A Short Exercise in Reading Comprehension: What Is Diversity? (Column 535)
Today I came across a column by someone named Livnat Ben Hamo, who presents herself as a religious musician. I’ll reproduce it here in full, and I recommend reading it before continuing:
| My eldest daughter is entering first grade, and I’m torn—what school to register her for next year. I’ve already visited three schools and counting. We’re religious and live in Ashdod, so we want to register for a religious school. The question is which kind of “religious,” and that’s where the problem begins.
At the moment my daughter is in a kindergarten defined as “Torani” (an intensified religious track). Boys and girls are still together, but the education and atmosphere are a bit more religious than in the regular state-religious track. This is reflected in the content and in the character of the families. From first grade that Torani track becomes separated—one class for boys and one for girls. For me that’s a bit harsh. As a religious woman, and even simply as a woman, I do believe in separation—but from high school age, not from such a young age. It seems to me there should be ongoing interaction between boys and girls in elementary school so as not to create gaps and deficiencies that could later be expressed in the quality of relationships with the opposite sex after age 18. But separation isn’t my only issue with Torani schools. Not long ago I was sitting outside my daughter’s dance class and met one of my teachers from when I studied at an ulpana (religious girls’ high school). Her children study in a Torani school, and I asked her how her experience has been. She told me a bit and then paused and said—But, Livnat, it’s a Torani school. Yes, yes, I know, I told her. But you’re not “Toranit”! she answered. What do you mean? Torani is from the word Torah—and I keep Torah and mitzvot. Yes, she said. But you don’t cover your hair and you wear pants. At that moment I’d had enough and told her I wasn’t going to have that discussion with her. I finished the ulpana 15 years ago. So go to the state-religious track, you’re probably thinking. What’s the problem. Truth is, there isn’t a problem and that’s probably what will happen in the end. But in the state-religious track there are families of all kinds: religious, traditional, and secular. And for someone looking for a religious environment—so that the afternoon playtime with friends is also in a religious atmosphere—this raises questions and thoughts. I know that in other places there’s more variety in terms of streams, certainly in communities that are religious in character, and certainly in a city like Jerusalem, for example. But we chose to live in Ashdod, the city where we were born and raised. I ask myself how it can be that if you want “religious,” your only option is Torani—which is basically a kind of Hardali (national-Haredi)? What happened to that stream of “regular religious” people? Those who keep Shabbat but don’t believe in separating boys and girls from elementary school age? Those who are strict about family purity but have no problem listening to a woman sing? Those who pray in the morning but encourage their daughters to realize themselves in any path they choose—including military service? What happened to us? Has this stream of “regular religious” disappeared from the world? I open newspapers, read websites—today, “religious” equals Avi Maoz. But wait, friends. How can it be that the extreme has become the whole picture? I know that around me there are quite a few people like me—regular religious folks but open to the world and respectful of the vast diversity within it. Could it be that we’ve curled up into ourselves? Why aren’t we speaking up more, making our presence and the values by which we live felt? We mustn’t let one stream take over the religious field. Anyone who thinks that an analysis of the political landscape and the results of the last elections leads to the conclusion that our stream—the normal religious—has disappeared, is wrong! We haven’t disappeared numerically, only in our presence in the world. By nature we’re not separatists but integrators. And therefore Chili Tropper and Michael Biton, for example, aren’t in a religious party but in the National Unity camp. We’re too quiet. And maybe that’s the mistake. Maybe we too need to make noise or at least start speaking loudly and clearly—so everyone hears. |
The Questions
Now I’ll ask you a few preliminary questions (without going back and rereading): What is the author’s religious outlook? What is her attitude toward religious separatism versus integration? Against whom and what is she speaking out? And what is the educational model she recommends and would like for her children? Please take a few seconds and try to answer briefly.
The Answers
The writer presents herself as a kind of “religious-lite,” in common parlance, and I’m not making value judgments here. She wears pants (in my view, halakhically legitimate) and doesn’t cover her hair (in my view, not halakhically legitimate), and I understand that she sings before a mixed audience (also legitimate in my view). Without knowing her, I allow myself to surmise that she doesn’t meticulously observe every single halakhic detail. So, all in all, we’re dealing with a run-of-the-mill religious woman—“a regular religious woman,” as she herself puts it. She laments that this group—the “regular religious”—has disappeared.
I now wonder, which groups are still on the map? Well, of course there are the “Torani,” the Hardalim (national-Haredim), who are ostensibly the ones she is pushing back against. But that’s not the only kind of religious educational institution. What else is there? I don’t know specifically what’s happening in Ashdod, but the other kind that surely exists there too is the regular state-religious track (mamlachti dati), within which there are all kinds of religious people, regular or not, and in addition there are also other elite institutions (not necessarily in a Torani direction).
So why does she think the group of “regular religious” has vanished? Aren’t these precisely the religious folk who send to the regular state-religious system? She asks what happened to religious diversity, when to my understanding it very much exists in the regular state-religious system. Well, it turns out not—apparently it doesn’t have the kind of “diversity” she’s looking for. Here is her key sentence:
But in the state-religious system there are families of all kinds: religious, traditional, and secular. And for someone looking for a religious environment—so that afternoon playtime with friends is also in a religious atmosphere…
Ah, I get it: in the state-religious system the problem is that there’s diversity. But actually now I don’t get it: what diversity exactly is she missing? What is she looking for? No need to guess, because she explains very well: she wants a school in Ashdod that contains only children like her own children—no more and no less. Not Hardali but also not traditional. In what sense is what she herself describes different from traditionalism? Her intention is apparently a school intended for families where the mother doesn’t cover her hair and wears pants, performs before men, but not one who watches television on Shabbat (using a Shabbat timer?). Maybe she also doesn’t want a mother who says the Morning Blessings but not Grace after Meals, only one who recites Grace after Meals but cuts corners with the Morning Blessings. That ultimate mother of the children in her school must also be one who says the Asher Yatzar blessing exactly twice a day—not once and not three times. And what about a mother who listens to Tunisian music but eats Hungarian food? I don’t know.
Of course, all types are worthy and good, and all are included in the desired diversity as part of the blessed variety—but in another school. Ben Hamo’s children should play only with that diverse group of mothers without head coverings and with pants who perform before men, recite blessings over enjoyment only on apples, say Asher Yatzar twice a day, and speak Polish in Casablanca slang—that’s it. Everyone else can diversify themselves respectfully in other schools. Those that include traditional, religious, and others (as part of general diversity we also need “non-diverse” schools that include all the diversity).
Suddenly I realize she’s not talking at all about diversity within the religious community in her children’s school, but about diversity among schools themselves—whose principal aim, from her perspective, is to prevent diversity within her own school. The “diversity” she’s talking about is that we should have a varied offering of schools, each different from the other, but within each school the population should be entirely homogeneous, so she can send her children without fear that after school they’ll play with the child of a woman who behaves slightly differently from her. Maybe someone who favors separating boys and girls only from fourth grade (what a prude), or alternatively only from tenth grade (an accursed heretic), or isn’t willing to separate at all (perish the thought). Or heaven forbid someone who wears a partial head covering (so pious), or alternatively goes sleeveless (tsk). They will play only with children whose mother goes without a head covering but with long pants, says the Morning Blessings on every odd day but not the blessings over Torah on weekends, and of course wants separation to begin precisely at the start of high school. Diversity, did we say?…
In other words, what this Livnat wants is that we take the entire set of halakhot, divide them into subsets, and for each subset create a network of schools. Note: not a single school per subset but a network for each subset, since she expects that her subset will have a school in Ashdod—not only in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. I assume she understands that there’s nothing special about Ashdod per se. It should be like this in every city and town in Israel, for every subset.
Let’s do a somewhat simplistic calculation. Suppose there are a thousand relevant halakhot (of course there are many more). How many defined population groups exist over this set? Well, that’s easy: 21000 (2 to the power of 1000). We’re talking about a number with roughly 300 digits. Note, this isn’t the number of students, nor even the number of schools. It’s the number of school networks she wants spread across the country. Meaning that in Ashdod there would be roughly a billion billion billion billion (repeating the word “billion” about thirty times) different schools—and that’s just in Ashdod. Likewise in Ashkelon, Jerusalem, Haifa, Kiryat Shmona, Yeruham, Kiryat Gat, Acre, Shlomi, Safed, and more. Admit it, that’s some diversity—and indeed she’s absolutely right: we really aren’t there yet (thank God). But a bit more education budget and we’ll be right there any minute. As she writes: “We mustn’t let one stream take over the religious field,” especially when there are another 21000 streams besides. By the way, this is precisely the model accepted in Haredi education. There, schools are determined by the parents’ origin, the color of the father’s socks (schools for fathers with white socks—Vizhnitz Hasidim—and schools for fathers with black socks—Gur Hasidim), the length of the gartel, and other essential articles of faith and tradition for education. I’m sure they’d be happy to open in Ashdod a school for sons of mothers with transparent head coverings and fathers with brown corduroy jackets. In effect, this is a merger of households who want to give their children homeschooling with the Haredi education stream. I don’t see a principled problem with that. It’s even quite administratively efficient.
Reading-Comprehension Conclusions
I wouldn’t have bothered writing a column about this nonsense if it weren’t an excellent example of misdirection and thus a necessary exercise in reading comprehension. On a superficial reading it clearly seems that the author wants religious diversity for her children, that she is speaking out against extremism, and that she would be happy for her children to encounter the whole spectrum without rejecting anyone. Seemingly she would really want her children to study with the children of Chili Tropper and Michael Biton (that’s what she writes). Well—no. Their children study in the state-religious system, and there is no reason her children can’t study there with them. But she doesn’t want that. Indeed, I wonder whether Ilana, the wife of MK Michael Biton, meets her criteria? (As it happens they are very close friends of ours, and I know their norms are not necessarily identical to those of Livnat Ben Hamo.) I suspect that Chili Tropper’s norms also aren’t identical to hers. (Statistically that’s almost impossible.)
On a second, not-very-deep reading it turns out she wants precisely the opposite: to prevent possibilities of diversity for her children. She wants her children to see—both in school and in the afternoon at the playground—only children identical to themselves, neither a bit “more frum” nor a bit “less frum” than they are. She calls on Chili Tropper and Michael Biton and all members of the National Unity camp to make noise and show up on the field—but not in order to create a stream that suits them. On the contrary: to split the state-religious system into billions of different streams so that everyone can choose his own bespoke stream—but separately. Admit it: that’s not what you took away from your first impression and first reading. That’s exactly what’s striking about her column and what moved me to write the column before you.
By the way, I’m quite convinced that Livnat Ben Hamo herself isn’t aware of what she wrote. I’m pretty sure that if I asked her, she would say that what she wrote is indeed a demand for diversity and a stand against Hardali monochromatism. If I’m right, then she would do well to reread her own words. But in the age of slogans and existential declarations—the age of moods—people are led astray by atmosphere instead of examining arguments, even regarding their own positions.
A Side Note: Two Types of Filtering
As an aside, note that at least the Hardalim filter on an ideological-educational basis. Whether you like it or not, they fear influences that would lower their children’s religious level, and this is the basis for the filtering they do in their schools. One can argue about whether it is effective or beneficial, but to my taste it’s entirely legitimate, since it is filtering for educational purposes. Livnat Ben Hamo, by contrast, seeks filtering whose aim is to ensure that the entire environment looks like her and her children, so that heaven forbid they won’t have to meet someone who looks even slightly different. She writes about “regular religious” people: “By nature we are not separatists but integrators,” and apparently by “integrators” she means integrating within ourselves—each family optimally integrated within itself, as it were: “and he saw the people dwelling by their families.” I take comfort that at least in her schools there won’t be a problem of separation between boys and girls, because it’s a school intended for brothers and sisters only. Homeschooling. Truly an enlightened and wonderfully diverse approach. Is this worthy of the lofty title “the regular religious”? I very much hope not. In any case, I gather that this is indeed an endangered species—and in my view, it’s good that it is.
But as noted, my aim here isn’t to bash the position itself. Although I don’t like it, it’s also semi-legitimate in my eyes (though less so than the Hardali position, as I explained). My aim here is only to conduct a reading-comprehension exercise and to recommend a second thought about what we read—not to follow gut feelings and first impressions. It’s easy—and highly recommended—to apply this in other fields as well, such as assigning positions and/or actions to “right” or “left,” where you’ll find plenty of examples of initial impressions that are the product of atmosphere and, upon a second look, turn out to be the exact opposite of the truth.
Discussion
The question is not what you think she wants, but what she wrote. I can also suppose that she wants to build the Red Sea–Dead Sea canal and establish an underwater school inside it.
This isn’t poetry.
I’m sure that if you send my interpretation and yours to the author, she’ll say that I interpreted her more correctly.
It is implied, though not stated explicitly, that she was upset with that Hardal woman because the Torah-oriented school refuses to accept her, even though she wanted to be accepted there. (It wasn’t stated there explicitly – it could be that she would even actually be accepted there, but they would look at her askance.) What does she want? To refuse to accept traditional Jews, which is already a vaguer category, probably similar to what you meant – not exactly as religious as I am, and this is based on some idea that it will spoil her children’s education. After all, she wants a more Torah-oriented atmosphere.
Here she falls into a contradiction – I don’t think she wants the diversity you are attributing to her by way of exaggeration, but rather a very specific kind of diversity: a school for Hardalim, a school for secular and traditional Jews (or even two), and a school within the boundaries that she wants. That is, she is willing to accept mothers who wear a head covering but not pants, or vice versa, and perhaps she would even be willing to compromise on a year or two of gender separation one way or the other.
In other words, she did write that she wants diversity in her school—just the diversity she is willing to accept, and that the school should be more in her own image than it is now. Why specifically in her own image, and why she assumes everyone is like her, I don’t know; and I agree with you that this would ostensibly lead to opening more networks (2^2^1000, because everyone also has the networks they are willing to compromise on), but in practice what she wants is diversity within her own network—it’s just that her assumptions are problematic.
Thank you for this very correct and much-needed article.
I agree that she doesn’t express herself well.
But I understand what she means, because I also experienced something like this when I enrolled my son in school.
On the one hand, we have a Torah-oriented (Hardal) school, with classical teaching methods, full gender separation, lighting candles for the elevation of Maimonides’ soul, etc. And on the other hand, there is a regular state religious school.
The problem is that a lot of secular families enrolled in the state religious school.
Now, it’s all well and good that the school defines itself as religious, but if more than half the children are secular, then in practice the atmosphere there isn’t religious…
In my opinion, she doesn’t want to be labeled and is looking for the grail—that is, a kind of pluralistic school in which all types of religious people live in harmony, without judgment about style of dress and without intrusion into the teachers’ private lives. Sorry, as an immigrant from abroad, we understood long ago that the messianic era has still not arrived and the lamb and the lion still do not live side by side. Educational institutions in Israel have not understood the difference between education and schooling. And this confusion causes many distortions that destroy the education of parents who are not religious enough. Let us focus, in our search for schools for our children, on finding places that do not destroy the parents’ education and instead focus only on learning, without all the nonsense.
I can understand the claim, but the question is where the line runs that defines a religious atmosphere. Why is a mother who doesn’t cover her hair acceptable in her religious atmosphere, but a mother who turns on the television on Shabbat is not acceptable? If you demand full but open religiosity (not Hardal) – fair enough, but that is not what she describes.
It seems to me that you didn’t just not read her, but me as well. I wrote that I too am guessing that. But what is written here is something else, and in my view she doesn’t understand herself.
She doesn’t know how to express herself well.
You’re a verbal stickler; that’s excellent when studying Maimonides, less good when trying to understand a person. I’d bet a shawarma and tap water that she definitely meant a state religious school whose families are 70% Shabbat-observant (not knowingly desecrating it), eat kosher and are satisfied with the Rabbinate’s supervision, and where the father puts on tefillin. If among the 30% there are traditional Jews, and a minority of secular people, that’s fine. (I gave a sketch, an illustration—like in the Mishnah, not an exact definition.)
I’m sure of it.
As a special-ed educator for over a decade, my students claim that I understand their thoughts and wishes even without them speaking and expressing themselves well. Unfortunately, most of them are not capable of that. There are other ways to understand a person, even if verbally he is really terrible at it.
Sorry, but this is not a verbal problem. There are plenty of such state religious schools, so what exactly is the complaint?
It’s very simple.
She wants a certain religious spectrum. And that’s all.
You are trying to present her in a ridiculous way, as if her words are hollow and there is no real serious argument behind them.
You’re simply creating a straw man, puffing out your chest, and running to attack it. Too bad.
Really simple. It’s just that unlike Chabadniks, I don’t have divine inspiration, only logic and reading comprehension. Oh, and a puffed-out chest. Right—arguments are for the weak. No arguments, arguments are out.
I think this column is being a bit too clever – it’s obvious that she means an educational system for religious people on her spectrum, not at a discrete point.
If I had to guess, it’s a spectrum of Shabbat observance, kashrut, prayer, tefillin…
Less erudition, less punctiliousness about modesty rules, and less hatred of the “elites”/“leftists”/LGBT people and other demons used to frighten the average Hardal child.
One can wonder what the meaning is of a religious educational system that is not meticulous about every commandment, but if we look for an educational system in which all the commandments are observed carefully, we’ll have to settle for homeschooling.
Does everyone carefully observe the laws of evil speech?
Slander?
In my close circle I have noticed that the higher a person is on the Hardal spectrum, the more he increases in political vilification and lies (which are all, of course, for a good purpose).
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart” does not exist (or else they define the concept of “your brother” in a distorted way).
In the Haredi circle in my family I see people who are proud of tax evasion and finding crooked ways to obtain public funds.
The father’s obligation to teach his son a trade does not exist, and of course all the Haredim are “lite” the moment you reach the subject of making a living from Torah study …
In short, the spectrum the lady is asking for is not essentially different from any other spectrum – it is not exhaustive, but it is clear to those who live within it.
And how does all this relate to what I wrote? Almost every commenter here repeats the same claim, and all of them suffer from the same reading-comprehension mistake. Instead of sending you off to some homework entity (state her claim exactly, and what is the counterclaim she is attacking), I’ll move straight on: ask yourself whether she is calling for more diversity or less diversity. That’s all.
Obviously she has her own kind of diversity, just like 2 to the power of 1000 other kinds of diversity. That is exactly what I wrote. So why is there a whiff of a question mark (as if this were an argument opposed to what I wrote) at the end of your remarks?
Meanwhile the talkbacks clearly prove the need for reading-comprehension exercises. But they also prove that the exercise failed. People simply are not willing to try to understand what they read, even in the exercise itself.
This puts us in a loop that is a bit too much for me.
It sounds to me a bit like the sorites paradox.
But if I nevertheless try to analyze it, it seems to me that Shabbat lies in a much broader religious consensus than head covering does.
To me it doesn’t sound like the sorites paradox but like fifty shades of gray. Similar, but very different. In any case, the column was not meant to argue something against her (I wrote that her view is semi-legitimate), and I have no problem with someone who claims that Shabbat is more significant than head covering. There are another 2 to the power of 1000 possibilities for determining what is more or less significant.
I didn’t read the comments, but I understand from her words (and especially from her reference to the diversity in state religious schools) that when she says secular and traditional Jews, she is not referring to what they actually do in practice (the child can pray in a state religious school), but to the way they perceive the world and Judaism. The question is not whether you observe everything—that would certainly be a group with no students at all. The question is how they perceive religion: do they believe in God, and do they see halakhah as binding. Secular people certainly do not; traditional Jews are a somewhat more varied group, but certainly not all of them believe in God and see halakhah as binding. And if that is the point, then it is obvious why, from her perspective, the diversity that includes a group (large or small—that already depends on the environment; in Ashdod it may be more common in state religious schools) of children from heretical homes would be a problem.
Haha, don’t worry—it’s just that those who agree don’t bother sending a message.
I accept everything you wrote in the column regarding her words. There is no doubt that the root of the problem is consciously and openly giving up on certain halakhot and still calling yourself (out of self-justification) “regularly religious.”
But does that justify demanding that this enormous segment of the population living in Zion today bear sole responsibility for the many secular families seeking religious education for their various reasons?
If it were in your hands, what would you do? How would you define a state religious school? How would you set the criteria?
I definitely agree (at least partially; I assume actual practice is important too). But everything I wrote still stands. She sees halakhah as binding? Then why doesn’t she cover her head? It does not look like this is merely her own failure (which indeed happens to everyone). It is an ideology that one doesn’t make an issue of it, because she is no longer in a girls’ religious high school. So why is that different from someone for whom watching television on Shabbat is routine? To my astonishment, when I arrived in Yeruham I discovered that there are quite a few religious families who would watch television on Shabbat. It was as normative for them as not covering one’s head. It turns out that this is only a question of environment and norms. By the way, in my opinion television on Shabbat is a more halakhically complex issue than head covering.
If in Ashdod there aren’t many people like her, then what does she want? Let her move somewhere else. Usually a state religious school looks exactly as reflected in her words, and therefore everything should be perfectly fine for her.
The focus of the discussion is not the question of my opinion of her position. I wrote that it is legitimate (or semi-legitimate). The question is one of reading comprehension: is her goal in the article to increase diversity or to reduce it? At first reading it seems like increasing it; on second reading it emerges that it is to reduce it. Once one understands that in fact it is more about reducing than expanding, I also criticize her demand, simply because it is unrealistic.
My reading comprehension of the text is that diversity is a range with boundaries; once you cross them, it is no longer just a shade (for her, as stated, this means traditional and secular Jews), but a different color. Who decides the boundaries? The majority. The overwhelming majority would agree with the boundary I wrote (which I understood from her post). Regarding “…Then why doesn’t she cover her head? It does not look like this is merely her own failure (which indeed happens to everyone). It is an ideology that one doesn’t make an issue of it, because she is no longer in a girls’ religious high school”
Here I think you are the one who fell down on reading comprehension. Notice that she does not even bring up a single action as a partial definition of a secular or traditional person. She writes, “…and for someone looking for a religious environment, so that the afternoon hours of playing with friends will also be in a religious atmosphere.” What is a religious atmosphere? Is it a television switched off on Shabbat? It is a whole complex of things, headed by the understanding that there is a binding framework and that God demands. Not necessarily looking at a person’s fringes, but understanding that fear of God exists. And if that indeed exists, then come join and add more diversity to the range of shades that exist within the religious educational framework that her daughter was supposed to be studying in, even if, Heaven forbid, you listen to women singing.
Well, I disagree. She hardly entered into definitions at all, so the absence of definitions proves nothing. The definition you propose is empty, or just arbitrary, and in any case very narrow: a religious person is someone like me.
The diversity she proposes here is not greater in any sense than the diversity that exists in a regular Hardal institution. There too they are willing to accept those who focus on Faith in Our Times part 1, part 2, or part 119. A kippah in green or yellow. Torah learners two hours a day or ten hours a day. Accountants or yeshiva teachers. I see no principled difference. The makeup of the state religious school is unacceptable to her even though there is religious-traditional diversity there (with a small secular minority).
And by the way, she does make distinctions, for example the age of separation in school. Not too early and not too late (specifically in elementary school, not before and not after). A state religious school fully fits your description, and she rejects it.
In short, she seems to have come to speak in praise of increasing diversity (“we tend to integrate”), while her actual claim favors reducing it (compared to a state religious school). And another aside: Michael Biton is traditional, so if she wants to integrate with him, why does she exclude traditional Jews from the proper integration?
Ambiguity solves nothing; it only blurs things. My remarks in the column were meant to dispel that ambiguity, and I think I dispelled it correctly.
With God’s help, 24 Tevet 5783
I saw the list of elementary schools in Ashdod. There are 9 “state religious,” 3 “Torah-oriented state religious,” and one “special-traditional.” So it seems that Mrs. Ben-Hamu will find what suits her.
However, it is worth noting that in education one should aspire to excellence—in knowledge, in thought, and in good character traits—and thus “ordinary people” can emerge…
With the blessing, “Accustom us to Your Torah,” Hanoch Henach Feinshmaker-פלתי
The mistake is yours. She is not arguing against diversity; she has no problem with her children studying with Hardalim or with people less religious than she is. She wants them to study in a religious school that has religious families, and yet also diversity within the religious world.
The definition of religious, I assume, is the kind of definition on which there is broad consensus—like Shabbat observance, like personally defining oneself as “religious.”
All right, last things first.
A. I don’t know Michael Biton, and it’s not clear to me whether he was brought as an example of a traditional person who would fit the definition I gave. Maybe she meant him specifically because of personal acquaintance, maybe not (maybe she belongs to the religion of Marxism, and then he is totally in that category?).
B. As for the claim that a state religious school fits my description, I’m not at all sure that this is the situation in Ashdod (and to say “then let her move somewhere else” is not a serious suggestion. One can stay in a certain place for certain reasons, and complain about other difficulties connected to that decision).
C. I disagree with the claim that Hardal education meets the same criteria of diversity.
In Hardal education they will certainly place emphasis on (very specific and narrow) aspects of the students’ halakhic actions (and perhaps of their parents’ as well).
She is trying to detach the religious definition from one act or another (head covering / pants, or women’s singing and studying in separate classes) and allow a person who has decided that everything is binding to be within the educational framework. That may seem abstract, but in my opinion, in a blind cross-check questionnaire among many religious people, you would get sufficiently similar answers about which acts do or do not fall under the definition of religious.
D. I read the continuation of the column, and I saw that you attribute the motives for some of the comments to an attempt to judge her favorably. So I once heard an acquaintance say that “at the end of the day, most of those people Rabbi Yitzhak of Berdichev used to sing the praises of are all sitting together in Gehenna.”
We’ve exhausted it. Let the voter choose.
And this is what seems to me regarding the author’s intention:
“Diversity,” in the language of liberals, is a conception of “let each person live by his own faith,” in which each person chooses where he stands on the continuum of attachment to tradition, while recognizing the legitimacy of different paths.
In principle, according to this conception, anyone who holds that there is a binding halakhic norm, and especially when a rabbi is the one who determines it – is advocating a non-pluralistic framework. Even though among those who see halakhah as a binding framework there are many shades – they all alike are not pluralists.
With blessings, Chafash
And in the Gemara there is advice on how to vary mustard: to place an egg in a mustard strainer, “for it only comes to improve the color” (Shabbat 140a). Perhaps in our case as well it would be beneficial to throw eggs at the filtering Hardalim.
This advice is also good for Hardalim serving as “our heads, our officers, and our counselors,” concerning whom we pray: “and prepare them [variant reading: and fry them] a good egg before You”…
With blessings, Yeshua Halevi Zweiblinger-Dijonski
Wow, apparently too much intelligence is sometimes a curse. The lady wants open religiosity and not secularity—what is all this lomdus about 2 to the power of 1000? I assume that you too don’t think she wants such insane diversity, and you are doing this in the manner of preachers who build a pilpul on a subject that isn’t all that well baked.
One could say that open religiosity is not something defined in terms of halakhic logic, but there is some convention in the traditional and general public about a hierarchy of commandments, and most of them are careful about the same things and do not observe the same things—not as you presented it, as though there are many kinds of people who define themselves as religious on the basis of a different hierarchy (an honest person generally would not define himself as religious if he does not observe Shabbat and eats pork). Why this is so is a good question without an answer, but in reality it exists, and it is legitimate for someone to want to educate her children according to the accepted religious hierarchy.
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As I understand it, this woman would be happy if her children grew up with religious children of all kinds—from Hardalim to "light" religious people.
She would be very unhappy if the school/other parents tried to educate her as well. And of course she wants there to be teachers on the staff whose worldview is relatively close to hers.
Why דווקא this spectrum? I don’t know.
I’m actually glad to broaden the spectrum, but it isn’t fair to present her the way you presented her.