On Zealotry, or: Projecting One’s Own Flaw (Column 330)
Following the previous column and the interview about it with Roee Yozevich, I found myself reconsidering the matter of religious emotion (or its absence). Let me recall that, among other things, I argued there that the religious public’s sense of offense at the program gives me a feeling of inauthenticity. This offense arises after four seasons of the program and is accompanied by quite a few groundless arguments (reminiscent of the offended reactions of Muslims when one jokes at their expense and at the expense of their Prophet, of blessed memory). It’s no wonder I get the impression that the matter is engineered by various activists and leaders who stoke it. Suddenly the entire religious public remembers that the program violates its sancta and insults it, and they pour into the streets en masse to protest and demonstrate.
I said there that, as I understand it, quite a few people are not truly offended or hurt. On the contrary: they watch the program and perhaps even laugh at times, but immediately afterward feelings arise that this reflects a flawed fear of Heaven on their part (after all, they’re asked: how would you react if they did this to your mother?). Therefore they join the protest in the hope that after the deeds, hearts will follow. And lo and behold—now genuine feelings of insult and injury truly arise within them. They themselves suddenly become convinced that there is an affront here to them and to the nation’s sanctities (in alphabetical order).
I’m sorry, but I’m not buying it. I, myself, am really neither offended nor hurt by this program (though I don’t particularly enjoy the few clips I saw, and I also hardly laugh), and yet I refuse to accept the diagnosis that my fear of Heaven is flawed (that may be true in itself, but this isn’t the indication for it). In light of this, I thought about a psychological-social phenomenon that seems to me connected to the matter—the tendency to project one’s own flaws onto others—and I wish to discuss it here. I’ll preface with an apology for straying toward the ad-psychologikum fallacy, which I generally don’t like. I’ll return to this point at the end.
On the source of zealotry: projecting one’s own flaw
In column 90 I mentioned Chaim Grade’s books, Tsemakh Atlas and The Struggle with the Evil Inclination, in which he contrasts the figures of the young and tempestuous Novardoker rosh yeshiva, Tsemakh Atlas, with the playwright Avraham (which is known to be a literary name for the Chazon Ish), measured and moderate. To understand the story one must know the background. The Haskalah movement harmed many young people who abandoned their faith and religious commitment. The Alter of Novardok, who wished to confront this phenomenon, sent his young men to establish yeshivot for youth in villages. Such a rosh yeshiva was a young fellow of about twenty, who gathered children and adolescents around him and taught and educated them toward faith and Torah commitment. Novardok gave its disciples a very wild and unconventional education that placed candor and integrity at the top, and trained them to scorn public opinion so as not to let it influence their decisions. When a young man who received such an education becomes a rosh yeshiva responsible for the education and lives of children and youth, it’s no wonder that extreme and problematic things can occur.
This Tsemakh Atlas was a young student of the Alter of Novardok who established such a yeshiva in the village of Volknik. In the book he is described as a man consumed by doubts in faith and by powerful desires. His way of dealing with them is to educate his students in an extreme and stormy fashion, refusing to compromise with any heretical thought or doubt, or with any desire. He launches a jihad against every sprout of doubt and every forbidden thought. Against this background he expels Chaimke (the author, Chaim Grade) from his yeshiva, and the latter consequently ends up in the hut of the playwright Avraham, who was vacationing in that village. The playwright Avraham, as depicted, is the antithesis of Tsemakh Atlas. In contrast to Atlas’s storm, the playwright Avraham is a harmonious, balanced, and level-headed person. He is willing to hear any question and any opinion, and engages them calmly and thoughtfully. Grade’s portrayal of the Chazon Ish (who later abandoned religious commitment and the religious world) is, in my eyes, a most impressive book of ethics—far more than the hagiographies I’ve read about the Chazon Ish.
Incidentally, those familiar with the Chazon Ish’s letter in praise of extremism (see it below) might come away with a different impression. But in other letters he writes that it is not his way to enter into debates, since they are usually unproductive; rather, his policy is to let each person do what he thinks. Therefore it is possible that his remarks about extremism should be read accordingly: perhaps he speaks about a person’s beliefs, not his behavior. Indeed, the Chazon Ish held very extreme views, but his conduct was moderate and measured, and certainly not fiery. My remarks here concern conduct on the psychological and practical plane, not beliefs on the intellectual plane.
Since reading those books, I’ve carried the sense that a person’s extreme or obsessive behavior in a particular domain generally reflects his inner war with himself in that very domain. Moreover, in my understanding a person’s battles are, in most cases, conducted primarily against himself, yet he projects them onto others. His way of dealing with what troubles and disturbs him within—especially when he feels helpless toward it—is to fight those phenomena when they appear in others. This is a particular shade of the phenomenon “he who faults, faults with his own blemish.” Sometimes he diagnoses in others problems that exist in himself even when they are not present in them (what psychology calls “projection”), but even when they do exist in others he relates to them with excessive zealotry and extremity. People at peace with themselves and their path generally conduct themselves serenely. They may be extreme in their worldview (and, as noted, the Chazon Ish certainly was), but their attitude toward people and contrary opinions is calm, matter-of-fact, and not tempestuous. A person consumed by doubts will wage total war against heretics (“Do not stray after your hearts”). Likewise, a person plagued by sexual thoughts and urges will wage battles and establish extreme standards regarding modesty (“and after your eyes”).
Just this morning I had an interesting conversation about a woman who expresses absolute faith in Haredi principles and behaves devoutly according to them, and I told a relative of hers that I’m not sure those emphatic declarations don’t reflect an inner difficulty she feels about those very principles. Precisely such overly emphatic proclamations of absolute loyalty to the gedolim’s opinions and to the absolute ideology that is, of course, the pure truth, sometimes reflect doubts and a lack of trust in those principles themselves. A person senses dissonance between the ideology that, at the level of conscious awareness, he is truly convinced of, and internal insights and intuitions that nest within him telling him (sometimes unconsciously) the opposite. His way is to cling all the more strongly and emphatically to the ideology, and perhaps also to persecute those who rebel against it or simply think differently (including, of course, his own inner voice that thinks or wonders otherwise). In many cases, extremism is a person’s war against himself.
This is my sense when I see a person or a society that attributes too much importance to some value or norm and wages extreme, obsessive battles about it. In my estimation, this usually indicates that they have an inner struggle on that issue—especially when they have no good answers to the problems it raises. Thus, for example, the Haredi society’s intensification around modesty and its wars against various new phenomena (communications and the internet) do not stem from a desire to impose their views and values on others, but from internal distress when they see these phenomena penetrating the Haredi camp from within. The loud laments, demonstrations, and most extreme battles erupt when some phenomenon threatens them and certainly when it penetrates inward. In my estimation, Haredim generally fight with themselves—even when they are demonstrating outwardly.
An example: the attitude toward tradition
I think I’ve already written here about the tendency of the Brisker house and of Rabbi Kook’s disciples to wave the banner of tradition. Both groups speak frequently about tradition and its importance and castigate those whom they think deviate from it. One often hears from members of these groups criticism of people and communities who don’t act according to the tradition accepted for generations, together with statements that R. Chaim or Rabbi Kook are the very continuers of the authentic tradition. And, of course, all who see will laugh. There are no two modern-era figures who were farther from the tradition they received than those two: Rabbi Kook in his outlook, and R. Chaim in his method of study (and also his halakhic rulings, insofar as he had them).
I recall a memorial volume for Rabbi Raanan, who was murdered in Hebron, where—as is customary in this genre—they included writings from ancients: essays by Rabbi Harlap, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, and the earliest being Rabbi Kook. In their view, Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Rabbi Kook, who transmitted it to Rabbis Harlap and Tzvi Yehuda, who transmitted it to Rabbi Tau (they said three things: stand for “Hatikvah,” dance before the IDF Chief of Staff, and honor the throne of the Kingdom of Israel, the beginning of our redemption…). In my eyes this phenomenon is nothing but a particular instance of what I’m describing here. Those who deviated most dramatically from tradition, and are troubled by that fact, formulate for themselves a delusional conception as though the deviation that founded the movement they continue is itself the tradition from Sinai. The banner of tradition is borne by their mouths and hearts with a high hand precisely because the distance between their approach and tradition is as wide as a beam of an olive press.
Is there a contradiction?
If so, contrary to the common conception that emotionalism and zealotry in a given domain express caring and a deep connection to the relevant value or field, sometimes these are precisely expressions of defects and difficulties in the connection that the person or group feels to that very value or field, and of the distresses with which that zealous entity (person or group) is wrestling within. Indeed, in the aforementioned column I noted that there isn’t necessarily a contradiction between the two interpretations. Take, for example, Tsemakh Atlas, who wages total war against those who stray after their hearts and eyes, and I ascribed this to the fact that within him powerful urges in those very realms are bubbling. But why does this bother him so much? Why does it generate such extremism? It seems this stems from genuine caring about these matters. He truly is greatly troubled by sexual thoughts and urges and by thoughts of heresy within him, and this is what leads him to wage his wars. In other words, ultimately these wars do testify to his concern for modesty and for simple faith, and precisely that concern arouses the distorted and extreme reactions we encounter.
If I return to the demonstrations about “The Jews Are Coming,” perhaps there, too, the phenomenon is more complex. On the one hand, people who are offended and protest in an emotional and sharp manner are, in my eyes, suspect of having similar feelings within: that is, that the critiques raised by the program touch certain nerves within them and trouble them as well, and they lack good answers to them. On the other hand, the fact that they address these feelings by going out to demonstrate and with emotional protests indicates that they really do care about all this.
Even the indifference I described above—which I believe exists among some people (hence it took them a few years to go out and demonstrate)—is an example of this. People who watched such clips and felt no insult or offense suddenly woke up to the thought that perhaps this indicates a lack of fear of Heaven. If so, the decision to go demonstrate shows that their indifference bothers them and that their fear of Heaven matters to them. They express it in a problematic way and advance strange, irrelevant arguments, but nevertheless there is here a genuine expression of concern.
What does this say about those who don’t protest or demonstrate?
Those who don’t join these protests (like me) can be interpreted in one of two ways: either they are balanced people (like the playwright Avraham in Grade’s books) who understand that this phenomenon need not disturb them and therefore respond to it in a matter-of-fact way; or they, too, think that indifference toward the program reflects a lack of fear of Heaven on their part, but that very lack doesn’t bother them enough to go out and demonstrate. In other words, they do indeed lack fear of Heaven, and they are insufficiently concerned about that very lack.
The conclusion is that, in a certain sense—topsy-turvy—those who go out to demonstrate, despite the distortion and foolishness of the act, apparently possess fear of Heaven, or at least care about its absence and defects. As for those who don’t go out to protest and demonstrate, the two interpretations I described remain possible. To be clear, this is not a justification for the demonstrations. I already detailed my arguments against them in the previous column. This is only a charitable jest regarding the participants and a hedge to the diagnosis I offered above.
A few examples
I now wish to bring a few examples I’ve encountered over the years of this phenomenon, though this is, of course, far from a systematic and conclusive statistic. First, we’re dealing with a small number of cases (qualitative research, so-called). Moreover, each of the examples is open to different interpretations (so that even within the qualitative framework I’m not sure there’s much of a claim here). In short, were I not already inclined to believe that this phenomenon is real, I don’t think I’d be persuaded by these examples. But having arrived at this insight, there is room to read them accordingly. In any case, they are interesting in themselves.
Zvi Inbal, one of the founders of Arachim, an organization for kiruv (bringing Jews back to observance), and one of its leading spokesmen and activists, was formerly one of the leaders of the League Against Religious Coercion. I don’t know him personally, but it’s not impossible that when he was active against religious coercion it stemmed from an inner point whispering to him that perhaps there is something to this business (it’s possible he wouldn’t deny this today). His struggle against the religious could have been an expression of his struggle against an inner point whispering to him (perhaps unconsciously) that there is some justice in that annoying religiosity (“his Jewish spark”?!). Not for nothing do they say that indifference is a harsher and more alienating phenomenon than “anti.”
Perhaps, in an ironic reversal, this at least partially explains the well-known phenomenon that baalei teshuva sometimes become more extreme than those born into religious or Haredi homes. Sometimes, especially at the beginning, this is just a lack of proportion or the enthusiasm of novices, and sometimes it’s excess ideology (someone who is extreme will remain extreme in whichever direction he chooses). But it may also be a reverse war against doubts that still nest within them. It is well known that this enthusiasm moderates over time, and those baalei teshuva return to the center, and they or their descendants even express substantial dissatisfaction with Haredi outlook and society. My conjecture is that even those who don’t allow themselves to express such doubts and difficulties sometimes externalize them in the form of excessive enthusiasm and extremism.
Even those who are not baalei teshuva and who act emphatically against secularism, or even attempt to bring all Israel back to observance—or simply their friends and relatives—their activism can stem from places of difficulty and distress within themselves. I remember that the mashgiach at the yeshiva where I studied (“Netivot Olam,” a Lithuanian yeshiva for baalei teshuva in Bnei Brak) once told us that the missionary zeal of baalei teshuva—especially in its extreme forms—often arises from insecurity and a desire for legitimacy and recognition (it is a war against the doubts nesting within). One who has confidence in his path can live in peace and serenity and contain those who disagree with him.
About three years ago I read about Arthur Wagner, a German activist in Alternative for Germany, a far-right party that campaigns against Muslims, who himself converted to Islam. This would seem to be another example of someone who acted extremely against a view and then adopted it. This raises the possibility that even while he campaigned against them it stemmed from a sense that there was something to it and that his alternative offered no real answer. I will, however, further qualify this interpretation, because even after his conversion to Islam he remained a member of that same party, which, among other things, calls to ban the building of mosques and the wearing of burqas in public spaces. Therefore it may be that his activism was not, from the outset, anti-Muslim per se, but derived from a conception about the place of religion in the public sphere. The party itself also announced that he remained a member and that a person’s religion is the personal concern of any member who chooses his faith as he wishes. Fair enough.
A similar phenomenon occurred about seven years ago to Csanád Szegedi, an activist of Hungary’s far right. He was active in the Jobbik party (among other things, he was its vice-president and a Member of the European Parliament on its behalf), a party with strong anti-Semitic features. His activism included Holocaust denial and all that entails. At some point the fellow discovered that his grandmother was Jewish (the family did not want him to know this), and among other things discovered that there really was a Holocaust. The man pulled himself together, converted, became religiously observant and eventually even began immigration procedures to Israel (see also here. Apparently, in the end they did not come to fruition). He became a pro-Israel activist and an advocate for Israel in the world.[1] Incidentally, the party’s response in this case differed significantly from its German counterpart (though they tried to downplay it).
This phenomenon is interesting as well, and its analysis isn’t unequivocal. Did his activism against Judaism and Jews stem from an inner feeling that connected him to them (again, “the Jewish spark”)? I don’t know. But beyond that, I’m not sure that his becoming observant testifies to integrity or merits admiration. So long as he didn’t know he himself was Jewish, he denied the Holocaust and spoke in anti-Semitic terms. After he discovered he himself was Jewish, he could no longer continue living with the lie that accompanied him thus far. Is this authentic teshuva or simply a redirection of interest—i.e., a conflict of interest—now pointing in a different direction? I would expect an honest person not to deny the Holocaust regardless of what his grandmother says and regardless of who she is and who he is. After all, these are questions of fact.
A few comments on extremism in general and on the Chazon Ish in particular
I described extremism as a phenomenon that sometimes stems from internal doubts and difficulties—that is, from a dissonance between worldview and ideology and inner feelings. This in itself is, of course, not an argument against extremism. A person who suffers from doubts yet thinks that one must indeed fight for his positions and against those who hold other positions can—and perhaps should—be extreme, even if this feeds other feelings and motivations within him. Moreover, I argued above that even if I’m right, extremism does indicate a bond and commitment to the matter at hand (otherwise the dissonance that leads to battles and extreme behavior wouldn’t arise). I’m only saying that we shouldn’t automatically be impressed by the ardor of the extremist or by the lack thereof in the moderate.
On this occasion I’ll add a few more remarks about extremism. I mentioned above the Chazon Ish’s famous letter, and I’ll bring it here:
| Just as simplicity and truth are synonyms, so too extremism and greatness are synonyms; extremism is the perfection of the subject. One who champions mediocrity and abhors extremism shares his lot with counterfeits or with those lacking understanding.
If there is no extremism, there is no perfection; and if there is no perfection, there is no beginning. The beginning consists of persistent questions and refutations, and the simplicity is the sharp respondent who arranges each matter upon its face and its truth. We are accustomed to hearing, in certain circles, people proclaiming that they are not among the extremists, yet still leaving for themselves the right to be loyal Israelites with sufficient faith in Torah and religion. We allow ourselves to say, from the standpoint of justice, that just as lovers of wisdom don’t love a little wisdom and hate much wisdom, so too lovers of Torah and commandments don’t love the middle and hate extremism. All the foundations of faith—the Thirteen Principles and their branches—are always in sharp contradiction to the easy rationalities and to the current of developed life under the sun. Their clear, resolved recognition, which provides an extra-precise portrait of their authenticity, is the pleasantness of extremism. And those who testify about themselves that they have not tasted the sweetness of extremism thereby also testify that they are lacking faith in the fundamentals of religion, according to their intellectual capacity and emotional sense. Only by some tenuous affiliation do they relate to it. And the extremists, in the depth of their souls—with the greatest possible will to have compassion on those lacking the edge—will not harbor honor and esteem for those opponents of theirs; and the abyss that separates them, when it encounters concrete actions that inevitably produce quarrels and strife by their nature, will widen the tear beyond repair. The mediocrity that has a right to exist is the trait of the average who love extremism and aspire to it with all the longing of their souls and educate their offspring toward the summit of extremism. But how pitiful is the mediocrity that noisily scorns extremism. True, the boiling spirit in the heart of youth might not fail to issue a boiling judgment upon the particular individuals who misbehave, with a measure of exaggeration. But the development of youth toward love of Torah in truth—the kind needed for spiritual arousal and heavenly pleasantness—should not be impeded on the path of life that leads to those who sit crowned and delight in radiance. Those who establish middle-of-the-road educational institutions have not succeeded, because of the falsification inherent in middleness; and the intelligent heart increasingly abandons the falsification. Their education gives the pupil a justification to turn his back on the statutes imposed upon him against his will and on the beliefs that weigh upon his heart. against the current of life—and they robbed him of the secret of extremism, for his parents and teachers too misused it. |
It’s possible that his words here pertain only to a person’s conduct with himself and to forming one’s worldview. He is not speaking about a duty to fight others, since, as I mentioned above, he has another letter in which he says it is not his way to engage in that.[2] Beyond this, it is certainly possible that extremism does indicate a connection and commitment to the subject, since, as I explained above, without that the dissonance that leads to battles and extreme conduct would not arise. Third, there is not necessarily anything wrong with educating toward extremism. Some view the devotion to one’s truth as something extreme. My words here are addressed to the extremist himself: let him examine whether he is extreme because he believes in it, or whether this is his way of warring against his inner doubts and questions. Incidentally, see in Beni Brown’s article here a very interesting note about doubts in faith—or at least in the Haredi way—that the Chazon Ish himself had (see also Atzmon here for a discussion of whether he was a flexible pragmatist or a strict conservative). This can shed an interesting and different light on his words about extremism.
But I must add that the very assumption that truth demands extremism is not so simple. First, there is the value of tolerance, which is based on the value of granting autonomy to each person to act according to his own way (see elaboration here). Put more strongly: it is doubtful whether there is value in coercing conduct upon a person who does not believe in it (I am not speaking, of course, about preventing harm to others). In most cases, the goal is action stemming from identification, not merely the correct action (the outcome). One who champions this value thinks there is no point in coercion and fighting, but at most in persuasion. Incidentally, even overly obsessive attempts at persuasion can indicate inner difficulties (cf. the mashgiach’s words at “Netivot Olam”). Second, there are values of peace and non-violence, which also dictate more moderate conduct toward those in error.
I’ll conclude by saying that nothing I’ve written here constitutes any claim against the protests (my claims against them were expressed in the previous column). Having concluded that the protests lack substance, it is natural for me to wonder why, nevertheless, people feel the need to participate in them. Naturally, one possible answer is that they disagree with me (unlikely; after all, not everyone is foolish J), or perhaps they are driven by dark psychological motives, as I suggested here. But using this argument within the framework of a substantive discussion is the ad-psychologikum fallacy, which I strive hard not to fall into.
And another note on OCD[3]
Years ago, a friend of mine—a religious psychologist who works on obsessive phenomena, what is called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)—used to refer his patients to me when they struggled with various questions about halakha and faith. An obsessive person cannot live with questions, because he strives for perfection and airtightness. These are stubborn types who, even if you offer them good answers (not that mine necessarily were), will return to you again and again with doubts and speculations—perhaps there are other possibilities.[4] In the course of these discussions, I asked him when he defines obsessiveness as a mental disorder requiring treatment, and when, in his view, it is a serious search for truth. The same can be asked regarding halakhic stringency. There are those whose stringency stems from great fear of Heaven and a desire not to stumble into transgression; but there are also those no less stringent whose way derives from a psychological deficit—that is, an obsessive disorder. In short, I asked him: how does he know that the Brisker Rav (the Griz) was God-fearing and not simply a person suffering from OCD? He answered that, to the best of his knowledge, there is no way to distinguish between these phenomena, and his criterion is purely practical: when this conduct interferes with a person’s life, he needs treatment.
This answer leaves those questions, of course, standing. I brought it here because this question is very similar to the question arising from my words in this column. With regard to extremism as well, one can ask when it arises from a pursuit of truth and pure faith and when it arises from grappling with inner psychological difficulties (in my impression, in most cases there is a mixture in varying proportions between the two). But I’ll leave that to the discerning reader.
[1] Incidentally, the amazement that he became a believer in Greater Israel and an opponent of the Palestinians stems from a misunderstanding. The European far right is indeed anti-Jewish, but no less anti-Muslim. I do not rule out the possibility that even in his previous phase he would have supported Israel against the Palestinians. It is, in fact, the European left that tends strongly toward anti-Semitism (meaning toward religious Jews, of course) together with pro-Muslim stances. Not for nothing are our friends in the world usually the parties that lean to the right, whereas the parties that lean left generally oppose Israel and support the Palestinians.
[2] It is possible, however, that there he is referring only to debates within the religious world, and that his statement derives from a conception of “these and those are the words of the living God” within the halakhic world. But no guidance about the duty to debate and polemicize with the outside world and the views foreign to faithful Judaism can be derived from there.
[3] See here, and the link cited there by “our master, the Linkzatzar” to my words in another thread.
[4] One might wonder why bother addressing such people’s questions at all if they stem from a psychological rather than a philosophical source. My answer is that we must always address questions on their merits, so long as the question is substantive. Its psychological origins are none of my concern. I assume that my own views, too, could be accounted for by motives on the psychological plane, and dwelling on them is the ad-psychologikum fallacy (akin to the confusion between the “context of discovery” and the “context of justification” in the philosophy of science).
Similarly, I have often written about addressing questions of faith. Educators and rabbis often say we mustn’t address such questions substantively because that grants them legitimacy. It is, after all, obvious that they arise from distress, emotional lacks, desires, and the like; therefore one should provide only warmth and love. In their words these are actually “answers” (that a person gives himself in order to exit religion) rather than real “questions.” I won’t repeat here the disgust and contempt I feel toward those who take this approach; I will only say that they too suffer from ad-psychologikum.
Discussion
Oh, holy indifference. The Hilltop Youth secretly agonize over the right of return, Tamar Zandberg is hiding nationalism and capitalism, Gary Yourofsky tends toward violence toward animals, and Elon Musk longs to return to a natural life with mud huts and slingstones. When there’s a goal to advance, obsession is simply a tool. Does even a diligent scholar like Rabbi Elyashiv suppress doubts of faith? In all the examples (Inbal, Wagner, Szegedi), the reasonable explanation is that through their involvement with the issue in order to refute it, they actually heard good arguments that changed their minds. As for Szegedi too—who in my eyes is still a Nazi sausage—I at least tend to think that discovering his Jewish origin enabled him to reconsider the data in a reasonable way, what is called removing the obstacle, because all in all he arrived at the obvious position of recognizing the scope of the Holocaust, and the rest is negligible. As for me, in my impression, in matters where I’m indifferent it is simply out of indifference and lack of interest in what the boys will be playing before me. Not that I deny the existence of the phenomenon you pointed to in the column, but in my view it is a negligible percentage among all those devoted to causes. And therefore my demagogic examples above are not really demagoguery but the overwhelming majority. Especially regarding determined fighters engaged in extreme warfare, I think they have a strong tendency to sit on the couch twirling their mustache, humming, and analyzing from above as though they’re on another plane. “One who disqualifies does so by his own blemish” is said about strange things: someone whose distinction is that he repeatedly accuses people, without good reason, of being mamzerim—what explanation can there be for his fixation specifically on mamzerut? Why does he see shadows of mountains as mountains? The suspicion arises where there is no more reasonable explanation for the ungrounded obsession. If he were a private investigator specializing in investigating mamzerut, nobody would suspect him of disqualifying by his own blemish.
The Sages said: “One who disqualifies, does so by his own blemish,” and in this they anticipated the formulation of the psychological mechanism of projection. We certainly see this around us. A common and prominent example: the preoccupation of certain rabbis with the laws of modesty, and enough said. The problem with giving a philosophical answer to compulsive people is that as a rabbi you thereby reinforce the compulsive mechanism and cooperate with the obsessive disorder instead of referring them for treatment; that seems to me not simple at all. I encountered an example of this many years ago in the case of a woman who was anxious about matters of family purity, and kept going back to the rabbi again and again and again with questions. Every single month. I would have expected the rabbi to gently direct her toward serious treatment for the disorder and not answer her questions as though everything were normal.
In the culture-and-cinema department—a recommended masterpiece is As Good as It Gets with Jack Nicholson; its hero is a writer suffering from the above-mentioned compulsiveness, and the viewer will enjoy it.
Is there no difference between finding a permitted channel for satisfying one’s urges—like the saying that one born under the influence of Mars will be a shedder of blood, and the choice is in his hand whether to be a murderer, a slaughterer, or a circumciser (or your example about certain rabbis)—and the claim that devotion to a cause sometimes (too often) hides doubts about the correctness of the cause itself?
A fascinating column. I do not know the rabbi personally, but one should not rule out the possibility that an obsession against religious coercion, or against Haredism, stems from an inner point that whispers that maybe there is something to this business.
His struggle against the Haredim could be an expression of a struggle against an inner point within him that whispered to him (perhaps unconsciously) that there is some justice in this annoying religiosity (“his Jewish point”?!). It is not for nothing that people say indifference is a harsher and more alienated phenomenon than “anti-.”
The rabbi already noted this in note 4: “I assume that even for my own views one can find motives and motivations on the psychological plane, and focusing on them is the fallacy of ad-psychologicum (something like the confusion between ‘the context of discovery’ and ‘the context of justification’ in the philosophy of science).”
Philosophically this may be a fallacy in terms of focusing on motive, but not every fallacy is necessarily contrary to reality.
A small comment regarding the demonstrations that took place after four seasons: as I understand it, the matter is entirely technical. Rabbi Zamir Cohen was exposed to it only now, and he was the one who organized them. Until then everyone made do with an angry comment under a YouTube video. Besides, there is indeed something to the basic claim of Man Ha-Emet, except that this does not contradict the fact that the corporation’s behavior is objectionable.
Chayota, I completely agree. In my conversations, the patients were already in treatment. What I wrote is that one should also answer the questions and not only send them to treatment. Also regarding those who raise doubts, I do not deny that they have instinctual and other motives, and nevertheless their questions should be answered. After all, even if someone has OCD, his questions can still be good and require an answer.
There is a difference, but also a similarity. The Sages are speaking about natural tendencies, whereas I am speaking about intellectual insights.
I am speaking about unreasonable and illogical reactions, and even regarding them I raised several interpretive possibilities. How many of the people are like this and what the prevalence of the phenomenon is—I do not know.
Tam,
This time you answered yourself, and ostensibly by doing so you spared me, this time, from having to remark to you again about reading comprehension and about the fact that your whole message is flawed and unnecessary.
After all, I myself already noted that I too may have such motives (at least if my reactions are extreme and unreasonable. In my estimation, of course, that is not the case, but let the reader judge). So what did you add in your message? Nothing, except dragging the psychological argument into the substantive discussion—exactly what I said is a fallacy. And then you explained, with excellent taste and judgment, that although it is a fallacy it can still be true—which of course I had already written myself (the fallacy is not because the psychology is incorrect but because it is irrelevant to the substantive discussion).
So apparently you still had a problem with reading comprehension even here. Even when one tries to judge you favorably, it doesn’t work. I’ve written to you more than once that you are a real challenge.
I understand. But even within coping with intellectual insights, there is a difference between sublimation and projection. Someone who tends toward historical study, for example, but fears neglect of Torah study—will occupy himself with novelties that can be gleaned from the pedigrees of Tannaim and Amoraim (that is sublimation). And someone who struggles with himself about neglect of Torah study may seek a petty communal post in which he can persecute other neglecters of Torah study (that’s what you were talking about in the column).
Indeed.
With God’s help, 10 Elul 5780
Indeed, there is no place to be insulted by a group of nonentities who, in their ignorance, recycle old antisemitic arguments against the Bible and Judaism. And yet one must protest against them, because the honor of our Torah and our prophets cannot be ownerless.
One must especially protest when this Judeophobic incitement is served at the expense of the public purse and may influence “captured infants” who have never learned to know Israel’s heritage in its true form.
Regards, Shatz
The reason this protest did not arise earlier is apparently that the leaders of the Torah-observant public had not been exposed to it until now. Rabbis generally have more pressing occupations than watching garbage.
I’ll just note that they have one successful sketch about the Lubavitcher Rebbe and his double game over whether he is the Messiah or not. It’s very interesting that they picked up on this nuance that many fine people even today do not grasp—that the messianism was backed in a very sophisticated and crafty way by the Rebbe himself. Here is the link
https://youtu.be/uGDkp-h58sQ
In the last paragraph, line 1
…because the leaders of the Torah-observant public were not exposed to it…
With God’s help, 11 Elul 5780
In the question whether to protest or not, there is another consideration. There is concern that the protest itself advertises the very content it is directed against. Here we have a situation of “woe is me if I speak, woe is me if I do not speak.” And the solution is apparently a one-time protest. The Torah-observant public has protested, stated its position firmly, and need not keep chewing over the matter.
Regards, Shatz
A technical note.
In order to enjoy The Jews Are Coming, you need critical thinking or a moderate knowledge of biblical criticism.
I’ll give an example: in one of the recent episodes they present Naomi trying to teach Ruth what sexual relations are and how to seduce Boaz. They do it in an entirely vulgar way.
To the simple believer, it just looks like disgusting seventh-grade dirty jokes.
To the person with critical thinking, he understands that they are raising a very difficult question on the plain-sense level: why does Naomi need to tell Ruth that she should wash, anoint herself, lie down next to Boaz, and do what he tells her.
After all, she really had already been married to a man and understood how these things work…
I quite enjoy the episodes when I manage to get to the bottom of what they’re saying. (Sometimes there is no depth, and they are just trying forcefully to debase.)
But it does not seem to me that anyone religious like Tao and company is sufficiently capable of critical thinking to understand the demonstrable criticism in the program.
You wrote here something I had been thinking about for many years. Regarding one point: many times ultra-zealous ideological fanaticism of certain kinds really does hide within it—I wouldn’t even say doubt—but perhaps an actual unwillingness to put the ideology and faith to the test, for fear that it will be lost.
I would even say: an unwillingness to hear an opinion that deviates even slightly from the consolidated and central ideology indeed shows that many times it may be that truth is not the guiding light of the person holding the ideology, since he is not prepared to imagine or accept a reality in which a certain detail of his ideology is not correct.
There was always something about the “men of spirit”—the philosophers or debaters (of every ideological or conceptual type, whether secular, atheist, or religious)—who are willing to sit down for a calm discussion with their interlocutor, to hear an opinion opposed to their belief, and even some humor about it, and not tear their hair out during the discussion or erupt into curses, but even smile or be a bit sarcastic during the discussion—it always seemed to me that these were people whose worldview is more consolidated and more stable. (I very much enjoyed, for example, the humor and mutual jabs in the program The Rabbi and the Professor, even though the conceptions of the two figures on the program are as far from me as east from west.) I saw there people whose outlook is fully formed and who declare completely that they stand behind it 100 percent—and precisely because of that, hearing something against their view was not the end of the world for them.
This is a very difficult plain-sense question that is unique to people with critical thinking? Obviously Naomi proposed something unusual to Ruth and therefore spelled out the whole plan to her (wash and anoint yourself and go down to the threshing floor, but don’t approach him until he lies down to sleep, and then lie down near him and wait for developments). In that sense there is no depth here at all. They simply found something that fits less well with the sexual conservatism that is today and in the past carried as a banner by the religious, and made a caricature out of it (I haven’t seen the sketch in question), perhaps in order to point to the gap (that old chestnut, to put it concretely) that developed between the life habits of biblical Jews and those of Talmudic and halakhic Jews.
With God’s help, 11 Elul 5780
To those with “critical thinking”—greetings,
Apparently Ruth too did not have “critical thinking” of your sort, since instead of proposing intercourse on the spot, Ruth came with a proper marriage proposal, saying to Boaz: “Spread your wing over your handmaid.” When one goes to propose marriage, it is customary to do so with a clean body and respectable clothing. All the more so when proposing marriage to an honorable man.
Regards, Shatz
By the way, seclusion with an unmarried woman had not yet been prohibited then. Only after the incident of Amnon and Tamar did they decree against seclusion with an unmarried woman.
With God’s help, 11 Elul 5780
To Ratz"i—greetings,
If the creators of The Jews Are Coming were offering their “criticism” to an audience of Torah scholars, there might perhaps be room for your claim. The problem is that they are offering their wares to an audience of graduates of secular education, who were presented the Bible in a negative light anyway, and they are trying to make it ridiculous and demean it before people who have no tools at all to cope with their “arguments.”
If they opened, at their own expense, a blog for incitement against the Bible, as many such people do—we would keep quiet. But to receive huge budgets from the State of the Jews in order to incite against the holy scriptures of Judaism? Up to here is the Sabbath boundary 🙂
Regards, Shatz
Hello Sh.Tz.,
I will preface by saying that my response was not in the context of the program The Jews Are Coming but in the context of the point Michi raised in the post, which is relevant in general and not only to the issue of the program in question (although perhaps I should have mentioned that. When I read the post, the points raised in it struck me in the general context, and I didn’t pay much attention to how much these points were being presented in relation to the program and how much in the general context).
And regarding your comment—
You say that the creators of the program are acting unfairly because they are addressing an audience of ignoramuses and amei ha’aretz in matters of Judaism, and feeding them a completely slanted and false view of the biblical figures, the heroes and fathers of the nation—and feeding them another helping of ignorance and a negative view of the tradition, a view they already absorb in their secular schooling. In fact, you are already assuming several assumptions here. The first is that the creators of the program have a malicious intention to incite the children of Israel against the tradition and influence their worldview. To tell the truth, I cannot confirm or deny this claim since I do not know either the names of the creators of the program or their background (and even if I did know, it would be hard for me to know their intentions, since I am not an examiner of kidneys and hearts. Though if the names of the creators of the program were connected with anti-religious organizations like Da’at Emet or Hofesh, then yes, you would be right).
A second assumption is that in secular schools they educate toward a negative view of Judaism and the Bible. I’m not sure that’s true. I think there are places where the direction is actually more traditional and sympathetic in Bible and Oral Torah classes in the schools. In fact, in my childhood and youth I did not encounter kids from secular schools who testified otherwise—that the spirit of the studies was heretical or something. It may be that in certain places in the country this is so, but I don’t think in most places.
A third assumption is that there is some adult and serious person who would base his worldview on a satire program. On this, of course, I deny it entirely. I don’t think there is any mature teenager or adult who had a neutral or sympathetic view of the tradition who would change it on the basis of the program—and if so, then this is certainly a person who is rather shallow and unstable, who might also have become religious on the basis of a single Hidabroot program, or converted to Christianity, or been sucked into Hare Krishna on the basis of one YouTube clip. I want to believe—and do believe—that the public deserves a bit more credit than that.
Regarding the matter of the public’s money [funding] the program—atheists in the state pay the salaries of rabbis even though they do not like what they say. Leftists fund the salaries of right-wing MKs and vice versa. Haredim fund secular cultural and leisure events, and secular people—even those who do not see tradition or religion as an important component of their lives—fund yeshivas and kollels.
The third decision is decisive. There is not especially much critical thinking here—on the one hand; but on the other hand there is also not merely standard freshening-up before a marriage proposal. She lay at his feet on the threshing floor at night, quietly, washed and anointed. It is plausible that she sought a proper marriage (and perhaps did not mean that he should acquire her specifically with money or a document), but it is clear that the whole business was meant to be [a pale pale reflection in the thinnest of subtleties of what we can, with some effort, barely touch at the edge of the spiritual matter that to fleshly eyes appears supposedly somewhat similar to] seduction.
Ratz"i, enough with the feigned innocence and this bullshit. It doesn’t matter whether the person is an adult or young: the moment you watch the program and then later people talk to you about Joseph/David/Solomon, the association that comes up for you is a bunch of adulterers and worse. That’s what it means that one picture is worth a thousand words, or in the language of the Sages, “one bit of mockery pushes away…” etc.
The program changes consciousness. For every little secular kid and every adult religious person it burns up and devastates these figures. How many things did they draw for you in kindergarten, and to this day when people talk to you about them your association immediately rises as it was taught in kindergarten?!
As for the issue of government funding, there is a difference between funding things that contain values, such as yeshivas, or alternatively accepted culture, which are part of a mixed society. The yeshivas are not against the secular person, and classical culture is not against religion even if it is not conducted according to the rules of religion—for example, where there is immodesty and so on—but that is a matter of ratings, to attract viewers, and not specifically because God commanded otherwise. The program in question, by contrast, deliberately comes to mock the biblical idea and empty it of content, and thereby make ridiculous all the religion branching from it and all the religious people who follow it. Imagine a child who sees David or Solomon as the lowest of adulterers, and afterwards he sees a woman reading from the Book of Psalms or the Song of Songs. Why, reading a book by President Katzav would be considered support for objectification—so what will the moss on the wall say?!
And it has already been said that the gates of excuses have not been locked…
In my view this is an interesting anthropological question.
Do I and Shatz and Dilemma have the same kind of thinking? Every time I read your answers, which are always in one direction—the Bible did not err—it gives me the impression that you truly believe this.
I do not think that deep down you agree with me. And I really think that people like you are not hiding any deep distress.
What in your eyes is “a little effort” is, in my eyes, blindness.
By the way, I agree with Michi that the fact that I read your words and get annoyed shows a deficiency in my character traits, but in my humble opinion it does not show a lack of faith in my way.
On the other hand, one could smell between the lines that what bothered you was that I appropriated critical thinking for myself. You wanted to say: “Who does he think he is, we’re no less critical than he is.” So I’ll finish with a question: why, and is it important to you, to define yourselves as critical?
(Other than the obvious answer that deep down you agree with me, and the rest of the condescending things in which my teacher Rabbi Michi sinned.)
With God’s help, 11 Elul 5780
To A"R—greetings,
Read the verses.
Ruth proposes marriage to Boaz: “Spread your wing over your handmaid.” And any discerning person can easily understand that when one goes to propose marriage, one bathes and dresses respectably.
A little logical thinking 🙂
Regards, Shatz
Solomon the adulterer actually fits not badly with the Song of Songs.
You’d be surprised to hear it, but there are people who want that when their children read the Song of Songs they will understand that it was written by an adulterous man and that it is nothing but a song of lust.
If they were relating to the biblical heroes as flesh and blood, “people like us,” we would see not only bad but also good. Honest “critical thinking” finds both the weak points and the bright points. Thinking that judges the biblical heroes negatively and only negatively, and seeks only ugliness and negativity—is not critical thinking but demonization.
The name of the program, The Jews Are Coming, clearly gives away the agenda: to denounce the traditional and nationalistic “Jews,” primitive “kissers of mezuzahs and amulets,” as opposed to the beautiful, secular, “liberal” “Israeli.” There is nothing new in this; we have been swallowing it morning and evening for many years. The novelty is in settling accounts not only with the “Jews” of our time, but also with their ancestors…
Regards, Shatz
As it is written: “She is unique—my beloved, my dove, my perfect one…”
Tam,
Again, as stated, I deny that assumption.
A person who has formed a position and worldview—a single episode of a television program should not change his worldview.
And someone who is shocked by one episode of a television program will be shocked to the same degree by a sentence he hears on the street about Judaism or by a remark from a “man of spirit” on the news. So his worldview, even before the program, is something that is expected to collapse.
And that is his problem and nothing more.
Secular people also fund fundamentalist yeshivas where the rabbis teach that gentiles are pigs and that one must not save them even on a weekday as a matter of principle, and yeshivas where they teach that a woman with cleavage will get cancer as punishment—in short, they also fund things against their values. I have to fund, with my money, salaries for MKs who support terrorists, university programs on “gender studies,” and paid nonsense from movements for “social Judaism” and “batei midrash for training secular rabbis” (and so do you).
In short, every one of us funds things he doesn’t like and that sometimes make him want to tear his hair out. That’s reality. I can’t understand why this is especially upsetting when it’s a television program.
Just so I understand—the plain-sense question of yours is why Naomi bothered telling Ruth to wash and anoint herself, since Ruth would already have understood on her own that it is fitting to wash and anoint oneself? That’s the question, right? And what answer are you proposing?
With God’s help, 11 Elul 5780
To D"Ch—greetings,
Is it self-evident to Ruth that she should appear looking nice at the party Boaz is making to mark the end of the harvest?
Ruth had long since forgotten that she had once been a lady of honorable standing. Ruth was now in a self-image of a beggar, bowing face to the ground before one who permits her to glean after the reapers in the field. It is possible that a beggar would come to a feast so people would give her leftovers, but for that it is better to wear rags.
Naomi has to rebuild Ruth’s self-image as a lady. And the first step is that she come to the feast washed and well dressed like a respectable woman and not like a beggar arousing pity. That is probably the reason Boaz does not recognize her. This is not the beggar in rags he saw gleaning after the reapers.
Naomi does not put on her lips the thought that Ruth will propose to the great man of the city that he marry her. Perhaps she expected that one of the young men would ask for her hand, and if not—Boaz would suggest a reasonable match for her, for this is the goal Naomi sets: “Shall I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you?”
But the improved appearance did its work. Ruth became in her own eyes a lady once more, and she dares to demand the top tier—to ask for the hand of the great man of the city, of Boaz himself.
Regards, Shatz
Improving one’s appearance in order to raise one’s self-image is, according to Ramban (as opposed to Rashi), the process undergone by the beautiful captive woman on her way to marriage. She must remove “the garment of her captivity” and begin to groom herself, trim her hair, and do her nails (as Joseph did when he came out of the pit: “and he shaved and changed his clothes”). On the one hand she mourns her previous identity, but on the other hand she begins to improve her appearance in order to reestablish in herself the self-image of a lady.
It seems to me there is a game of broken telephone here. I understood Eitan Ronen to be describing a question: why did Naomi need to explain to Ruth that it was advisable to wash and anoint herself, since this is “self-evident.” In my opinion that is a trivial and rather odd little question, and Naomi described to Ruth a whole and unusual plan of action that includes seduction (immediate or later, that matters less. Clearly it would not pass today). Then the above-mentioned fellow seems to have entered vertigo and begun mumbling something about anthropology, distress, my teacher, eyelashes, mistake, bothersome, and other pot pies, and in the meantime I’m waiting here for him to return to earth.
You (Shatz) explained at first that there is no unusual seduction here at all, only ordinary human behavior of perfuming oneself at the time of a marriage proposal. To this I replied that she came to him at the threshing floor at night, quietly, while he was asleep or about to sleep (“And when he lies down, note the place where he lies; then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what you shall do,” “and he went to lie down at the end of the heap, and she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down”), and therefore it appears that she tried to use Boaz’s natural impulse for her own ends (and her ends are proper marriage to Boaz according to the law of redemption).
Now you are adding further ideas, and they too do not seem right to me for the same reason—namely, what is the whole business of quietly at night on the threshing floor lying by his feet until Boaz found it necessary to conceal the whole event (“And she rose before one person could recognize another, and he said: Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor”). What is your explanation for Naomi’s emphasis on the threshing floor, at night, at his feet, while he is lying down—I did not understand.
In my opinion, the feeling of insult among those protesting against the program is probably minor. It does not seem to me that deep down they feel “classic” insult, like a student who was humiliated in class in front of his friends. They use that card, of course, but the deeper feeling is, in my opinion, fear. They are mainly afraid of the biblical figures as they are depicted in the Bible itself, without the clothing tradition puts on them.
Try to think how an average yeshiva student in Porat Yosef or Kol Torah imagines King David, for example. David’s image cannot deviate too far from that of the Ben Ish Chai, or the Steipler for that matter, because the latter are the existing models of the righteous man as conceived in our student’s imagination. But the Steipler did not cross the border into Syria, fill an entire bag with severed sexual organs, and present it as a dowry to his wife. You have to be a very special type to do that.
The Jews Are Coming turn the situations in the Bible into grotesques, of course, but in many cases they are in fact building precisely on the plain sense and loading satire onto it. Take, for example, the sketch about the prophet Elijah, who is presented as a bloodthirsty ninja killing everything that moves (both idol worshippers and those who are not). The sketch itself is not all that funny. But who is Elijah? This is a man who lined up four hundred people and slaughtered them one by one. This was not a heat-of-the-moment thing; he even took the time to bring them down to the Kishon Brook—better to have running water at such a mass event.
Hand on heart, what would you say about such a person today? He would have to be an extremely severe psychopath; people like that are generally put in a straitjacket in a padded room without windows (from Wikipedia: the characteristics of the psychopath are lack of empathy, lack of guilt or remorse, bold, uninhibited, and egocentric character traits). And this is a point in the Bible that an average yeshiva boy simply skips over in his mind—he simply does not notice it (well, after all, they are only idol worshippers, four hundred satans with horns).
And that is the great fear of the offended. The fear that the secular person will open a Bible instead of going to the pub.
To D"Ch—greetings,
If Naomi is seeking for Ruth “rest, that it may be well with you,” then she is certainly not planning an act of prostitution but a proper marriage. And this is a very difficult request in her situation, for who in Bethlehem would desire a destitute widow who is also a Moabite…
The nighttime appearance before Boaz at the threshing floor was meant to shake him up and signal to him that Ruth was in terrible distress, that this situation could not continue, and that he had to set his mind to finding her “rest, that it may be well with her.”
So too did Esther when she came before the king “not according to the law,” so that he would understand on his own that she was in severe distress awaiting his urgent help.
And as I mentioned, Ruth “took courage” more than Naomi expected—not only did she ask for “rest, that it may be well with her,” but she dared ask for the hand of Boaz himself.
Regards, Shatz
Where did you get that Ruth arrived “perfumed”? It is not written…
Paragraph 4, line 3
…of Boaz himself.
I too am speaking about a proper marriage. Only in my view, the arrival at the threshing floor was meant to notify him of the quality of the acquisition, and if it would be the wedding night, so be it. Anointing is with perfumed oil, and the Targum translates, “and anoint yourself with aromatic spices” (and if not, then not).
To D"Ch—greetings,
Anointing in the Bible is smearing the body with oil in order to give a good feeling and prevent dryness. See the article by Mattityahu Kam and Philip Trehy, “Washing and Anointing,” on the “Lexicon of Israeli Culture” website.
Thus David ended his mourning: “Then David rose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his garments,” and thus Naomi says to Ruth: “Come out of your depression, lift up your head.”
Regards, Shatz
Perhaps. I’ll look for the article tonight, God willing. In any case, perfumed oil is not anything unusual; that is what is customary historically according to what remains in my memory, and as noted the Targum interpreted it that way (what forced him to this if not that it is the reasonable thing?), and so too Ibn Ezra interpreted on the spot: oil that has a good smell. The anointing oil too is all spices, as detailed there, and they had to emphasize that it must not be poured on human flesh. In Esther: six months in oil of myrrh—that is, perfumed oil. In Song of Songs: “my hands dripped myrrh”—that is, oil of myrrh. It may indeed be that the oiliness is only for smoothness and softening, as with David (translated there as massaging and smoothing) and in Ezekiel (“and I anointed you with oil,” rendered there as “I treated you with oil”), and I do not insist on this.
Not a word about the head writer of the program, that baboon Yigal Ben-Nun, the reviler and blasphemer? Really—someone who wrote A Brief History of YHW-H and goes on every possible stage to vomit his filthy wares is not suspect of bias and hatred of religion? Honestly! This ugly defense of the loathsome program and all that it represents is so foreign to me that I simply don’t have the strength to spell it all out. I’ve been walking around with thoughts about this for several days, and truly, I’m broken by it. It’s disgusting to enter this cesspool here
.Tam, Shatz, and the rest who are fighting windmills—what a waste of time, really. Let Goralin and the other crazies philosophize here until the messiah comes, when one single thing has already been proven here: a brothel for people devoid of spirit and holiness, who have nothing left to defend. Everything can be made ridiculous. Nothing is precious or sacred.
What is the rationale for being extreme in outlook and anemic in implementation (where you placed the Chazon Ish)?
After all, if you reached a certain conclusion on the level of worldview, why not invest maximal effort in implementing that worldview?
Precisely the opposite I can understand: to be measured and reserved in arriving at conclusions, but once you have reached a certain conclusion, attack reality with full force in order to get where you want.
31/8/2020
To Gil—greetings,
If Yigal Ben-Nun stands behind the program The Jews Are Coming, then that is perfectly fine, since according to his approach the Bible is full of paganism, and if so mockery of the Bible is “mockery of idolatry,” which is permitted 🙂
Regards, Samson Letz
GIL,
Honestly, doesn’t this defense post on behalf of The Jews Are Coming amuse you, and the fact that he himself watched them? What is he doing here exactly—writing a semi-psychological defense post about himself? Who is he trying to fool?
GIL, I would like to remind you of your response from half a year ago; in the end it happens to everyone, the only thing that changes from commenter to commenter is the timing. I refer to the end of your remarks there. It seems you understood that the time had come for a frontal entry. Good for you that you are honest and stand by your word, and it pains all our hearts that we missed a potential Chazon Ish in our generation. Apparently the Sages were right in this too, that jealousy, desire, and honor…
This whole thread feels like the darknet of Rabbi Michi’s site. So after all the pilpulim—protest. Salmonowitz, you are a guest on a site meant to provide answers to halakhic and faith questions, and what troubles you is Rabbi Michi’s “heresy.” Suppose so. What disgusts me more is the heresy against God that allows such behavior under the guise of a dispute for the sake of Heaven. You are allowed to apologize—even for the mere possibility that you are mistaken in your judgment toward him. Otherwise—and I write this in complete seriousness—you too really resemble everything for which you criticized him. This is immorality, and it is nauseating to enter territory that is not yours and vomit criticism and personal public shaming, all in the name of Torah. If that is not heresy, I do not know what heresy is.
P.S. The writer of these lines greatly appreciates Rabbi Michi, and at the same time does not agree with many of his assumptions and conclusions. I do not promise I won’t go after him frontally when necessary—but with the important difference between “in the end, love” and “it is Torah that enrages him”—in the bad sense of the phrase.
Tam,
Although I remember that in the past you came out against me, and I never understood what you write or what you want from yourself, I came out in your defense as one person to another. And I’m starting to waver about that. Not only is it unclear to me what you want, you also come to the defense of someone who goes after you time and again. I won’t describe in words here what that is called, so that this message won’t be deleted. But really it’s better that I not describe what I see here.
Dear A., I’m sorry, but I did not descend to the full depth of your broad understanding. What I showed in my response is something terribly simple: even the greatest admirers of the rabbi, who came out in a storm against the protesters, eventually understand that what they have here is an obsession with provocations and nothing more!
I neither defended nor attacked anyone; I simply brought facts. That is what I always try to do. Sometimes it is unequivocal and sometimes not. What is certain is that I will not succeed in convincing the foolish devotees, but their day too will come and they will open their eyes; it is only a matter of time.
“Anemia” is an expression with a connotation. Moderate conduct is, in my opinion, an advantage. When conduct is not the expression of ideology, it looks better. People who cling to ideology are rigid and usually extreme and act very badly. Ideology from chaos guides a path, but does not direct behavior. Har Hamor conduct themselves according to ideology, and that is what it looks like.
Indeed, nice that you dug and found. I don’t have the time or strength to respond. There is indeed a difference between here and there, and enough said. Heresy has never frightened or outraged me. I am in favor of presenting arguments and deepening Jewish thought. In every direction—and in many things I go much farther than Michi. Much farther. One can raise possibilities for the sake of Heaven in order to clarify faith and truth. But here something else entirely grated on me—as I said, if I had the time I would have to expand and explain what is here—but perhaps in the future, probably not, because what’s the point anyway. It’s personal, simply s’pas nisht.
GIL. It seems you’re missing two months. .?
I agree with what you claimed at the base, but enough with apologetics of this kind that prove the impulse and motive for presenting the arguments of the opposite possibility, as stated.
But as the author of the column himself already wrote, it seems this stems from a deep Jewish point… enough said.
The obsessive preoccupation with certain rabbis can also stem from certain mechanisms, and there is no end to such things.
I’m back. Despite your lack of manners. I hope face to face you are more pleasant…
And “he will tell you what you shall do.” In my humble opinion, that is how one speaks to a girl who does not understand what sexual relations are and what seduction is, and so too the fact that Naomi instructs her to wash, etc. To an adult woman you can simply say, “Go seduce him.”
I did not notice this difficulty were it not for their sketch.
The anthropological point concerned people like Shatz, who is certainly intelligent, and nevertheless convinced that his interpretation with the banquet scene—which he inserted into his interpretation—is peshat.
What I claimed was that certain people would watch the sketch and not understand the difficulty it addresses, while the writer of the sketch really wanted to raise a question.
I agree that this question is not the most important in the Bible—it’s simply the latest one I saw.
With God’s help, 12 Elul 5780
To A"R—greetings,
The expression Naomi uses, “Shall I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you,” has a clear meaning: “We need to find you a husband.”
I do not know what is customary where you live, but in our places it is customary that when one goes to a feast marking the end of the agricultural season, one bathes and dresses nicely, especially a woman expecting a husband, who tries to leave a good impression on those who see her, as it is written: “Women are intent on adornment :)..
The expression “and he will tell you what you shall do” also has a clear meaning: “he will guide you what to do,” for Boaz, as a man of standing and influence in Bethlehem, can direct and help her what to do in order to find her “rest, that it may be well with her.”
The only unusual thing here is setting the meeting with Boaz in a surprising and embarrassing situation, and this was done, as I suggested, in order to shake Boaz and place Ruth’s distress “at the top of the priority list,” so that he could not postpone and evade it.
Ruth, whose self-confidence had surely returned to her, did not wait for Boaz’s guidance in finding a “match,” but initiates the “match” herself: “Spread your wing over your handmaid.” Here too it is clear that this is a marriage proposal and not an attempt to solicit prostitution.
Regards, Shatz
Naomi wanted to spell out the restrained seduction procedure precisely (so that it would not be too blatant) and not rely on Ruth’s wisdom. Would Ruth have chosen on her own specifically to lie at his feet in silence and wait for him to turn to her?
There are plenty of cases in the Bible where the instructor gave detailed instructions and did not convey only the idea. David instructed Joab, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the fiercest battle, and then withdraw from him, that he may be struck down and die,” and did not merely tell him to arrange for him to die quietly without arousing suspicion. He also gave his servants a long and exact wording of what to say to Nabal the Carmelite, because details and sequence matter, as you will see there. Joab himself instructed the wise woman of Tekoa exactly how to disguise herself as a mourner and put the words in her mouth. Elisha instructed one of the sons of the prophets in detail how to anoint Jehu, and did not simply tell him to do it secretly, carefully, and quickly. And so Naomi did too, and even then the instruction was incomplete and Ruth added still more of her own, just as Bathsheba, on Nathan’s mission, added a few details, because one who sends a message by a fool cuts off his own feet and drinks violence. The anthropological effusion you directed in the plural, and by Newton’s third law I guard [that point] as if it were an utterance of the oath of God.
I do not want to watch those sketches, because if there are no arguments, I am not interested in changing my associations for myself, as Tam wrote below. But even from your description, in my opinion they were not dealing with that easy little question at all; rather, as I wrote above, they drew a caricature in order to press the correct and familiar point that the boundaries of modesty grow thicker over time. The Book of Ruth is my favorite book in the whole Bible—not sparkling in many colors like Isaiah or Job, but a short, concentrated, delicate and powerful story that touches the heart; and to trample on it with parodic coarseness seems to me flat and pathetic.
If they want satire, let them do it on Amos (and Joel and Obadiah and others), who fumes in astonishment at Edom “because he pursued his brother with the sword and destroyed his compassion, and his anger tore forever and he kept his wrath eternally,” after David had in lofty brotherliness cut off every male in Edom, and Amaziah, with much mercy, threw ten thousand Edomites from the top of a crag. Truly a wonder that Edom kept its wrath forever.
Shatz, the article you referred me to has four paragraphs, and of them only a few lines touch on the matter, and there is nothing new in them. It is obvious that the main point of anointing with oil is so even if it is not perfumer’s oil, but what is at issue here is whether ordinary anointing is done with perfumed oil, just as even today people bathe with perfumed products. And especially if Naomi did not intend Ruth to come for an act, then how would the oil help in relation to Boaz if not by being perfumed and giving off fragrance (that seems to me to be the meaning of the Targum and Ibn Ezra, and they did not arrive at your idea that Naomi wanted Ruth herself to feel better).
From this response, I understand that this is not about essence but about aesthetics, or at most correct versus incorrect implementation and nothing more. That is, in your opinion extreme conduct simply does not bring the desired results. I am concerned that if Har Hamor did not exist, someone else would have had to take the extreme side in order to moderate the pace of change and the extremism from the other side (I saw a nice example of this this week in a post Tomer Persico published, in which he comes out against the far left in the U.S., which rejoiced over the killing of a right-wing man this week. He really woke up to a reality in which he understood that there is no moderating force against the course of drastic changes now taking place across the sea; this is happening because conservatives are no longer able to voice an acceptable opinion).
Not at all. How did you understand that from my words? This is about essence, very much so. Conduct according to ideology is childish and stupid—not because it is impractical but because rigid ideology is by definition incorrect (it is not right to act that way, not merely that it is dangerous).
I understood it from the sections where you answered me, “When conduct is not the expression of ideology, it looks better… People who cling to ideology are rigid and usually extreme and act very badly.” So now that you have clarified my mistake, I would be glad if you could explain what is wrong (sweepingly) with blind adherence to a value. Is there no value that in your view is so rigid that there can be no compromise in conduct? Are you not extreme in your pursuit of truth and its investigation? And if there are such values, where is the line drawn (and who draws it) at which it is proper to be extreme?
It seems that those who are really disqualifying by their own blemish are the “enlightened” people here who “have no problem with this legitimate criticism.”
There is here a stubborn and fanatical refusal to accept the fact that many Jews are indeed hurt by some of the sketches.
What is wrong is adherence to a priori principles rather than conduct that takes circumstances into account. The correct path cannot be described by a set of rigid principles, and therefore anyone who clings to a set of principles, whatever it may be, will always err. Perhaps the correct wording is dogmatism and lack of flexibility, and not exactly extremism.
1. All the assumptions underlying the last two articles—that it is unreasonable to hold a demonstration against this, both substantively and practically, and therefore one must psychologize the demonstrators—are mistaken. You keep referring to the issue of “offense” as though there really is some emotional element here that drives the demonstration. As you yourself pointed out, the offense is fake (and so is the offense of the other side over the “Dad and Mom = Family” signs). There is a struggle here over the boundaries of discourse. On the one hand there are the LGBT people and company, who by means of demonstrations and political and media power have succeeded in reaching a point where not only can one not make publicly funded satire against them, one cannot even put up a billboard in an indirect style. On the other hand there are outreach activists who are unable to prevent a program that, in the opinion of many, comes to directly demean the Bible. Nobody is offended; it is all a struggle over what may and may not be said, and where. I assume that according to your view everything may be said everywhere, but as long as that is not the situation, from a substantive perspective the struggle is legitimate.
2. It is not true that the demonstration was ineffective. They succeeded, despite the position of the professional echelon in the Ministry of Education, in removing the videos from the Ministry of Education website. If there had been a right-wing government in which the Haredim had more power, perhaps they would also have succeeded in preventing another season. In any case I don’t think this is practically absurd. In any event, quite a few people want to close the corporation or want to control its content more tightly. The price of increasing the ratings—which it is clear to me the organizers of the demonstrations (who are not stupid) were aware of—is worth it if there is success in preventing more such programs.
3. Indeed the demonstration is also inward-facing, and one must remember that from a halakhic perspective a person is obligated to protest even if no one will listen to him (so long as he does not cause more damage), even if he will not succeed in persuading. As an observant Jew you are obligated to protest desecration of Heaven’s name (even according to your view that the purpose of the program is to make people laugh, it is still forbidden). The fact that according to them it is like permitted mockery of idolatry does not exempt you, who knows that the Bible is not idolatry, from protesting. Therefore, since you are a halakhic man, at least give a good explanation for why you are exempt from protesting here, on the site of those who heed your instruction.
4. If even according to you and many others this is not such high-quality satire, it is permissible to assume that the reason it nonetheless goes on the air is because of the content, whose purpose is to demean the Bible and a few other “sacred cows” along the way. Low-quality satire from the opposite direction would be broadcast on the Hidabroot channel, not on public broadcasting.
Another achievement besides the success of removing The Jews Are Coming videos from the Ministry of Education website is the decision of the Minister of Communications to give the representatives of the religious and Haredi public proper representation on the governing board of the Public Broadcasting Corporation and on the Cable and Satellite Council, something that may lead to more positive content from the standpoint of tradition and a reduction in offensive content. See Elad Tzadikov’s article, “The Jews Are Coming—With an Answer,” on the Arutz 7 website.
Regards, Shatz
Avishai,
1. If this is not offense but a protest that comes from the head, then it has no place at all. The whole claim was “don’t hurt us.” Otherwise it is simply coercion.
Your comparison is baseless. The sign is not satire, and freedom of expression applies more to journalism and satire than to ordinary life. Beyond that, the LGBT claim is that the sign directly harms them, and not an idea or historical personality close to their hearts. And especially according to your own view that in the program there is no emotional harm, here there certainly is. That does not mean I would ban that sign (I am completely in favor of permitting it), but your logic is, in my opinion, incorrect.
2. You made me laugh. What significance does the Ministry of Education website have? Who looks there at all? This is just nonsense.
3. I already answered that. A. Nowadays it is really anachronistic. B. When the protest causes damage (making the protesters into an object of ridicule), it is not right to protest. C. One must not harm the value of freedom of expression. If you wish, express your opinion, but do not demand that the program be taken off the air.
4. The fact is that it has ratings. The fact that I personally don’t like it does not determine the viewing percentages (unfortunately).
How do we know that “satire” has more “freedom of expression”? Is that written in the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”? Or in “Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty”? 🙂 When Tatyana Soskin drew Muhammad as a pig, she received two years in prison, and nobody took into account that it was a “cartoon”…
“Freedom of expression” also exists when one expresses oneself in a respectful and respectful manner. “Human dignity” and “his liberty” were spoken in one utterance.
Regards, Shatz
To my teacher Rabbi Miki,
As one who enjoys your writings and books and reads and follows you, this is a post that in my opinion represents the five percent of your writing that, in my opinion, is characterized by writing that is simply completely mistaken.
A few comments on your words:
A. The claim that “there is nothing here to be offended by” is completely absurd. An entire large public (many, many more than those who came to demonstrate) sees this as an injury to what it values, cherishes, and considers important. One may argue over the fact that they regard the Bible and its figures as so significant—but that is the reality and the fact, and therefore one must respect the feelings of the public on this issue.
B. In this context—many laws concern honoring Torah scholars in order to create toward them an appreciative and respectful attitude, and of course so that by appreciating and respecting them we also learn to value the Torah they convey to us and relate to it seriously. This is all the more so regarding our forefathers and the founders of the nation—they bequeathed values to us, handed down traditions to us, founded the nation, and planted within it a personal example of kindness, charity, and justice; there is no need to elaborate regarding their enterprise. And just as the Sages accord it tremendous honor, so all generations have done. Is there suddenly no problem here in presenting them in a contemptuous way, as illogical, bizarre, primitive people? Of course there is no problem debating the text, but that is not what is being done here. You wrote that you do not see contempt. If portraying King David as someone behaving in an unhinged way, sexually, as someone who relieves himself on others in a grotesque way unbefitting even the lowliest of the people, is not called contempt, I do not know what you regard as contempt.
C. In part of your remarks you spoke about what is wrong with doing satire on biblical figures. Well, I do not know from where this detachment stems, but that is exactly the issue: contempt for what is dear and important to the other person. For exactly the same reason that if a person curses my father, laughs at my grandfather, makes satire about my mother in a repulsive and nauseating way—I will be angry about it and protest their honor—so too I will do in the face of other figures whom I esteem, respect, and cherish as people with whom God established a connection through prophecy and chose to speak with, and chose to be the leaders of the people and its foundational figures.
D. Regarding funding from tax money—indeed it is true that tax money is supposed to fund the different publics and what is dear and important to them, but all this is good and nice when it comes to what is considered needs for those publics. You cannot take public money and use it to fund what is convenient for me but enables me to hurt the feelings of other publics. Programs of religion and tradition do not hurt anyone; at most they address a certain audience. Likewise programs of secular music and entertainment, television programs that contain negative content, and so on—all this serves a certain public but does not hurt the other public. The moment that with my tax money you hurt me—that is a serious problem that must be stopped; no social covenant covers that.
E. Silencing—again, this claim has no place at all because this is not freedom of expression in the ordinary sense—there is no presentation here of different views… Is this program so indispensable and at the top of the priorities of its initiators as to justify hurting such a large public? Is there a debate here, or an attempt to make other conceptions ridiculous and contemptible?
F. Whoever does not watch will not be hurt—this is not true. People are exposed to this program and watch it and are exposed to the contemptuous content. There are people who cannot refrain from watching such programs because it attracts them, and at the same time they know that things are not so; but over time, of course, the satire and jokes influence them to feel contempt and alienation—not because this is actually true, but because this is an experience that has been conveyed to them. Thus the light-mass public, which is not religious or Haredi but traditional, that is exposed to this content receives a miserable and invalid attitude toward tradition—not because it is logical and there were convincing arguments here, but simply because they did it in the form of performance and show, which are more gripping and bypass the mechanisms of common sense…
I would be glad to receive a substantive response.
By the way, the remarks belong to the previous column, but they seem relevant here as well….
With God’s help, 13 Elul 5780
To Mr. James Potter, father of the living Harry, fighter in the wars of good against the forces of darkness—abundant greetings and salvation,
You are right that no person is permitted to exempt himself from protesting against those who disgrace and demean our forefathers and our prophets, and it is our duty to protest even if our words will not be heard.
But who knows better than you how difficult it is to influence narrow-minded Muggles, for whom any talk of prophecy, miracles—anything above nature—cannot be grasped in the eyes of rationalists who deem themselves “rationalists,” who do not look to the work of the Lord and do not believe in His prophets.
It is very difficult to convince refusers of faith of the reality of what lies beyond nature, and one needs much patience with them. One way is to pay attention to the wonders of the Return to Zion in our day, about which the Sages said: “But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are soon to come”—there is no greater Muggle-end than this 🙂
And the second way was charted by our master Rav A.Y. Kook, author of the “Article of Dumble-dor,” when he said: “The pure righteous do not complain about the forces of darkness; rather they increase light. The more one emphasizes the positive—the curses and the darkness fade.
The fitting response to videos that try to degrade the Bible is the production of films by believing and God-fearing artists who will present, by means of creativity and art, the light and goodness in the Bible and in the Midrashim of the Sages, and the greatness of soul of the prophets and sages, for “a little light pushes away much darkness.”
Regards, Shi Tzi Rowling (an anagram)
Paragraph 3, line 2
…prophecy and miracles, all that is above nature, …
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…that in the Bible and in the Midrashim…
My substantive response to all your claims is already in the columns and my previous comments. I did not see any new claim here.
Oh, come now. In the plain sense, the prophecies of the Return to Zion referred to the near future, as was also promised to Tyre; they were fulfilled in the Second Temple period and were embarrassingly falsified with its destruction.
Shatz: “the Article of Dumble-dor” is one of the strongest ever! Have you thought of joining the advisory committee of “The Merkazniks Are Coming”? It would be wonderful!
To Gil—greetings,
Rabbi Soloveitchik also gets an honorable place in Harry Potter, namely the greatest man among giants, “the Rav” 🙂
Regards, Shatzius Snape
Regarding “we honor the throne of the Kingdom of Israel, the beginning of the flowering of our redemption”… it should be noted that in the language of the Sages, the privy is called the house of honor.
And similarly, regarding “Rabbi honors the rich,” they explained that he honored them with a broom.
Can a person seek justification for atheism because he is obsessively afraid of a religious reality?
Thank you!
I didn’t understand the question. This is a democratic state; he can do whatever he wants.
Excellent, as always.
I wrote similar things a few days ago:
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