assuring me that all was well and I should just trust that he knew what was best. He would start explaining to me about market forces, inflation rates, P/E ratios, and other incomprehensible financial concepts until I just admitted to myself that he knew what he was doing and I should just stop worrying about it all.

He truly was a great financial manager. There were times when the rules he demanded seemed to be just too much to deal with, but he would patiently explain to me how important it was to follow them all, and how they actually affected my portfolio; for instance, how the increased green in my life enhanced the flow of money in the universe to my investments. I didn't really understand it all, but he clearly knew what he was talking about, and it did seem to make sense when he explained it.

I trusted him implicitly. Even when there were a few periods where I saw my valuation drop precipitously low, I knew that it had to be some minor glitch. Sure enough, things got back to normal eventually. Those few times did make me very uncomfortable, but I was confident I was placing my trust in the right hands. Dan was taking good care of me.

Due to my newfound involvement in the financial arena, I began to read up a bit more on the topic, learning about some of the prominent figures in the industry, the insider gossip, and some of the history of the companies. It was all quite fascinating to me, and I lapped up this new fount of knowledge eagerly. And then one day I found a disturbing news item. In a deeply buried story, someone mentioned that a Dan Thompson had once been indicted for fraud. I couldn't believe it! That was impossible. The Dan Thompson I knew had impeccable credentials. I brushed it off as the angry rantings of some disgruntled foe, and promptly forgot about it.

A few months after that, I was attending a conference out of town, and struck up a conversation with a few friendly fellows sitting nearby. The conversation turned to how our fortunes had been made, and I proudly told them of my close relationship with Dan Thompson. Much to my surprise, they reacted with barely concealed shock. When I asked them to explain themselves, they told me that Dan Thompson had an infamous reputation in the investing community, and everyone knew that it was wise to stay away from him.

"But he's making me a fortune!" I exclaimed. "He's a great investor. Why should anyone stay away from him?! He's the best thing that anyone could ask for!"

"Haven't you read anything about him?" they asked me. "Haven't you heard the rumors?"

"Sure, all the time," I replied, slowly recalling that lone article I had stumbled upon. "But everything I've seen, and everyone I spoke to, seems to consider him an unqualified expert!"

"What?!" they responded in amazement. "What sort of stuff are you reading?! Who have you been talking to?"

I told them of the books and periodicals that I regularly reviewed; of the complete collection of his works that I frequently perused. And of the countless people who encouraged me to invest with him. They laughed uproariously. "Of course those people are supporting him. Don't you know that he employs a significant contingent of that community? They're either all his employees or they're just repeating the stuff everyone there says about him! And the books? They're written by his company! They'll never say anything bad about him! You're getting a totally skewed picture of reality by reading that stuff!"

"But this can't be!" I stammered. "How can everything that everyone told me about him be wrong?"

Unimpressed by my impassioned defense, they sat me down at a computer and typed in an address of a site I had never seen before. Upon entering his name in the search engine, I was returned with a long list of articles and reports. Much to my surprise, the articles seemed to be corroborating their accusations. I took a closer look. No! This couldn't be true, I thought to myself. I turned to my companions in amazement, "How can this be? Is this for real? How come I never knew about any of this? How could it be that no one ever told me about it? Is this trustworthy?!"

They looked at me with a combination of pity and sadness. "Of course you don't know about it. You're living in a different world from reality. But the rest of us are well aware of these things. And have been for ages. Look around for yourself if you don't believe us."

"But the investments - they've been successful! If all this were true, how could everything be going so well? I'm very happy with what he's done for me!"

"I find that hard to believe," said one of them. "Haven't there been some points where things didn't seem quite right to you?"

I thought back to those occasional upsets I had noticed. Yes, they had happened, but Dan had explained to me that they were nothing to be worried about.

I didn't know what to think. This was too much for me. As I returned home to the safe environs of my family and community, I tried to put these disturbing ideas out of my mind. But I couldn't forget what they had shown me. What if these allegations were true? I returned to the web site they had shown me. Page after page showed incontrovertible proof that Dan Thompson could not be trusted. I was torn. After all, he still seemed to be successfully making me money. I decided to discuss my dilemma with some fellow investors. When I revealed to them what I had discovered, they totally disregarded it.

"You can't believe what they write there!" my friends explained. "They don't know what they're talking about! They never do. They just make things up to make themselves look good, and to make people like us look bad."

"But they have proof, records, witnesses," I insisted. "How can all this be made up?"

Yet they remained unconvinced. To them it was clear that none of these accusations had a shred of credibility. How I wished I had their certainty. But unlike them, I just wasn't able to dismiss what I had stumbled upon.

Although I wasn't as confident about Dan like I used to be, I still trusted him. He had, after all, earned my loyalty, and justifiably so. Why didn't I just ask him? I knew he was an honest and straightforward person. Like in the past, when I was unsure about things, he would probably just simply explain to me why it was all nothing to worry about. So I did that. I approached him one day and mentioned one of the incidents I read about it. In his typically good natured way, he told me how it was just a misunderstanding that had eventually been straightened out. However, due to my extensive reading, I knew that wasn't quite the case, and I pointed it out to him. His manner turned colder and he started talking angrily, muttering about rivals, and enemies, and lies that people were saying about him. I turned to him calmly and explained that I trusted him and just wanted to hear the truth, as I was confident that he had a good explanation for it all. But he responded that he didn't want to talk about it, and ushered me out of the room, saying that he had an important meeting that he was late for. Needless to say, it wasn't very reassuring.

True, things didn't seem as rosy as when I had started out, but Dan was still making me money hand over fist. He was still one of the most respected individuals in the community. And as long as I was in his good graces, I still retained a distinctive cachet among my peers. Unfortunately, word had gotten out that I was looking into things I wasn't supposed to be, and I had fallen a few notches from my previous position of distinction. Additionally, I had not been attending to all the rituals like I was expected to, and people were starting to notice. They often approached me, asking why I was neglecting these important responsibilities, and I tried explaining that I just didn't seem to be enjoying them anymore. The novelty was starting to rub off and they were seeming more and more burdensome, but everyone just encouraged me to keep it up, and that I'd eventually come to appreciate their value.

On occasion, I would call Dan and mention the troublesome issues further. There were additional reports surfacing every few weeks, of newly questionable activities. Each time he'd give a brief explanation that hardly satisfied me, and when pressed further would get upset at me for pursuing the matter.

"What's wrong with you?" he'd shout at me. "Isn't it good enough what I'm doing for you? Haven't I proven my reliability to you? Do you really think you can do this job better than I?" Our relationship began to sour. I realized that I was getting nowhere and stopped asking for explanations. We eventually avoided conversation altogether. I began to skip more and more of the rituals. Word got out of our split. Unsurprisingly, in short order I found myself marginalized in the community.

And then it happened. One morning, as I was reading the financial reports, I saw that once again, my valuation had dropped to practically nothing. I was virtually broke. Almost instinctively I told myself not to worry, that this had happened before and with time the ship would right itself. But then I realized that I couldn't do that again. I didn't believe it anymore. This was the last straw. I picked up the phone and called Dan.

"Dan, please sell everything I have. I want out."

"What!?" he exclaimed in surprise. "You can't do that! You know this is just a setback. It's happened before. You've seen it yourself! C'mon, just give it some time and everything will be fine."

"No. I'm not taking any more chances with you. I don't trust you. I want out."

"How can you not trust me?! I've made more money than anyone. I've given you more than you ever dreamed of! You're making a terrible mistake! You can't do this! It's wrong!"

We went back and forth. Over and over, he insisted that this was a terrible decision. I kept explaining that it was my decision and I felt it to be the right one. I tried to spell it out for him as best I could.

"Dan, I just don't trust you anymore. Don't you understand that? There's just too many unexplained discrepancies. Too many unanswered questions. Too much questionable behavior. I just don't trust you like I used to."

"Fine, maybe I'm not trustworthy," he finally conceded, much to my surprise. "But what does that matter? The investment is a sound one. XYZ Properties is a proven winner. What difference does it make if I'm a crook or not. It's the investment that matters. Why pull out of a proven thing?!"

He made a good point. I thought about it for a while. And then the answer struck me; it was crystal clear.

"I don't know that XYZ Properties is a good thing," I explained. "In fact, I never did. I never knew more than the bare details of that company. I never invested in it because I knew it's a winner. I invested in it because I trusted you. Because I trusted that you knew what you were doing and that you were reliable. You told me it's a winner. I didn't really know that myself. It was entirely based on your word. And I trusted everyone who backed you up. They told me you were the best there was. But none of your opinions matter anymore to me. You've all proven yourselves to be dishonest, self-serving crooks. I have no reason to believe any of you when you tell me anything! You have no credibility whatsoever in my eyes."

"But XYZ is still the right choice!" Dan persisted. "Can't you see that? Can't you see how it's proven to be the truest path to success for everyone?!"

"No! I can't!" I insisted. "Why would I conclude that? Based on your say-so? I never knew it to be proven. I never really knew anything about it. Every time I wanted to know something about it, you just confused me with incomprehensible explanations and reminded me that I should just trust you!"

"But what about all those years that you believed in it as the right choice?! All those people who you encouraged to follow after you! You can't just change your mind!"

"You're not hearing me Dan. I never really deeply believed in XYZ myself, or knew much about XYZ, and truthfully, I never really cared to. I just believed in it as the right choice because it was working for me and because I trusted you. Those were the two reasons I was in it. Not because of my belief in it, but because of my trust in you and because it was benefiting me. But both those reasons are gone, Dan. I don't trust you and I don't feel it's providing me what I need. In fact, all your rules are just making my life miserable."

"But didn't you see how all the rules helped your success?! You saw it all yourself, the countless ways in which it improved your portfolio!"

"No Dan. I didn't see that. I saw you explaining things how you wanted to see them. Those rules might have helped me in some minor ways, but I don't feel that they are crucial to the portfolio in any significant way.

We kept at this for hours. He just didn't get it. He kept telling me that XYZ was right and true, and no one who invested in it would go wrong. That it would prove itself over time. That it had proven itself over history. That the rules were guaranteed to help me succeed. I kept telling him that he didn't understand how I saw the situation. Finally, when I could go on no more, I demanded the conversation be over. With a heavy heart, he agreed to return my remaining funds, and we hung up.

But it didn't end there. The next day, Dan called me up, and then the day after, and the one after that, insisting that I had made a mistake and that I should reinvest my money. We rehashed the same conversation, again and again, getting nowhere repeatedly. At one point I yelled out, "Dan, I don't care whether you say it's true or not. You're not trustworthy to me! Don't you get it!?"

"Well then, you should learn about it yourself!" he exclaimed. "You should investigate it and find out how worthwhile of an investment it is. You owe it to yourself. This company has a proven track record longer than any other. Maybe you're right not to trust what I say, but just because I'm flawed, doesn't mean the company is bad. You should only decide against them if your own investigation proves to you that they're a bad choice."

I had to concede that he had a point there. Maybe he was right. Just because he was untrustworthy didn't mean that the investment he was backing was also. Maybe I should take a closer look before I made a final decision to stay away forever. But then I realized something. He was right, XYZ might actually be a sound investment, but why should I choose it over the myriad other opportunities presented to me? From where I was standing now, XYZ Properties was as viable an investment as any of those other ventures. But it also had some major strikes against it. For one, it was closely associated with a group of people that were clearly of questionable character. But more significantly, there was a big price to pay for that investment. I had to turn my life upside down to get in on that opportunity. All those requirements ended up driving me nuts, getting in the way of my life, causing endless hassles, preventing me from pursuing other investment opportunities and overall, providing very little tangible benefit to me. And moreover, there were policies in his organization that I found fundamentally objectionable. For example, I strongly disagreed with his views on how and when I was allowed to trade with outside investors. For someone who was willing to take all that on, XYZ might indeed be a worthwhile path to pursue, but I truly did not feel I was that person.

"No," I said to Dan, finally. "You had your chance. I'm done."

"You're making a terrible mistake. You know that you'll never succeed like you can here!"

"I know you feel that way, Dan. I'm sorry."

"It's just wrong to leave," he pleaded earnestly. "No one else has the true way like we do. You have to realize that! You've got to!"

"Well, you might be right about that, but I just don't see it that way now. I'm sorry."

Suddenly his tone turned darker. "Well then, if that's how you feel, leave already. We don't need you! Take your money and invest it elsewhere. I always knew you were a bad seed, you know. Always asking questions, challenging the truth, even the first day I met you! Don't think I wasn't aware how you would skip the rules. That's what messed you up! If you had been following them properly, nothing like this would have ever happened!"

I decided I had had enough. "Dan, I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm going to go now."

He kept on going, as if he hadn't heard me. "You see, you can't deal with hearing the truth...just avoiding the issues..."

I hung up the phone slowly, hearing the last words of his diatribe abruptly silenced with the satisfying thunk of the phone returning to its cradle.

Goodbye Dan, and good luck.

What I've Become

There are a few new blogs which have appeared lately that address the issue of leaving Orthodoxy. One such blog, The Journey Off, written by someone who refers to herself as GGG (GoingGoingGone), brought up some interesting ideas related to Jewish identity. She asks, "...if not observant, what would I do on Yom Kippur? Would I fast, go to shul? Would I still have a Pesach seder and abstain from bread for a week?…what being a Jew means without the strictures of Torah. Are we still a people, a nation, a family, without that book to bind us together?"

Hearing her articulate these questions piqued my interest, not only because I used to ask them myself, but also because this past Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur I couldn't help noticing how much my life has changed from when I too had these questions on my mind.

This year, I didn't go to shul on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. I didn't fast on YK. Aside from meeting up with some ex-frum friends on RH for a potluck dinner (devoid of any religious connotations), and talking to a friend (who is going through her own religious transition), the days had no Jewish associations whatsoever.

And you know what?

It didn't bother me! Not a whit. I didn't feel that I was missing out, or cutting myself off from my people, or being a terrible, self-hating, turning-his-back-on-his-traditions, evil, assimilated Jew. It just didn't matter to me whatsoever.

I remember when I was first stepping onto the path of irreligiosity, how my mind would contort itself to figure out a way to fit Jewish holidays and experiences into my conception of Jewish identity in a compatible and comfortable way. I still felt they were too important to just abandon entirely, so I wanted to retain them in some way that was still meaningful to me, yet devoid of their unappealing components. But I didn't want to become one of those Jews whose most Jewish part of their holiday is the food they eat on that day. To become that would be a terrible thing, I knew. I needed to hold onto their true value, in whatever meaningful way I could. I had to make sure I still cared, one way or another.

And I look at myself now, and realize, to my mild amusement, that I have turned into exactly that person whom I abhorred so vehemently. Judaism has become, more or less, pretty irrelevant for me.

And guess what? It's not so bad. In fact, it's not bad at all. Surprisingly, my life has not devolved into nihilistic anarchy. It isn't meaningless and angst-ridden. Thankfully, I have wonderful friends and many meaningful relationships, some of which have carried over from my frum days, and many of which have formed since adopting my new life. I've discovered that there is as much (if not more) genuine goodness in the dreaded "outside world" as there supposedly is in the holy and sacred enclaves of Frummieville. My life is full of enjoyable, stimulating and enriching experiences. And I even still participate in Jewish events, when the mood suits me.

I know I'm supposed to be ashamed of who I am, of what I've become. But I just can't seem to muster up the indignity. I simply don't feel any loss for not having Judaism be a significant part of my life.

This person that I was so afraid of becoming, it turns out, he really isn't so terrible after all. He still cares about doing what's right, even though he doesn't think god has anything to do with it. He still tries to cultivate meaningful relationships, even though shabbos is just another day of the week. He still tries to be ethical, even though Yom Kippur barely registers on his mental calendar. He still tries to be generous, even though he doesn't wear a yarmulke. He still cares about his fellow man (and yes, also his fellow Jews), even though he doesn't shake a lulav. He still cares about morality, even though his conception of it doesn't concern itself with covered hair and elbows. He still cares about Jews and Judaism, even though it isn't at all an active part of his life. And when he doesn't quite succeed, he vows to do better next time, even though he doesn't swing live poultry over his head. Why should this person be ashamed of themselves?

I can't answer her question of what it means to be a Jew without Torah. Actually, I don't think I even care anymore what it means to be a Jew. I just know that I want to live a good, fulfilling and meaningful life, to the best of my ability, in all it's myriad aspects. I think that, at heart, that's what most of us really want, yet we've been told that if we give up those traditional practices and values, we're forfeiting the best chance we'll ever have to such a life. So I just want to say to everyone who feels that if they stop caring about the rituals and strictures of Judaism, that their lives will descend into a morass of immorality and meaninglessness, that no matter how much of a bacon-eating, shiksa-loving, shabbos-violating, Yom Kippur-eating person you may ever become, it doesn't affect one bit how wonderful and fulfilling your life can be.

MisMatch-Making

I commented at the Brookyln Wolf about some ideas that he was throwing around in regard to the frum world's approach to shidduchim. As it turns out, I just started reading The Outside World, which has quite a sarcastic take of it's own on the shidduch process. One of the things he was writing about was the idiotic way rabbis advise people to turn down prospective matches without even meeting the people involved, based on superficial and irrelevant issues, and disregarding whether the person really is a compatible match in the ways that truly matter. Not that it matters, but I think he's conflating various issues in his criticism:
1) the problem of irrelevant details mattering so much
2) the tendency to think there's only one right way for a person to be and discounting people who don't fit that picture
3) the increasingly common trend for people to defer these decisions to their rabbis.
They're all problems that are touched on by various comments that he and his readers made.

I'm not going to get into all the things I see wrong with the shidduch issue. Suffice it to say, that even when I was a believer, I had enough sense to understand how that aspect of frum society highlighted so well the many dysfunctions endemic to chareidi life. And the simple fact is that my life now is free of all those idiocies that frum society demands of its adherents, so I could care less if they continue their silly games. But when one commenter made the point that she finds it absurd that people who have had the maturity to make the monumental decision to get married are not thinking for themselves about who to marry, I felt it prudent to set the record straight:

Shoshana, you said, "...these are people who have declared themselves mature enough to be married..."

I disagree with that. Most people in the shidduch market have not declared themselves mature at all. The only reason that they are in that arena is because they've simply arrived at that stage in their life where this is what "they're supposed to be doing". You know.... went through high school, a few years of post HS beis medrash or seminary, maybe a year in Lakewood for the guy or a short stint working for the girl, and now, at the age of 19-20, it's time to get married. And just like every other decision of their life which they submitted to the dictates of their handlers (whether that be family, school, or rabbi's), this decision too is being deferred to them.

Hardly any of these people have seriously looked at themselves and asked if they understand what starting a family is about, and if they are prepared to take on that responsibility. It's just assumed that when you reach a certain age, you're ready! For these people, marriage is just the next fad in their life, to be followed shortly by having a baby...

Sorry, I don't see any maturity here whatsoever. Only reckless and shallow self-indulgence.

To just put a bit of a finer edge on my point above, Why is anyone surprised that shidduchim are being broken off for the most superficial and idiotic reasons, when actually the very decision to marry someone is probably also really based just as much on unthinking and shallow motives?

Another point - the way the rabbonim and Roshei Yeshiva often look at marriage is as a solution to the problem of a guy or girl becoming too independent now that they are older. Instead of asking "Are they mature and ready for this?", the question they seek to address is, "How can we make sure they don't stray or get involved in unsavory activities now that we have less control over them?" The answer: get them married as soon as possible!

I appreciate the points made by the Wolf and his readers. Yet, as I read them all, I can't help thinking that they're actually very sad, yet unsurprisingly, also so very typical of popular frum thinking. All the attention is focused on the idiotic details after the fact (which I agree are definitely worth criticism), and they avoid scrutinizing the more serious and significant problems that are at the root of the issue itself. Sure, it's obvious the whole frum approach is flawed, and all of its myriad issues are each worthy of a post all their own: how people are rejecting (and accepting) each other based on superficial criteria; that people are allowing others to make such important and personal decisions on their behalf; how just because someone has a different hashkafa they are deemed sub-par and unworthy; how being a "learner" is the overriding criteria for so many people; that people seriously consider keeping crucial information about themselves hidden from their potential life partner; that people are rejected based on things totally unrelated to their character and often totally out of their control. Sure, that's all stuff that is problematic and in need of serious remedy.

But all of that hardly matters at all when the whole motivation for people getting married in the first place is so misplaced! Why do these sad and pathetic behaviors matter at all when they're stemming from something so much more troubling?! It's like someone going to a restaurant and being upset by the poor service when the food they're being served is a putrid glob of guck.

It amazes me that anyone is surprised at all about all these various problems of the "shidduch crisis". When the basis of the match is originating from a distorted perspective, then it's only natural that the reactions to it are going to reflect that skewed ideal! Of course the color of the shabbos tablecloths is important if getting married is just the next step to take in fitting in to the community! Sure the car they drive (or the size of the house) matters when the whole point of the match is to increase one's status in the community! And why is it so surprising for the rabbi to deem the prospective partner unfit when to him getting married is primarily a means to make sure his young charge "stays on track"? Why shouldn't the candidates misrepresent themselves if what matters more than anything is just to get married already? And of course, all those countless trivialities, the endless rules and rituals of who does what, when, where, and how, matter so much when getting married is just the latest fad they're into. Like all other fads, you have to fit in with what everyone else is doing...

When getting married is not about two people connecting, exploring each others person, loving each other, and growing continuously closer*, but rather about marrying the right person in order to put another notch in your social belt, or about how it can fit in with your rabbi's plan for your spiritual progress, or about just following the crowd and doing it because that's what everyone else does at that age, then is it any surprise that you end up with a so-called "shidduch crisis"?

The sad thing is they really do have a shidduch problem that needs to be solved. It's just that, like so much else in their world, it's a problem of their own making, and unfortunately, like so many of their other problems, will probably never be solved, since doing so necessitates taking a long and hard look at how they approach the issue, and considering that their "Torah True" approach might not be so right after all.

* Note - I'm not saying that in frum marriages people don't do all that (love each other, grow closer, etc.). I am saying that that is not WHY they get married.

A New Perspective

Far too often than I care for, I'm posed the question of "What made you become non-religious?"

Similarly, I noticed on Rabbi Horowitz's website, he has added a poll, asking basically the same question, "What is (are) the primary cause(s) of children abandoning Yiddishkeit?"

Like Hillel being asked to teach the entire Torah in a brief lesson, I believe that it's impossible to properly address that question with any simplistic answers (at least in my case). Every time I think about the matter, I uncover new dimensions of the issue that seem to shed further light on my choices, and at times, the new insights even contradict perspectives that I had previously, confounding me further.

The other day, as I was sitting in my bed, pondering this never ending quandary, it occurred to me that the discussion might be enhanced somewhat if the question was sharpened just a bit. I realized that in my case, to ask the question of what caused me to become irreligious was too vague, as there were actually two distinct categories of what led me along my path, which can be reflected in the following formulation:

1) What made me want to become non-religious?
2) What made me actually become non-religious?

The distinction highlights that there are two aspects to the process: the experiences, ideas, and emotions that make a person want to leave, and the things that actually allow the person to act on those feelings, which usually are the circumstances in the persons life changing to some degree.

I realized that when people discuss this topic they often mix up the different aspects quite a bit, and one can usually tell from which aspect they may focus on how they fundamentally view the issue.

When you hear people talking about how important it is to keep young people away from those things that might cause them to "go off the derech", what do we usually hear? Internet, college, people from different religious backgrounds, secular media, etc. But if we take a closer look, all those things don't make a person actually want to leave - they just open a door to a world that is off limits to a person. Isn't it strange that they're so afraid of opening a door? Well, it's not really so surprising, because they know very well that so many people, if given a chance to get out, would jump at the soonest opportunity. These things don't make a person want to leave, they just help them make the choice to leave. The seeds of discontent which have brought the person to this point had been lain much earlier, when they were experiencing all the unpleasantness that can be part of a religious upbringing.

So most of the frum world's (and seemingly the Gedolim's too, based on their public pronouncements) strategy against defectors is basically premised on the fact that they know that people don't want to be frum. But they figure if they lock the ghetto doors tight enough they can prevent people from leaving. Or at least keep them in until they're old enough to somehow find some rationale of their own for staying; either due to arriving at some sort of appreciation of their own for being frum, or because they are trapped due to familial and/or social obligations, or some other factor which compels them to adhere to that lifestyle even when no external pressures are present.

Yet so few leaders (if any!) ever address the real issue of why people want to get out. They just talk more and more about how crucial it is to keep people under a tighter and shorter leash, always keeping an eye out on everything that a young person might do, just in case there is some telltale sign of their potential straying. Their whole focus is on restricting access, and tightening the reins, instead of honestly examining what is so fundamentally wrong with their lifestyle that so many people want to get out of it.

I had this confirmed recently in a talk I had with a close relative. We were discussing his choices for where he was going to send his son to high school. It was quite clear to him that his son is not the serious learning type, and is more interested in basketball, music, computers, and other non-torah pursuits. To his credit, he is ok with his son being like that, but he is concerned that if he isn't in a strict torah focused environment, the kid will be at risk of ending up much less seriously religious. I told him that he should let his son go to a school that is less frummie and more accommodating of his child's natural makeup. He says that if he goes to such a school, he runs the risk of ending up less religious, and then who knows what might happen? I knew right then he was thinking of me when he said that, being that when I was a teen, I was just like his son - not interested in being serious about my torah studies, distracted by my own interests, etc. and I ended up going to a less strict yeshiva, and see where I ended up?!

What he (and so many others) just don't get is that my going to the less strict yeshiva, where I had friends from Modern Orthodox families, and where they took secular studies seriously, and where I first listened to non-Jewish music, and flirted with some local girls, and where I was allowed to thrive in a field outside of limudei kodesh, isn't what made me not frum, and it's not even what put me on the path to being not frum. All that environment did for me is to make me feel that I no longer had to hide my long suffering dissatisfactions as much. It allowed me to admit that I wanted things which were forbidden to me. And even to experience them a bit. It allowed me to connect with people who had lives like I wanted to have.

Basically, it allowed me to get in touch with all the things that my yeshiva conditioning had made me repress.

Instead of trying so hard to make me stifle something that was a genuine feeling, maybe if they had actually allowed me to express it openly, and give me an environment where that part of me was able to flourish, there would have been a chance that much of the resentment that was building up inside of me would have dissipated. I don't know, maybe. And although I doubt I ever would have really gotten into frumkeit, maybe I would have been ok with it enough that I wouldn't have felt that I had to get as far away from it as possible. Who knows?

What I do know is that no matter how hard they may have tried to prevent me from being able to leave frumkeit, deep down inside of me, nothing they ever did made me stop wanting to get out.