A Look at the Renewed Debate about Secularization (Column 331)

I partially agree with the rabbi on the conceptual level, but I think the rabbi is talking about some ideal educational system that אולי exists in the rabbi’s home, but I don’t think exists in the state-religious school system.
Because my feeling about the regular religious school system is that it is really not fertile ground for opinions and broadening horizons; even religiously it is mediocre minus minus.
And therefore the idea that a boy who grows up in such an educational system will decide on his own to be religious because of that educational system sounds completely unreasonable to me. Because usually secularization will pull him in one direction not only because of intellectual arguments, but because the general outlook in the street and online is secular, and the school and the home will pull him in the other direction not because of this or that argument but simply because that’s the framework.
So most boys will not choose, out of *considered judgment*, whether to be religious or not, but rather out of a general intuition plus social pressure from one circle or another.

And it seems even more likely that a thinking person would choose secularity, because in the religious school system I knew there simply weren’t many answers to questions, nor any orderly doctrine like one can encounter in the trilogy..
I don’t know; I don’t feel that many of the yeshiva teachers are first-rate philosophers and so well-versed in matters of faith and thought in depth. And able to examine whether Hume’s argument today against the argument from miracles is reasonable or not.

So I would be happy for an answer: given today’s situation, where the option of independent judgment exists a lot in its potential sense in the state-religious system, but on the practical level doesn’t really exist, is the Haredi educational system—a conservative assembly line—preferable to an educational system lacking the educational path you mentioned?
—-

By the way, I also don’t think that at age 14 it’s good to open up the educational system completely, and it wouldn’t hurt if it were a bit more conservative and opened up gradually at older ages toward the end of high school. But today, at any rate, in the liberal areas I know, everything is also totally open with no wall whatsoever, and on the other hand there isn’t really any reasonable response.

Theoretically, what does the rabbi think about opening up thought at later ages than childhood, say around age 30? I heard there is an important national-religious yeshiva that is considered conservative, but at more advanced ages broadens into additional horizons.

A short while ago I published on Facebook a piece called “The Proof from the Grandchild,” dealing with considerations of survival, their weight, and especially what they reveal about the faith of those who present them.

https://www.facebook.com/shnerb.nadav/posts/150464066678810

Nadav, it’s time for you to have a blog too…

A few points:
1. I think that you—and Nadav too (who commented here and linked to his post; if he reads my comment)—live in a completely different consciousness from the one in which Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and almost all the conservative Hardal rabbis live (and probably, at least declaratively, most rabbis in general as well). The considerations of giving autonomy and allowing a person to form a position different from yours

even if you think it is completely mistaken, stem from—at least from what I understood—a certain conception of humility. That even if I am convinced that observance of the commandments is binding, that does not mean it is a fact that is one hundred percent correct. And because of that there is also room to let a person decide and choose his own path.
This is not something most Haredi rabbis, Hardal rabbis, and in fact most rabbis—at least publicly—would sign onto. The common thesis is that religious Jewish obligation is an absolute truth just as surely as the sun rises in the morning, and anyone who believes is fully aware of that. Therefore he must protect the youth and the Jewish people in general so that they not, God forbid, fall into what we know with certainty is false. Therefore preventing people from going off the religious path is equivalent to preventing exposing a child to the option of choosing other things that are obviously bad, like drugs and a life of debauchery, trash cults like Hare Krishna, Scientology, Mormonism, and the like.

Likewise the statement in the post (which you emphasized in several other places as well), that in a certain sense it may be preferable that a child become an openly heretical unbeliever because he investigated things that led him to that conclusion, rather than a robot believer who observes commandments and parrots words only because he was never exposed to other arguments (since in any case it may be that we are dealing here with a skeptical agnostic and perhaps even a closet atheist)

—this is not an assumption the Hardal world would accept. Here too the thesis is that usually there are spiritual sparks in a Jew that yearn to reach the truth, and accordingly his “natural” state is observance of the commandments. And there is value and reward in a commandment even if the person observes it for completely mistaken reasons. Whereas heresy, doubt, and questioning are merely mental befuddlement and spiritual corruption of that pure natural divine spark—even in cases where they come from intellectual honesty or good arguments.

3. The whole discussion of what causes more people to go off the religious path is very complicated and convoluted, in my opinion, because there really are no data that can be completely objective and show what causes more and what less. Most likely, in a liberal home more will indeed leave religion, because communication and contact with the secular world and culture exist everywhere anyway. But you can’t know whether those same people would not also have left if they had grown up in a more conservative and closed education. It may be that then too they would have left religion, and with an even bigger door slam, saying that the closedness “suffocated” them (and are there not such people among those leaving the Haredi side and the Hardal side?).

Trying to understand in an absolute way the psychology of those who leave religion and to plan a program to respond accordingly is something that will very often end in failure. Even though of course I do not judge those who try to do this and are troubled by the phenomenon. And in any case, since there is no guarantee that Hardal education will necessarily succeed more, there is no reason to raise children in such an education if you don’t believe in it, since there is no promise that it will work. And this is also true in the opposite direction: there is no reason to raise children in a liberal education just out of the thought that openness will guarantee success, because again, there is no guarantee of that.

With God’s help, 20 Elul 5780

To Tony—greetings,

Prof. Nadav Shnerb has a blog where he publishes opinion pieces. See “Nadav Shnerb – Home Site” under the “Articles” section, and he also has a Facebook page (from which the above comment was brought). Besides these, he has articles and responses on Atrah Hadin, on the “Musaf Shabbat – Makor Rishon” website, and on “Etzakh.” Those known to me we have already mentioned here, and those not known to me are, before Google, revealed and known; let them not seem in your eyes as though I had itemized them 🙂

With blessings, Kartofilontius Solanum Tuberosum Halevi

With God’s help, 20 Elul 5780

I am not a devotee of the “religion of measurement,” which tries to place every matter under one statistic or another. Every student is a world unto himself, with his own unique personality that needs a faith-based and educational response according to its unique character. There are souls of “The Article of the Generation” who do not like accepting authority and aspire to find their way through persuasion and self-clarification, and by contrast there are souls of “Letter 555” that seek clear guidance, with sharp and explicit messages.

King Solomon has already instructed us: “Train the lad according to his way,” according to the inclination of his heart and according to his character. There are those for whom Rabbi Kook’s path is suitable, and those for whom the path of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch or Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik is suitable. There are those for whom the path of Hasidism is suitable, and those for whom the path of the Mussar movement of the Lithuanian yeshivot is suitable, and there are those whose sacred path is that of the sages of the Sephardim and Eastern communities in their various shades.

There are those inclined toward philosophy and intellectual clarification, there are those whom emotional service builds up, and there are those for whom the world of action is important. There are those who seek the repair of the individual and those who seek the repair of society; there are those who aspire to raise the stature of the nation, and those who seek the repair of all humanity.

All of them can find their spiritual nourishment and faith in the expanses of our Torah, from reliable sources whose approach is founded on the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, on the interpretations of our Sages and our early and later rabbis. The question is how willing we are to open ourselves to their guidance, or to label them as “Haredim” and “Hardalim” who are unfit to enter the congregation 🙂

And to what extent do we understand that Torah requires deep study from its own sources, or whether we absorb all our outlook only from general literature, from the press and the internet, until the “outside” becomes the main thing and the “inside” secondary and transient?

With blessings, Shatz

If sociology is what we are dealing with (the world of falsehood), the truth must be said: most of the existence of Haredi society (and also the Hardal one) exists only thanks to the religious and secular public. And I am not talking about the economic, security, medical support, etc. The great majority of the Haredi public is made up of simple people (primitive people, especially the Hasidim and even more the Sephardim). People who in the general world would be considered unsuccessful. Religious seriousness is the only thing that gives these people some sense of importance over the religious-Zionists and the secular. And religious seriousness is not even fear of Heaven (belief in reward and punishment). It is a kind of hobby: if I’m already doing something, let’s do it properly, let’s do it all the way. But at some point every hobby gets tiresome, especially when it demands heavy sacrifice. And then if there is no belief in reward and punishment, the seriousness disappears just as it came (I heard people say: when do you know that a baal teshuvah has become Haredi like everyone else? When he starts talking in synagogue).

But in truth we are not speaking here even about religious seriousness, which is in itself a good thing. A substantial part of the Haredi mentality (and the Hardal one) is not religious seriousness but self-righteousness and sanctimoniousness in disguise. I always say that self-righteousness is the refuge of the talentless. You know in matchmaking that if they say of a girl that she is God-fearing, it means she doesn’t look good. And if of a boy they say he has a good heart (or is God-fearing too), it means he is not talented and not smart (not one of the successful ones in yeshiva; those are marketed in matchmaking as “sharp stars”). One who has talent also has a kind of evil in him—good evil, not being a sucker. (Sometimes that also becomes bad evil—wickedness. See the Nazi Germans. It depends on free choice.)

In fact, the entire religious-Torah public and the liberal public shouldn’t really be agitated by this article of Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu. The point is that most of these inferiority feelings themselves (Shmuel shtach) come from untalented people (more talented than the Haredim, but less than those who have no inferiority feelings) who are themselves self-righteous—just liberal self-righteousness (Haredi and Hardal self-righteousness are conservative self-righteousness). Of course I am speaking about the liberal religious left (and in general the left in Israel and throughout the world), represented by humanities people in universities who have inferiority feelings toward natural scientists.

In short, this discussion should not even begin. Were it not for the religious and secular public, these two societies would collapse because they would have no one over whom to feel some advantage, and all the falsehood the rabbi listed in the article would surface. That is exactly what happened during the Haskalah period (everyone was Haredi; only then the temptations of the outside world began).

Of course I refer to the discussion in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about what the word “good” (“a good quality”) represented among the Greeks: quality, not moral good (though that is part of the matter, but not from a moralistic perspective).

This is yet another kind of right, left, and center: conservative right-wing self-righteousness, liberal left-wing self-righteousness, and in the middle sits the real good.

Corrections:

In the first paragraph: “If I’m already doing something, let’s do it properly. Let’s do it all the way.”

In the second paragraph: “You know in matchmaking that if they say of a girl that she is God-fearing, it means she doesn’t look good (otherwise they would market her first and foremost as such—even the Bible does this)).”

At the end of the second paragraph: “One who has talent also has a kind of evil in him. Good evil. Not being a sucker.”

First, I completely agree with every word of the rabbi, and I would only ask to add as an example what happened to the natives of the American continent when the Europeans arrived there—they encountered diseases that were unknown to them and to their immune systems, and within two hundred years more than 90 percent of them died. The Europeans’ warmhearted attitude of course increased the slaughter, but the viruses did most of the work.
Second, I would like to broaden the perspective: what is at issue here is a general view of the figure of the Jew and of the people of Israel. Is he weak and pitiable, who will fall before every obstacle, or is he strong and wise and resilient?
Throughout history there were differing views on this. The first view was held from Moses our teacher (the book of Deuteronomy, climaxing in Ha’azinu) down to Novardok and its students (the Kanievsky line, and the founders of the yeshiva high schools, Rabbis Zuckerman, Neria, and Meltzer). The second view appears certainly already with Rabbi Judah the Prince and other sages of the Talmud, the Rambam, the Maharal, and up to Rabbi Kook.
The ultimate question is what the Jew looks like: in order to be a Jew who observes commandments and studies Torah, must he be stupid, ignorant, and a beggar—or is that not necessary?
In light of many conversations with a variety of intelligent secular and traditional people of varying degrees, it is clear that the first image constitutes a terrible desecration of God’s name, with terrible conclusions and results.
Do we want that to be Judaism?

A. You too expressed reservations about exposing children, meaning that the crux of the dispute here in this issue is the line: for you it is childhood up to an age that seems reasonable to you, whereas for others childish desire accompanies a person throughout life, so there is never a time for experiments on human beings. All the more so since the results are visible across the street among their erring brothers. And as Rational already mentioned, once you are convinced of the truth of the Torah as a correct and true thing, and that transgression is like spiritual poison, you have no privilege to give drinking the poison a chance; the damage exists.
B. If you deny that a true atheist commits a transgression (poor fellow, an apikoros), then you empty the entire Torah into one single commandment of philosophical thought pursued to its conclusion, and of following its conclusions. There is no room for existing axioms; rather, everything must be examined from the beginning, whatever the result may be—whether you come out a Rambam or you come out a Spinoza. Both of you are guaranteed a place in Paradise side by side. Why, then, do we need Torah? After all, “it is not in heaven,” and there is no one absolute truth; every conclusion the intellect reaches is the correct one for him.
C. I would be glad if you would address the approach of a person who believes that transgression is poison. Is a sacred lie that prevents evil already preferable here to the gamble of “do good,” even though if the “do good” should materialize it would be the best?
C. Why are you evading an important point in this discussion—that aside from dry rational thought there is also a powerful force that pulls leftward: pure human desire against every halakhic matter, from reciting the morning Shema on time to Grace after Meals after eating, not to mention sexual desire and other ailments. This leads a person to a place of enormous lack of objectivity, and I am referring to the subconscious. Hence, a person in a liberal setting does not have a win-win in his choice, but rather an inner lustful drive that takes over his impulse. Without separation from the world of matter by means of conservatism there is almost no chance. After you have weighed the matters without desires, there is certainly room to peek leftward, but usually by then there is no doubt. The intuitive feeling accompanying the great majority of Haredim who “survived” conservatism appropriately leaves no room for doubt—like the famous parable of R. Jonathan Eybeschütz, where the doubt follows the majority. True, the Haredi paid a certain price in childhood and youth in the form of “commandments learned by rote,” but the final result is worth the damage.

By the way, once again it seems that the referral at the end of the column to related articles is unrelated to the column.

Without entering into the main discussion, a remark about a side point:
The rabbi argued that if we learn from statistics, then we harm the individual (who receives, say, a shallow education) for the sake of the collective (there are more religious people).
But on the face of it, the consideration regarding the individual and the collective is very similar:
In choosing an isolationist method for an individual, on the one hand there are the spiritual disadvantages (less choice / independent judgment regarding the foundations of faith), and on the other hand there is an improved chance that he will be observant of Torah and commandments.
For the many, on the one hand there are the spiritual disadvantages of isolation, and on the other hand a larger percentage of the public will be observant of Torah and commandments.

What is this comparable to? If according to studies drug A cures 70% of patients but all of them suffer side effects for a period, whereas without the drug only 40% recover (and the rest suffer less but for life), is it possible to say that since the benefit of the drug is expressed in percentages while the harm is borne by everyone, giving the drug is choosing the individual over the collective?

I don’t think so. I completely agree that the teachers and yeshiva instructors are usually not at a high level (high-level people generally do not go into education). What is needed is to try to improve the state-religious system and provide supplementation yourself to your children.
As I’ve written more than once, I definitely agree that it’s better to open things up gradually.

Agree with everything.

Absolutely not. 🙂

A. There’s no time, so therefore we should make decisions for people in their stead. Great.
B. That is a nonsense inference. I’m not demanding that anyone be a philosopher, only a believer. And I did not write that everyone gets Paradise. One who did not act apparently cannot expect reward. Punishment he will not have.
C. I have nothing to say about that approach. Anyone can say that he holds the pure truth and every other opinion is poison. If the secular person who thinks Haredism or religiosity is poison were to restrict your steps, you would resent it.
C (the second). I’m not evading. It’s an irrelevant point. Even if impulse has influence, a person is responsible for his actions and must make decisions for himself. The secular person also thinks that what draws you to the nonsense you believe in is impulse and social pressure. Would you accept coercion from him and his making decisions for you (the minister of education deciding what you’ll study and what you’re forbidden to encounter)?

As far as I understand, this is done automatically.

In my view it is not similar. My intention was that a certain educational system is imposed on the entire public, in order to extract an optimal collective outcome, while that educational path is not suitable for a considerable part of the public and leads it to a distorted Judaism. Included among those outcomes are also people who would have grown into the correct Judaism to which they are committed, and therefore imposing conservative, closed education on them is forcing them to pay a price so that others may benefit. That has no justification. Regarding a private individual, one can make a specific judgment that perhaps he is a person who does not think and decisions should be made for him.

I think there is a more essential problem here: if there is a chemistry program with a 30% dropout rate and an archaeology program with a 10% dropout rate, should we conclude from this that one should study only archaeology because there is less dropout there? No.
On the other hand, a study program with a high dropout rate needs to recalculate its route, because something is flawed there—either in the initial sorting or in the curriculum.

It seems strange to me that the dropout in the chemistry program (in the analogy: the religious-Zionist / liberal education) makes people think that perhaps it is preferable to study archaeology (in the analogy: Haredi / conservative education), and it seems strange to me that in the discussion of the reasons for dropout in religious Zionism, the discussion splinters into various evasions instead of admitting that there is a clear problem: the educators try to educate the student toward X and get Y.
Instead of admitting that they did not succeed in educating toward what they intended to educate toward, some say: it’s fine that it comes out Y; that’s not a failure at all. Some say: then let’s combine archaeology. And some say: what, move from chemistry to archaeology?

My friends in religious Zionism, you have a problem. Deal with it.

And what would you say in a case where both are teaching archaeology???
In any case, the analogy is correct.

With God’s help, 21 Elul 5780

To Mati—greetings,

One of the problems in the analogy, in Torah education, is that however important an accurate understanding of the “archaeology” may be, the wisdom of the ancients, the students also need the “chemistry” that brings what is learned close to the student’s personal world.

This is a problem all the sectors need to invest in, for every student has his own unique personality, and one must identify in each student individually the point of personal connection that suits him.

With blessings, Shatz

Indeed, my high-school chemistry teacher, Dr. Hananel Mack, made a “professional conversion” and became a scholar of aggadah 🙂

With God’s help, 21 Elul 5780

To Cucumber—peaceful greetings,

The main thing is that the learner develop a connection to Torah, as it is written: “and the curtains shall be joined one to another,” and Onkelos translates: “interwoven one opposite another.” When there is division among the teachers in their relation to the Torah or in their relation to one another, that division also affects the recipients. But when the leaders stand together—“your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers”—then that unity also permeates “every man of Israel.”

With blessings, A.G. Binyah

The main problem of education in the religious-Zionist sector is not liberalism but the paucity of Torah study. In retrospect I understood that while Haredi children were learning Torah in heder all day, my children were spending time in soccer, swimming, and judo classes, English enrichment, advanced mathematics, and the like. While Haredi children were sitting over words of Torah at the third Sabbath meal, my children were spending time in Bnei Akiva.
I had a neighbor, a rabbi who teaches in Haredi yeshivot. As my son’s bar mitzvah approached, I asked him to learn Gemara with him in the evenings. One day he came over to me and said with shining eyes that the boy learns amazingly—sharp, serious. A pure pleasure to learn with him. I asked, half-jokingly and half-seriously, whether he could have joined the Haredi yeshiva where he teaches. He laughed. Even smirked. He said there is a gap of years. Maybe impossible to bridge. That there is no comparison.
Those words cut into my flesh—there is no comparison.
There is no comparison between the Torah knowledge of an 18-year-old who finishes a yeshiva high school and the Torah knowledge of boys in Haredi yeshivot.
Of course there can always be exceptions. But look at the majority. What do our children who finished regular yeshiva high schools (considered good in the sector) really know? A few pages of Gemara for matriculation. Nothing.
How many of them will ever come to make up that gap? Few. Many of them will spend a year or two in a pre-army academy or a higher yeshiva or maybe even in hesder. Doubtful whether they will make up the gap.
And even if we compare backward—where is my children’s knowledge, at age 16, with a 100 in Gemara, compared to the knowledge of my grandfather who at age 16 passed the exams for Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin? Why, none of them would be admitted there. And not because they are incapable.
That is our big problem. Not liberalism.
We are raising a generation of ignoramuses. A generation that does not know enough Torah.
And that is very sad.

To N.B.—greetings,

But not infrequently, when one overloads the student with Gemara and halakhah studies that do not interest him, one creates in him a psychological resistance to this burden. When a person develops the desire to learn, he quickly makes up for what he lacks, so there is a situation of “a little with desire is better than much without desire.”

With blessings, P.S.

By the way, in your grandfather’s days in Poland those studying in yeshivot were a tiny minority. Today the “Daf Yomi,” founded by Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin, has made the Talmud a popular study book for many. All the householders who in their youth were full of groans about the “dreary” Gemara study—run to it in their adulthood, once they have matured.

First of all, I’m really flattered that the rabbi devoted part of the column to my question:)
I feel in many cases that the rabbi ignores the question: what is the goal of Torah and the commandments? It may be beyond our understanding, but there is such a goal.
In general this is a point that is hard for me in your approach. Why do I observe commandments? Because the Sages obligated me. And then what? Will I be punished if I don’t fulfill them? Will it be good for me if I do fulfill their words? Keep them because one needs to keep them?

But in this discussion that problem bothers me even more.
There is a reason for observing the commandments. In order to assume that choice is the main thing and the path is more important than the goal, the burden of proof is on you. You need to explain what our goal is in observing commandments and then say whether that fits the Haredi path or not.

Also regarding the series of columns on emotion in Judaism, I think they run into the same problem. When one does not know the precise goal of observing commandments, it is difficult to discuss what is essential and what is not.
The rabbi himself explained here on the site that the Lithuanian method of learning suffers from a serious flaw, in that it discusses definitions of things and not the basic reason; when there is no reason, the definition too is hanging in the air (I always used to argue this to my friends in yeshiva…).

In order to get to the depth of things, one has to understand the basis of things.

I think you are exaggerating. It is possible to make up that gap fairly easily at an older age. I made it up within a few years of study that began at age 25. There are quite a few graduates of yeshiva high schools who reached the very best Haredi yeshivot and integrated well there. Therefore the question is not the amount of study (though indeed there is a problem of knowledge and skill, and that is a shame) but the motivation instilled in them and the desire to complete it later. There are no miracles. When one studies other things, that comes at the expense of Gemara—not only in hours, but also in mental resources, in the importance given to things, etc.
But I am the last person who would deny the problem of ignorance in most religious-Zionist education.

That is a question that requires another column. It is of course related to the distinction between definition and reason, and between conceptual understanding and intuition. But it is enough to understand that these are things that the Holy One, blessed be He, imposed upon us, and therefore they are true and important, in order to be committed to them. The intuitive feeling about them is usually acquired in the course of study.

If you continue the Native Americans analogy—I assume that the logical response מצד the Native Americans in such a situation would have been to isolate themselves from the Europeans, if that had been possible.

An understandable response, but not necessarily a logical one. There was once a case of a driver who veered off the road because of a cat that passed in front of her and ran over a person. She was convicted of manslaughter and appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that this is how a reasonable person reacts. Aharon Barak said something like: an unreasonable reaction of the reasonable person. The fact that in such a situation many people react that way does not mean they are not mistaken in the long term. We have quite a few intuitions that lead to errors. In many cases these are short-term considerations that are harmful in the long term.

It seems that the rabbi is one of the exceptional few. Both in phenomenal abilities, and apparently also in circumstances, drive, and desire. There are those who get there. But as a method, for the public at large, it simply doesn’t work.
The guys are in the army, then they get married, and for the most part it’s no longer possible. And yes, usually there also isn’t that kind of motivation. That is part of the matter. These things need to happen much earlier. Religious Zionism changed the frameworks that used to be accepted and did not provide a suitable alternative. An inclusive one. That works over time and suits everyone.
An ignoramus cannot be truly pious. There is no reason to be surprised by the results.

The question is whether that understanding is enough to assume that the main thing is the path and not the actual observance of the commandments?

Why one of the exceptional few?
You’re saying that a national-religious youth will not be able to make up gaps and become a great scholar if he wants to. What about baalei teshuvah with no background whatsoever in Torah study who return to religion at a very late age at times and become great scholars (Rabbi Uri Zohar, for example)? If a person who grew up in a completely secular background and with absolutely no tools or knowledge of religion can suddenly understand the ways of the Gemara and become a huge scholar, why wouldn’t a national-religious young man who wants to make Torah study a more central component of his life be able to do so? (And maybe one doesn’t even have to set as the bar specifically the gigantic erudition of Haredi yeshiva students. Presumably, one who has other interests in life will have a somewhat lower average level of scholarship. So what?)

You didn’t understand anything from the column. There is no admission here that Y is fine. There is an education toward complexity. Religious Zionism did not set itself the goal of producing primitive “dosim” but of educating developed Torah people. It’s just that because of the complexity there is a danger that people who are not complex will fall into one of two things (religious boorishness or secularity. One is foolish and the other wicked. But truly, wicked is preferable to foolish, because “an ignoramus cannot be pious,” and the ignorant person is always wicked too). And this indeed happens. But people educate toward what they believe in, and if a developed Torah person sees that for himself it works, he will think up ways to make it work for his children after him, and if he fails he will think further until in the end it works for him.

Very true. Beyond that, I’m not sure that Haredi education is more successful. It indeed produces people who are more proficient in Torah. But there are other parameters of success as well.
In the Haredi world there are quite a few yeshiva heads, clear Torah scholars, who studied in yeshiva high school and later became Haredi. These are overly sweeping and generalized statements.

When a person’s level of learning is lower, the level of learning of his children will be lower still. And so on. And that is exactly how we got where we got. I was already born into that “less,” only I understood everything too late.
Proper Torah study in childhood is the only key. And it is very, very flawed.

Now we’ve really reached the realms of nonsense. Usually the son’s level of learning exceeds that of the father. Both among Haredim and among the national-religious public.

Some of my children study, thank God, in the state school system. I see abundant blessing in their labor under the sun. In my opinion, it is obvious that Rabbi Michi is right in everything he says; the whole discussion opposing his words is completely ridiculous, from experience.
By the way, until age 17+ I also studied in the state school system, and only thanks to it did I discover the light within it that brought me back to the “better path.”

Emanuel, according to you, the goal is “to educate developed Torah people.”

Does that succeed? The answer is between 50 and 70 percent success.

Do you agree with me that, in other words, that is a failing grade?! Is there any other public that tries to educate toward a certain path but 30% of it emigrates from it?!

But from your perspective that’s fine. And whoever wants can keep trying again and again “until in the end it works for him,” like young people taking driving tests. In other words: let’s take a huge public and run tests on it until we succeed.

Good luck on the test!

It seems that the title of the article should be “Between Lightness and Lithuanianism”….

To dear Mr. B.G., “the bud is known from its blossom”; if we meet your children we won’t mistake them, don’t worry—the Haredism won’t leave your family heritage until the very last fertilizing, rest your mind!

1. Competing in thin air?
Please give me the criteria by which you think graduates of Zeitlin High School or Himmelfarb are preferable to graduates of Yashlatz or Mekor Chaim. Are you sure they are more open intellectually? More thorough in clarifying their faith? Or is it mainly that there are simply more ex-religious people there because the education there is just less good?
2. The failing side will always claim that in the non-measurable criteria it is superior. Homeopathy is preferable to Western medicine because it treats the root of the problem. Lite education is preferable because they really have free choice…
I agree that one cannot approve a method because of success or failure in education, but one can disqualify an educational path because of failure in education.

With God’s help, 22 Elul 5780

And thus writes Rabbi Menachem Froman (A Person Is Like a Tailor, p. 95):

“My rabbi and teacher, Rav Avrum Shapira, used to say that the scholar in the yeshiva is not revealed in his greatness by his answers to difficulties, but by his questions…

What is the difference between a ‘householder’ and a scholar? A ‘householder’ studies the Daf Yomi. Every day he finishes a page; he understands it. A scholar just begins to read, and immediately he has questions. He understands nothing. A scholar is revealed by the fact that he asks questions.”

With blessings, Shatz

If it is possible to identify in advance which students are suited to this path and which to that path, then there is no clash between the collective and the individual—separate them into the appropriate tracks and you will get both a broad public of commandment-observant people and also that those who are suited will develop the virtues of thought or choice that there are in exposure to a variety of opinions.

If it is not possible to identify, then when we try to choose what is good for one student (ignoring the collective), it still seems that if he goes to a more open education there is a higher chance he will become secular, and on the other hand a higher chance he will arrive at a deeper / truer / more chosen Judaism. I do not see what difference it makes whether we look at this through the individual or the collective.

Therefore it is important to initiate the raising of questions while searching for their answers from sources of faith—from Scripture and the words of the Sages, and from the words of the early and later authorities who discussed all these questions.

One who is exposed to questions unexpectedly, when he hears them for the first time from attackers of the faith, the question may collapse his faith. In contrast, one whose teachers and educators encouraged him to ask and seek answers to his questions—his faith is far more immunized.

With blessings, Shatz [= Young Questioner]

Scholarship is not inherited from parents. There can be a situation where the father did not merit deep learning and the son does. The factor in which parents can have influence is love of Torah. In a home where there is love of Torah and respect for its scholars, the chance grows that the son will have higher motivation to devote himself to Torah study and attain achievement in it.

With blessings, Shatz

We improve. We learn and progress. The second option is simply not an option. It’s like remaining a good child forever and not growing up because in adolescence one rebels against one’s parents and does mischievous things. Would you be willing for your child to remain a child forever, even if he would be a good child, because of the fear (exaggerated) that when he becomes a teenager he will rebel against you? We believe that there is also maturity after adolescence, and that is the ultimate goal (that is, this ex-religious phase is not the end of the story). Besides, what “test” and what “huge public” are you talking about? These are our children, not yours. Every parent is obligated to educate his children in what he believes in.

Among those born into a liberal religious home, the dropout rate is 51%; among those born into a religious home, 31%; among those born into a Torah-religious home, 21% (source: Rosner and Fox). The results of freedom of thought. I admit that to this day I still have psychological effects connected to religion, and some time ago (before I came to this site) I stood at a crossroads and thought about returning, but I know and understand too much and there are no convincing answers. Socially speaking, the advantages and disadvantages exist in both the religious and the secular. Beyond all this, there is much more to elaborate on.

To Tam—greetings,

I’m not so sure. I fear that B.G.’s obsessive engagement in war against “Haredism” may actually bring his children to take an interest in that “demon” in order to check whether it is really so “terrible” 🙂

With blessings, Shatz

It happens because in most liberal homes there simply is no meaningful education toward observance of Torah and commandments. Most liberals are not Rabbi Michael Abraham and do not receive his kind of education; they are only exposed to the outside world without any education, only with revulsion toward Haredism (a revulsion that is in itself justified, but fear of Heaven is not Haredism). What must be remembered is that most of the national-religious public also comes from the secular public and not from the Haredi public. So one has to see this as 70% or 49% success, not 30% failure. It was not at all a given that the next generation would continue its parents.

Yes yes, if freedom of thought equals leaving religion, then liberal religious education is indeed the most successful. Only then the problem is that the educators there don’t have freedom of thought…
I agree that not every question always has completely convincing answers, but given the complexity of the subject, and the quality of the alternative secular assumptions (for example—the claim that morality and values are a byproduct of evolution), in my opinion the answers are good.
In my view, dropout of 20–30 percent is a healthy phenomenon, so that whoever it doesn’t suit does not remain religious. It shows that the option of leaving exists and is not unreasonable. Dropout of 50 percent is not freedom of thought; it is simply education without a goal of educating toward fear of Heaven, or unsuccessful education.

To disqualify instead of to approve…

Friends, in all the criteria we are not talking about a *traditional* home but a *religious* home. Freedom of thought in the long run (in my opinion) indeed leads to leaving religion (or to staying in it, but for other reasons). Avishai, when you talk about “morality” and “evolution” together, it jars for me. In recent days Instagram kept pushing videos at me, from accursed sites, of predatory animals in nature, and it just didn’t stop. However much I blocked them, more and more others came—so much variety of situations that the mind simply cannot bear. And I confess that I went through unbearably hard days because of this, and considering the weight of that exposure to the injustices of the history of all living creatures, including man—what morality are you talking about? Where is God in this whole picture, in His world?

I saw a horrifying video not long ago about people who went down the path of veganism and what happened to them health-wise. That too caused me a sharp crash. Even those who go down the path of good are not allowed to do so. So what can one say, and what can one speak?

With God’s help, 22 Elul 5780

To Nadav—greetings,

The fact that almost all the grandchildren leave the path points to an educational failure that requires study and learning lessons. However, it should be noted that in German Jewry of the 18th–19th century, not only Mendelssohn and the like failed educationally. Even simple commandment-observant Jews who kept away from the Enlightenment did not succeed, and their children or grandchildren too were swept away by the current of secularization.

The educational solution that largely halted the drift was the path of “Torah with the way of the land,” which found the balance between openness to modernity and loyalty to Judaism and Torah. On the one hand they adopted what was good and beautiful in modern culture and science, and on the other hand they did not feel, like Mendelssohn and his associates, a sense of self-nullification before “the enlightenment from heaven”; on the contrary, they used modern means to establish Judaism, as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann did in their books of thought and interpretation.

Proper coping with a “glittering” and sweeping culture comes by clarifying the points of good and truth in that culture and combining them with the eternal values of Judaism.

With blessings, Shatz

To A.—greetings,

Ever since I devoured some Israeli backpacker and found his smartphone open, I discovered that the “homo sapiens” monkeys have absolutely horrifying perverse pleasures.

I prey on antelopes, zebras, and monkeys because I’m hungry, just as they prey on small animals and destroy beautiful plants because they’re hungry, and if we don’t devour we’ll die—and that is a matter of saving life, which overrides the whole Torah. “What makes you think the blood of the antelope is redder than my blood?”

But your lot delight in devouring one another with no real need at all; they hunt, destroy, and torment one another in horrifying ways, merely because of the pleasure in harming the other and rejoicing in his misfortune. And after all your deranged wickedness, you still “roll your eyes in self-righteousness” and complain against the Creator of the world who “gave prey to His lions” 🙂

With a roar, Simba Leib-Inger, from the forests of the Amazon

P.S. In one of your comments you mentioned your plan to fly to Peru; we’d be happy for you to come to our jungle—you seem to me like a man with good taste 🙂

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… “What makes you think the blood of the antelope is redder…”

What I was trying to say is that in my opinion the main weak point of national-religious education is the level of Torah study. People pretty much ignore that point and focus on the argument over openness versus Haredi closedness. I am very much in favor of openness. Walls and hiding the truth are a terrible thing. But openness can be a blessing only if there is alongside it the strength of Torah study. Openness together with Torah ignorance is the recipe for: “they went after vanity and became vain.”
A child who studies in a state-religious school with a nice teacher until sixth grade, and then continues to a regular yeshiva high school—if he doesn’t have Rabbi Michi at home, or someone like him, or at least parents aware that the system is flawed—his chances of reaching the level of knowledge and strength needed in adolescence and in the army are rather bleak.
And even though there are also those who take a different path at some stage in life, it is sad to see so many talented children, who could have grown into Torah scholars, getting lost in this system. I see them. Endlessly.

And by the way, regarding one of the comments—by the time one householder remembers to run after the Daf Yomi, how many of his children are already running after vanity…

My brother, are you sure you’re with us? Mekor Chaim is Hardal? You chose two institutions as examples and decided they are the perfect expression of our discussion? This is typical demagoguery and I do not intend to enter into it.
As for your last remark, that is exactly your mistake. The path being discussed is not just an educational path but an expression of a worldview. We are not talking here about a dispute over didactics in teaching Gemara.

But that is exactly why the argument is pointless. The problem is not the liberal educational path. Many liberals simply do not place much importance on Judaism, and therefore their educational product comes out that way as well. So what do you want from liberal education? If there were God-fearing, upright people who chose liberal education and failed, then this discussion could be conducted (and that is what my column is about).

In light of the readers’ comments here, which create an equation between proper Torah study in quantity and quality and the likelihood that a person will remain faithful to the Holy One, blessed be He, and to His Torah, it is not unnecessary to bring the words of Rabbi Dessler, who contrasts “Frankfurt” (that is, Rabbi Hirsch’s method of Torah with the way of the land) with “the yeshivot” in exactly the opposite way.

“Frankfurt permitted science and included university study among the ‘ideal’ educational options. The price they paid for this was that the number of Torah greats among their students was reduced … only very few became great learners. However, they gained by this that the number of the corrupted among them was very small … almost all remained commandment-observers with self-sacrifice…

The yeshiva method—to set as the sole goal raising great Torah scholars and fearers of Heaven alike, and for this purpose they forbade university to their students … however, let us not think they did not know in advance that in this way, God forbid, some would be ruined, since they would not be able to withstand this extremism and would depart from the path of Torah. Yet this is the price they would pay for the great Torah and fear-of-Heaven personalities who would be educated in their yeshivot… let a thousand fools die, and one wise man benefit from them.”

Regarding the rabbi’s last comment: with respect, perhaps this too is a bit of a generalization? There are many God-fearing people (perfect? not sure. Who is perfect?) who choose state-religious schools for various reasons. Also a desire for social involvement, also a desire not to be condescending, and more. And sometimes innocence and lack of awareness that there is a severe problem in the system. And not a few of them suffer major defeats.
It would be interesting to hear whether any comparative study has been done that examines the level of Torah knowledge in the various age groups between religious-Zionist schools and their parallel Haredi institutions.
It is a shame about the childhood years in which the child is like a sponge and can learn so much.
These are lost years that are greatly wasted in this method. And there is no significant, well-grounded learning from childhood to return to in times of crisis.

Why is this comment here and not following my comment to which you are referring?
Regarding this comment of yours, is this not a generalization? I didn’t speak about state-religious schools. 🙂
I agree that those school years are wasted, and I have written that more than once. But your conclusions do not follow from that.

With God’s help, 22 Elul 5780

To N.B.—greetings,

As a 62-year-old man, I do not see a “decline of the generations.” I remember the “shock” I had about thirty years ago when I first saw a boy of bar-mitzvah age finishing a tractate of Gemara, and afterwards I saw quite a few bar-mitzvah boys who did so.

In my twenties there were only a few hesder yeshivot and only one Zionist higher yeshiva. Today there are dozens of hesder yeshivot and pre-military academies; an “association” of Zionist higher yeshivot; and numerous colleges and women’s seminaries. Dozens of graduates of Zionist yeshivot hold rabbinic ordination for judgeship and for city rabbi, and hundreds and perhaps thousands have basic rabbinic ordination. And householders who set aside fixed times for Torah are a very widespread phenomenon.

Part of the ex-religious phenomenon among us already stems from the opposite reason: the Torah-observant public is already the “establishment” against which part of the youth rebels. If in our youth the “rebellion of youth” of some of us was directed against the generation of parents who in our view were not “strong” enough, and against our teachers in the yeshivot, a substantial part of whom were Haredim who tried to “blacken” us—our “troubles” today are “the troubles of the rich” 🙂

My impression is that groaning and a feeling of despair do not especially contribute to “educational success.” A touch of pride and faith in the justice of the path, together with openness and listening to the questions of the younger generation, together with positive personal example, are more encouraging and attractive. The younger generation, it seems to me, is not especially enthused by sour faces; a welcoming countenance and joy in life attract it more to continue in the path charted by the “older” generation.

With blessings, a grandfather aged sixty-two

Encouraging words. I hope you are right.

It sounds really bad, but choice is really, really OVERRATED.

A code that threatens (and at times also carries out) so many sanctions against offenders, including the death penalty, certainly does not mean choice in its liberal interpretation.

The choice to which the Written Torah refers is the choice of a people, not of each and every individual.

The second-person singular in the verse “and you shall choose life—you and your seed” speaks to the collective, just like “You are crossing today the Jordan.”

How is a nation’s choice carried out (perhaps by those who presume to be its leaders?), and is it available in every time and era? I have no answer, and probably it is no more relevant to me than “you are crossing the Jordan.”

The more one delves into this, the more it seems that the quills worn down in trying to explain the issue and its contradictions were broken in vain.

The contradiction between foreknowledge and choice is much less oppressive than the sanctions that also appear in that very same verse which serves as the paradigm for “free choice” (“so that you may live”).

For anyone who understands “choice” in this spirit: not choice is the main thing but the deed. Therefore even if you achieve the deed by “stealing” the basic rights of the doer, it still has value. Not very different from the paternalism that even you are willing to accept for minors, in the sense that all are children of the Omnipresent (at every age), and what can the son do and not sin?

There are those for whom skepticism is their truth (most of us), and its value surpasses every decision; and there are those (some of them proud or simply ignorant, as also in the first group) for whom their own understanding is the truth.

As a skeptic, I still have to give a place of honor to the second school as it becomes clear that the choice is not really given.

The discussion is somewhat irrelevant because Haredi education produces only isolated Torah learners, if any at all. Almost the entire Haredi public lives at the expense of the general public, and therefore its Torah study belongs to whoever pays for it, just as the intellectual property I produce at work belongs to the company that pays my salary and not to me.

The entire Haredi education system is funded by the taxpayer. The typical Haredi pays 100 shekels a month in health tax for a family of 9 souls, as opposed to a resident of Tel Aviv where the family pays thousands of shekels to fund health insurance for 4 souls.

It is true that there are Haredim who work, but most of them work for the general public as city rabbis, judges, or teachers in the Haredi education system funded by the general taxpayer, so those shekels that came in from taxpayers circulate again and again in the Haredi system, and very little money comes in from any real service they gave to the world.

Actually, no, Shatz. I only respond according to whoever is in front of me. I heard that among you religious people it’s also not much better than among secular people—where is it really better?

To A.—greetings,

I prefer to eat kosher people. The problem with them is that ideological rigidity makes them tougher, and that’s less tasty 🙂

With blessings, Simba

You didn’t quite understand me, Shatz. Bottom line: the social problematic exists both among the religious and among the secular. Among the secular at least it’s all out in the open and not swept under the rug.

To A.—greetings,

In my comment yesterday I addressed your claim about the immorality of natural reality in which all animals prey and are preyed upon, and regarding that I argued that from their perspective there is no immorality here, since this is their existential need.

The problems of immorality exist among human beings, who possess understanding and choice, and therefore understand that they must set value-based limits for themselves and not simply flow after their instincts, which may be immoral.

The question of which human society is more moral and value-based is a question in itself, and it truly requires broad discussion, which, God willing and without a vow, will wait until next week.

With blessings for a peaceful Sabbath, Shatz

Even according to what you say, there is still great value in Haredi education, except that the right belongs to the public as a whole and not to them themselves (I don’t agree; I only said that this is what seems to follow from your view).

P.S. Even factually you are exaggerating. Briefly, as best I recall, the statistics are that 50% of Haredi men and 70% of Haredi women work. Certainly such a quantity is not only people working in the education system. City rabbis and judges are few, and they also provide important services to the general public, and some of the public even wants those services.

It is an evil existential need. An existential need that is the Creator’s direct will (if you really believe in Him). In any case, Shatz, maybe you are mistaken in thinking you bring people closer, but you push them away. You live in delusion, arrogant, smug, and immersed in yourself in an exceptional way. Do you begin the day with blessings to God? I begin the day with curses toward Him. Who is right? Whoever has a brain in his head.

Ploni, you are mistaken. The existence of sanctions does not negate choice. On the contrary, it is what gives it significance. Beyond that, if a person truly chooses a certain path because he believes in it, he will not be punished.

The statistics lie—almost 50 percent of Haredim work at something, but since they did not study secular subjects (in order to prevent dropout), they are unable to support themselves even when they work (and by the way, few of them work full-time).
A beginner’s teacher at quarter-time is not comparable to a software engineer who works 10 hours a day.
There is no advice and no future for the average Haredi, even the “working” one, without the taxes of the public that took the risk and studied core curriculum ++.
And again, if the taxpayer from the general public sustains the Haredi public (health system, education system, roads, army, police, and of course allowances, negative income tax, and balancing grants to Haredi municipalities), then he is the real owner of all the intellectual property produced by the Haredim (and between us, it’s not as though the intellectual property they produce is worth much—almost all of it is the poorest of the poor quality).

If you are willing to pay actual money in exchange for an abstract deed of ownership without practical consequences, I’d be happy if you contact me.

Since we are already discussing censorship, I warmly recommend to each and every one of you to prevent your small children from being exposed to Rabbi Eliyahu himself.

I remember that after the explosion in Lebanon that occurred about a month ago, someone shared in the WhatsApp group of the building where I live a video of Rabbi Eliyahu. The rabbi lectures the worshippers (apparently after the morning prayer) about the proper attitude to the explosion (search on YouTube: “What should be the attitude to the destruction of Beirut Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu.” A short clip; warmly recommended to get an impression).

From Rabbi Eliyahu’s perspective these are, of course, good tidings. And you are surely wondering: how exactly is this a joyous event? Well, according to the Sages (Pesachim 42b), Lebanon was punished after it rejoiced over the destruction of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 26–28), and from now on there is a rule: the destruction of Beirut is immediately followed by the building of Jerusalem, and vice versa of course. Jerusalem and Beirut cannot both be in ruins or both be built at the same time. Rather, one rises and the other falls. Therefore these are excellent tidings: a big explosion over there means more neighborhoods and building permits over here. Death and destruction do not trouble him too much.

And now honestly: what degree of narrow-mindedness does a person need in order to think this way? How much stupidity does an adult need in order to think that reality is governed by some such cosmic rule? Think about it for a moment: here before you is an adult man, and even after sixty years of life experience he still thinks there is some law of nature linking explosions in Beirut to the municipal state of Jerusalem…. How bizarre.

Hand on heart: would you trust someone like this to educate your children? You might just as well bring your child a private tutor who believes the world is flat…

In short, I simply recommend ignoring everything he says. You won’t lose much.

Hello Rabbi,
With respect, I am unable to understand the rabbi’s approach. If the rabbi really believes that observance of Torah and commandments is the ideal, and that faith is what one should arrive at, what is wrong if that is what one aspires to bring the next generation to? Why is the choice itself ideal? Just as a father would not place before his child one plate with cyanide and another with schnitzel and let him choose. There is no value in choosing something bad. Unless you do not think secularity is a bad thing, in which case that is something entirely different.

I explained this point. Commandments are not a consequential matter. It is important not only that one observes them but also that one does so by choice. Think whether you would want them to hypnotize you into observing commandments and avoiding transgressions all your life. According to your view, that guarantees you the world to come.
When there are consequential matters, like the prohibition of murder or theft (the moral one, even if not the halakhic one), there is room to see value in the act itself regardless of motives. Though even there, while there is value to the action, it is a consequential value (that the person does not die). But in terms of the moral value of the action, it exists only if it was done by choice.

And why does the rabbi think that among the Haredim there is no choice? A person grapples with choice at every single moment of his day-to-day life, in every detail of the commandments. All of us are at various degrees of choice on a continuum between an angel and Pharaoh, whose heart the Holy One hardened.
And beyond that—what about “from acting not for its own sake one comes to act for its own sake”? And how can he choose if he does not have in hand the proper tools at the proper level suited to him? Namely, knowledge of Torah… the comprehensive picture that allows correct understanding and
knowledge…
Or perhaps I did not understand the rabbi’s intention..

Who said there is no choice among them? There is less choice, and less possibility of exercising independent judgment. This is not black and white.

And by the way, even at the end of the current Torah portion, choice was set alongside an explicit recommendation-command: “and you shall choose life,” and see Rashi there…
It seems that even if you exhaust the recommendation, the choice will always be there.

If the commandments are the ideal of life and the act itself is what matters, what difference does it make whether it comes from hypnosis or not? Of course that is only if the commandments are truly the real ideal.
Besides, why are commandments not a consequential matter? Certainly according to your approach, that there is nothing in Judaism other than observance of halakhah. That implies that only the act matters and thought does not matter at all.

That the commandments are the goal—that is partly true (study is also a goal). But why should that mean that the main thing in the commandment is the performance itself? That is an Olympic logical leap, and an incorrect one.

With God’s help, 25 Elul, the day of the creation of light, 5780

To A.—greetings,

You nicely defined the point of difference between the optimistic person, who believes the world is midway from good to better, and the extreme pessimist, who opens his day with hatred and negative emotions and ends it with even greater hatred, without escape.

What is clear is that by your despairing and despair-inducing path you will get nowhere. By contrast, by the optimistic path you will succeed in improving your world and your surroundings and turning the world into a better place, even if it is still far from perfection. “It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

With blessings for a good and blessed year, Shatz

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… and to turn the world into a better place, …

I am posting here remarks by a commenter named Shalom:

With God’s help

Hello, my name is Shalom.

It is simple and clear that faith must be verified in a person’s heart, in the Rambam’s expression, that faith must be “formed in the heart,” not in the mouth. Faith is a state of inner clarity, convinced of its own correctness.

The Rambam lists three things by which it is proper to believe: a clear demonstration (like mathematics), the senses, and tradition as stated by the prophets and the righteous.
If so, according to the Rambam, tradition by itself is enough for faith to be something formed in the heart with clarity.
If there are people who think deeply and are troubled by perplexities, for them the Rambam wrote the Guide for the Perplexed. In our day too, a similar confrontation is needed for those who have such questions, and you are to be blessed for what you did in this regard. But this does not disqualify those whose hearts are secure and confident in the truth of the tradition because they are content with the truth of the Chafetz Chaim and Rabbi Akiva Eiger. It is not right to assume in advance that there is something vague or unresolved in their faith. The correct thing is that there are matters that do not trouble them, and they have good reason for that, whatever another person may think of it; nobody is certain that the troubled one is the one closer to the truth.
For example, no one is troubled about his ability to move because there is no philosophical solution to Zeno’s questions.

The quartet books are full of examples of mistakes made by intelligent people. The resolution of philosophical questions by philosophy itself is something always open to dispute. Perhaps the reason for this is, as you note, the “law of conservation of zero,” and the fact that one never truly starts from zero. Moreover, the question will always peck away: perhaps someone smarter will come and undermine the conclusions of a certain sage. Discovering the errors of others only strengthens the lack of confidence in philosophy in general, including that of the discoverer himself, whether analytic, synthetic, or some combination of the two.

The Holy One, blessed be He, also created people who do not have the tools to cope by themselves with complicated logical questions, and He intended for them too a life of faith. Usually, with such people, healthy common sense grasps the assumptions of faith—that is, the things handed down to us by all the righteous of the generations—with complete identification, sharpness, and all the depth of the heart. It does not bother them that others call this “ad hominem,” and rightly so, in my opinion and also in the Rambam’s opinion, because in questions of testimony one specifically needs testimony that is “ad hominem,” “ad hoc.”

This is also true regarding questions and the need to raise them.
One who believes because he believes in the tradition of the righteous, and that is stronger for him than rational proof, will assume in advance that a reply will presumably be found to any question, and this does not undermine his certainty. In this sense we are ultra-postmodernists already for thousands of years.
The Raavad argues against the Rambam on the question of foreknowledge and choice that in such a matter it is preferable to leave things in the form of faith and not try to solve them in a way that can be disputed, as he does. It seems to me this is a matter of principle. He did not mean to disagree with the Guide for the Perplexed, but with the Mishneh Torah, which was written in Hebrew in order to designate it for everyone. The education of the masses is something that must be undertaken with great responsibility; there is a price to both sides, and the Rambam and the Raavad disagreed on this question of foreknowledge and choice as to the proper path in this matter (there is no proof from here to other questions, also because the question of foreknowledge and choice is a deep experiential question on both its sides).

After all, you too say, rightly, that not at every age should one deal with every question. If so, this is a matter of proportion and preference. In greenhouses they grow flowers, and they are no less good and beautiful. One can insist on trying to do it outside, and not be moved by the fact that most of them wither. The main thing is that they coped.
If it is permissible to say that even one who does not fully understand Gödel’s proofs may skip them and rely on your beautiful conclusions (in my eyes), then one may skip many more things in the world of philosophy and live with a clear sense of truth, and there is no place to cast aspersions on that.

One who has boarded the right train will reach where that train is going, even if he does not know exactly why they chose that route or does not understand the nature of a locomotive; he only has to trust that railway company.

And since life will end and all the germs of philosophical pilpul will not end, nor all the religions that one should supposedly investigate because perhaps they contain some message, and even after that the achievement will remain subject to uncertainty that does not exceed trust in what was said by the righteous of the generations, the whole question is only one of the advisability of administering vaccines, or exposure to germs, in order to acquire antibodies.
The question of which germs to be exposed to is a weighty and responsible question, both in medicine and in education. Therefore it seems to me that in such a question one may let the results speak, and not dismiss them so quickly in the name of principle, or in the name of skepticism about the results. At least on the face of it, there is no reason to assume that success is specifically in an education that openly gives up on so many of its children, according to appearances.

One mother poured out her heart before me: they immigrated to Israel for reasons of education. They did not know the situation in Israel, and in all innocence preferred an institution where one acquires general knowledge, matriculation, and so on, as is customary among people from abroad even among the Orthodox, by their definition. But, the mother said to me painfully, there they watch movies at night. And her son sees here what he did not see there, and she sees the results.
She turned to the head of the institution, and his answer was that it was more important to them that the youth be integrated into Israeli and general human culture.
He remained with the principle, and the mother remained with the tears.

I will preface by saying that I did not see here any concrete argument, and in particular not an argument that was not already answered in my words in the column. Beyond that, these really are childish claims of the sort we heard in high school or in Bnei Akiva. But since the writer took the trouble to put his words in writing, I will address them briefly:

1. It is not true that faith means certain conviction. There is not and cannot be such conviction about anything, including faith. This is one of the implications of closed education that does not expose its students to this unfortunate fact. I encounter the destructive consequences of this education and this distorted conception almost every day. No precedents or quotations are needed for this, and they are not relevant either.
2. The demagogic claim that Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the Chafetz Chaim surely understood better than we do, and therefore it is enough for us that they believed, is also a result of that warped education. Einstein was no less intelligent than they were. And so were the Christian Anselm and the atheist Russell. I think reading such claims is itself proof of the correctness of what I wrote.
3. Indeed, intelligent people make many mistakes, but fools make no fewer mistakes. So what does that prove? Regarding reliance on the opinion of others, I have already written here more than once. The question is who those others are, and on what basis you decide to rely on them.
4. If there are people who lack the tools, then they are fools and nothing is demanded of them. In my opinion there are no such people. Everyone forms a position according to the best of his understanding, and the Torah was not given to ministering angels. In any event, it is clear that nobody can form a position for someone else. One who relies on Rabbi Akiva Eiger, in my opinion, is not really a believer, but rather an atheist in disguise who observes commandments.
5. There is no need to raise questions by force. But there is a need not to evade relevant questions. Ignoring a question is not equivalent to not raising it. The absurd claim of the Raavad is really no basis from which to attack. Your guarantor needs a guarantor. Besides, you forgot that the Rambam did, after all, raise this question. On what basis do you rule like the Raavad on this issue? By the way, the question of foreknowledge and choice is not an experiential question but a philosophical one.
6. I did not cast aspersions on one who does not engage in questions. I cast aspersions on one who ignores them and does not allow them to be raised.
7. One who boards the right train certainly reaches the right place. The big question is: which is the right train?
8. As I explained, the education that gives up on many of its children is the Haredi education. A pity.
9. I learn nothing from stories. These are demagogic, for two main reasons: 1. They are usually inaccurate. 2. They are usually unrepresentative, just one case. So I will spare you my opinion on this story. I will only remind you where all the wicked Maskilim and all the secular people until our day came from: from the Haredi education of previous centuries, which did not know and did not want to cope with the new winds. What is being suggested is to repeat those mistakes again today, and pay the price in the long term (though you will not pay all of it, because as I explained in the column, your environment, which educates differently, saves you).
And pleasant will it be for the listener.

One could say, by way of wit, that the question of how to cope with secularization (whose infection rates are several times greater than the “corona” that is stirring our lives 🙂) is this: whether to increase the “lockdown” against the influences of the secular environment, or to increase the “vaccine” through serving God in joy and gladness of heart and through providing a deep faith-based response to the questions of the young?

With the blessing of “a healthy body and abundant light,” Shatz

In the last line
… in that culture, while separating the points of good from the dross that does not fit the eternal values…

It is told of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach that they asked him about two neighbors. One was an outstanding Torah scholar whose children did not remain observant, while by contrast the sons of his neighbor, who was a simple Jew, became Torah scholars.

Rabbi Shlomo Zalman answered that the Torah scholar would constantly speak disrespectfully about rabbis and Torah scholars whose path he disagreed with. His children, who constantly heard negative messages about Torah scholars, developed an aversion to Torah.

By contrast, the simple Jew always spoke in praise of Torah scholars from all circles, and therefore his children developed a deep respect for Torah and its scholars—as the Sages said about one who honors rabbis, that he merits sons-in-law and descendants who are rabbis.

With blessings, Shatz

Although on these issues my opinion is like the rabbi’s, the matter should be qualified somewhat:

Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu does not truly understand the mentality of the modern national-religious. And it seems to me that the Hardalim don’t either. A person who has been exposed to modernity (has studied science) very rarely becomes Haredi. It is like a youth going back to being a child. (Although I know of some such cases, like Rabbi Lichtenstein’s son, though there is still much to discuss here.) This is the kind of thing where you can go forward and become more God-fearing, but not less developed. Hardalim have an undeveloped mentality. They are like children and therefore they really do not understand us. And from their perspective everyone is a child. This is a feeling, by the way, that one gets from speaking with any Haredi person—that in a certain sense there is no one to talk to. They do not understand that from our perspective closedness (lack of freedom, an unfree consciousness, restrictions on thought) is death.

2. As a derivative of that, they are certainly right with respect to their own children and people like them. Granted, we are not dealing with a moral or consequentialist religion (deontological), but I do believe that results, in some critical mass, are an indication of truth. If the righteous man suffers too much, perhaps he is not really righteous but wicked—in other words, what he thought was good is not really good when looked at more deeply. And we see that for less developed people, when fear of Heaven departs from them they behave like wild people, even to the point of crime. This is the great claim of Ashkenazi Haredim (and secretly the secular also agree with it) regarding the simple believing Sephardic public—that the moment they cast off the yoke, they began filling the prisons. And in truth all the culture of violent crime in Israel today is Sephardic (it seems to me). Even today one sees that religious Sephardim are overall decent and productive people. It appears that without fear of God these people have no morality (or they do, but a less developed morality). The same is certainly true of Haredim. Even with their fear of Heaven they often behave like wild people; see the whole current story with the coronavirus. So it really is in our interest (and although there is something consequentialist in this, it also points to a truth) that people of their type—children—not become ex-religious.

With God’s help, 28 Elul 5780

To Emanuel—greetings,

The national-religious Torah-observant public is composed almost entirely of people who studied and took matriculation exams in yeshiva high schools, and in large part they hold academic degrees in education, science and technology, medicine, law, and economics. Many of their leaders, too, possess broad knowledge in philosophy and the sciences, such as Rabbi Tau, Rabbi Zuckerman, Rabbi Aviner, Rabbi Zini, Rabbi Cherki, Rabbi Feuerman, and many others.

All the supposed contradictions between Torah and science have been known and recognized for over a hundred years, and were discussed by men of Torah and science who followed the path of “Torah and the way of the land,” such as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann, Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik and Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Rabbi Isaac Herzog and those who continued in their path. Scientific knowledge only strengthened their faith and their pride in their Judaism, and their devotion to Torah and its commandments. A considerable part of the questions were discussed in Dr. Aharon Barth’s book, Our Generation Facing the Eternal Questions (the author was director-general of Bank Leumi, who was forced to go on extended sick leave and then composed the book).

With blessings, Shatz

To Shatz,

I knew, my son, I knew. But general education of the kinds you mentioned (even science, if it is on a shallow level—that is, without deep understanding of philosophy and scientific thought), although it indeed develops a person, and the rabbis you mentioned are still much less intellectually coarse than the Haredim, is still no guarantee of the condition I was speaking about. As for yeshiva high schools and religious education (“matriculation”), there is nothing to talk about at all. The rabbis of Germany and the people of Torah with the way of the land indeed were not primitive people, though they were not Zionists. They were modern Orthodox, to tell the truth. And indeed today they continue in the United States. By the way, all the attempts to reconcile these contradictions among a significant part of the rabbis you mentioned are forced and show a lack of critical thinking. They are excuses (some really pathetic), but none of them is a real explanation.

But I am speaking of a certain religious narrow-mindedness, a sort of conservative self-righteousness—the sacrifice of truth in the name of fear of Reform (the Antichrist). Once a person comes to revulsion toward these things (hatred of evil), he will never be able to retreat backward. I am speaking, for example, about the obsessive and childish war against LGBT people (who fight them and everyone else with even greater obsessiveness and infantilism, but, unlike those people, I have some expectations of senior Torah scholars).

“Even today one sees that religious Sephardim are overall decent and productive people. It appears that without fear of God these people have no morality (or they do, but a less developed morality)”—
Dear Emanuel, it is a great shame that this condescending and offensive sentence was said.
Surely a God-fearing and moral person like you does not mean to generalize and offend entire populations that he does not know. It would have been better to be more careful.

Let him say whatever he feels like. Those who agree with him—it doesn’t move them. Those who disagree with him (I happen to know one such person)—that doesn’t move him either. The Sephardim in this country (not the Haredim) do not need people to pinch their cheek and be careful, heaven forbid, not to hurt their delicate hearts.

A good year and good tidings to everyone.

The truth is that almost all the rabbis he mentioned studied science well and not “superficially.” Maybe you should tell us what you know in the non-superficial sciences of yours?! (There is no intention here to insult, God forbid; I just want you to tone down the pride a little and also speak with the surroundings, even if they are not liberal. And of course also to cry out against the desecration of the honor of rabbis.)

As far as I remember, Rabbi Hirsch’s school in Frankfurt was a “real school” intended to prepare its students for commerce, and not a “gymnasium” in which one studies for a matriculation certificate qualifying for academic studies. In that respect, the students of the yeshiva high schools in our country surpass in their education most graduates of the “Torah and the way of the land” education in Frankfurt.

With blessings, Shamshon Hirsch Halevi

Truly, there is no reason to be hurt here (and hurting without intending seems to me even worse than intending to hurt. Because to hurt without intending shows that you don’t count the person at all, whereas one who intends to hurt someone does recognize him as a person and even respects him in seeing him as his enemy. Hatred is a thousand times better than contempt or indifference).

Because either I am right or I am wrong. And even if I am right, it is a generalization. It does not say of any individual who is not like that that he is like that. (As the commenter below me said, and although I am sure he did not come to defend me, Sephardim in Israel do not need protection from me.) In fact, the fact that you were offended on someone else’s behalf is really worse than my supposed racism. To pity someone, or to regard him as pitiable—to make him into a poor thing—that is truly the worst thing you can do to someone. Believe me, I was once in that position (I used to be like that, in short) and I matured out of it (and in a more extreme way than Rabbi Michi). I read about many Sephardic rabbis who in the 1980s sent their children to Ashkenazi Haredi institutions, and when they were asked how they were sending their children to institutions where they would learn in Yiddish and pray with Ashkenazi pronunciation, they said they preferred that their child bless in Yiddish than curse in Moroccan. They said it! So I can’t? Because what, Ashkenazim aren’t allowed to say that? In any case, I heard a lot of Sephardic Haredim say this themselves while making complaints (somewhat justified, as I explained) against the Zionists. (Even though Haredism itself also does not fit the Sephardic mentality of the immigrants of the 1960s, because it too is somewhat a kind of adolescent rebellion against the old Judaism that fell victim under the wheels of the Enlightenment and secularization. And this itself causes many children of Sephardic Haredi baalei teshuvah to go off the religious path.)

The substantive part of what I said is that there are adult people (people of the Eastern world—all the East, from Japan to Morocco—and those among them who still have an old Eastern mentality) who, as regards this matter of openness to the Western world, are like children. And everyone agrees (and Rabbi Michi also agrees) that with children one does not educate toward openness but toward what one has planted in him as the truth. I only noted that this can have damage beyond secularization itself. And I brought an example that I think everyone knows what I mean. The Sephardic public that came to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s was innocent and believing (and the Ashkenazim will say naive), and the Ashkenazim imposed on them the secularization they considered a more developed state than religiosity, and in the end it blew up in their face. That is indeed the depth of the hatred (or revulsion) of the left toward the traditionalist right in this country. (Although the Ashkenazi Betarist right also gets a respectable portion of hatred. Perhaps it is simply hatred toward anyone who does not hold the religion of communism.)

To be a child is not a sin and not a bad thing. Therefore one need not force maturity. And the West itself is still not mature. The people in it are in a state of adolescence. Maturity itself is a matter of a process of uniting East and West.

I truly have no need within me to lower anyone’s spirit (I have matured somewhat also from that need), but I have no interest in the non-Hardal Torah-observant public being suckers in the face of Hardalim who look down on it (which is truly intolerable, in the spirit of “a servant when he reigns”). And since I thought that there are people in the Torah-observant public whose spirits might fall because of this, I saw importance in bringing these things in the context of Rabbi Michi’s discussion so that we can somewhat understand this gap between him and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, and even somewhat justify Rabbi Eliyahu’s words with respect to the public in which he grew up. I would not try to persuade a Haredi person to move to religious Zionism, nor to persuade him of the truth of its path. Because it would be bad for him (he would not withstand the culture shock), and I cannot take responsibility for him. Whereas his rabbis are willing to take responsibility for him. If he asks questions, then I will answer him honestly. But I will also tell him that I cannot take responsibility for him, and therefore as long as he cannot take responsibility for himself, let him remain in the world in which he grew up.

To Shatz and Yishai,

I don’t know what it was like in Frankfurt. But I know what there is in yeshiva high schools (I studied in one). They really do not actually learn how to learn and understand there. There is enormous pressure to cover quantities of material and prepare for exams (and this is also true in academia). One who does not learn to think independently will not learn that in school and academic frameworks. There are many physicists who do not reflect at all on what they study. They can even do a doctorate without ever once stopping to reflect on the meaning of what they are studying (outside physics, and even in physics itself. One of my examiners for my master’s degree—a professor of experimental nuclear physics—did not know what a thought experiment is! During the exam he asked me what it is!!). That is, they do not think what the implications are of what they studied—what the content they studied actually says. You hear a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry talking nonsense about free will. Rabbi Michi said that he has no philosophical skills, which is a gentle way of saying that he is not a thinking person (that is, that he is a technocrat, at least outside his field, which itself is somewhat technocratic relative to physics). I heard that Prof. Itamar Pitowsky (who himself is a thinking person) heard some physicist giving a lecture on matters that are not physics and remarked to him in the middle of the lecture that philosophy is a profession.

And there you have it, Yishai, how there can be rabbis with academic education who are shallow. And in fact there are also many rabbis who are shallow even in the Torah field itself. If you want an example of non-shallow people, then Rabbi Michi himself is one (despite the enormous criticism I have of him on many things), and Nadav Shnerb as well. It is no coincidence that I see eye to eye with them on these issues.