Q&A: Living in Contradiction
Living in Contradiction
Question
We all know religious and Haredi people whose daily routine—not as a one-time or occasional matter—is made up of scheming, fraud, deception, taking advantage of others, and other such good deeds. Among them are public figures we all know, and in fact this is the main substance of their lives. In your opinion, is it possible that these people, who chose this way of life for themselves, also believe in God and in reward and punishment, and yet behave as I described? Or is such a contradiction impossible, and presumably they do not believe in God and/or in reward and punishment?
Answer
A person is a complex creature, and there are situations in which he acts against his own values (see my columns on weakness of will). So your conclusion is not necessary.
Discussion on Answer
Even if you’re right, that’s still a very problematic inference logically. The question is how many Haredi tradesmen there are as opposed to non-Haredi tradesmen. How many of them advertise themselves in the places from which these programs get their victims, and so on.
And we haven’t even talked about the percentage of Haredi sex offenders. Sure, that too is just hatred, of course.
I’m a huge fan of the “Impostors” (and “Exposure”) programs with Haim Etgar and “The Swindlers” with Adva Dadon. I could testify that the percentage of Haredim starring there is close to zero, in any case with no proportion at all to the percentage of Haredim in the country. Almost all of them are thoroughly secular people, with sidecurls from every end of the Israeli spectrum. As for prisoners in jails, it would be interesting to do a real study and not just go by general impressions from the constant media brainwashing and social media of “those who fear God will be despised, and the wisdom of scribes will rot.” Interestingly, that is the prophecy transmitted at the end of tractate Sotah, and it happened without any founding intention, after God left the land. And even if it turns out that the percentage of Haredim there is higher than their share in the population, we would still have to factor in how much of that is persecution by the authorities under the influence of the general incitement, and how much is really actual criminals.