On Doubleness and Stagnation in the Haredi World (Column 680)
About two weeks ago I was hosted on a podcast (called “Haredit Meduberet”) with Esty Shushan. While thinking about what to discuss there, a realization struck me that seems highly significant regarding Haredi society: life in doubleness (two-ness). Since most of that audience is Haredi, it felt right to raise it there. About a week ago (Sunday, 26.11) there was a parlor meeting on behalf of the movement The Third Path, where I met with a Haredi group to talk about the state of Haredi society. I decided then to lay out this insight more fully.
In this column I’ll present the insight to you as well. I’ve already discussed the issue of mental/intellectual doubleness in the past, so I won’t enter into it here in detail per se, but will focus on its meaning and implications in the Haredi context. Other topics will arise here that I’ve treated before, and for those I’ll mostly refer elsewhere. I should preface by saying that this column is devoted to a critique of Haredi society, since that was the topic of the evening and of the podcast. The question of doubleness concerns it primarily. I have critiques of parts of the Religious-Zionist community as well, and “The Third Path” aims to offer an alternative set of ideas to broad parts of it too—but that’s for another time.
Summary of the Manifesto: Rotating the Front Lines and Creating a “Third Path”
I opened with a summary of my manifesto about shifting the watershed line in today’s religious community. At present it runs mainly around the attitude to Zionism: Haredim oppose it and Religious-Zionists (or national-religious) are for it. Everything revolves around that question: matchmaking, newspapers, batei midrash and educational institutions, communities and synagogues, rabbis, clothing, and more—all orbit the question of whether you are Religious-Zionist or Haredi. Needless to say, that dispute has long since ceased to be relevant. The state has existed for almost eighty years, and every sane person wants it to exist and to flourish—economically, militarily, and in every respect. No sane person wants to die or go into exile, and certainly every sane Haredi wants there to be a minyan from which to milk funds. So there is no real debate about any of that today. The actual disagreements in the religious world now belong mainly to questions of modernity and liberalism, not to Zionism: the status of women; attitudes to LGBTQ people; to non-Jews; religious coercion; integrating Haredim; the halakhic policy of the Chief Rabbinate and its courts; and so on. Yet we remain fixated on our identities and hang them on the question of Zionism, although it is irrelevant. Eighty years after the state’s founding we are still fighting one another passionately over the acute question of whether to establish a state or not, and whether this is the beginning of redemption (atchalta de-geula), the footsteps of the Messiah (ikveta de-Meshicha), or just empty rattling.
A few weeks ago someone on the site raised a challenge to this thesis from the fierce debate these days over drafting Haredim. Seemingly this is a prime example of a dispute that does revolve around Zionism, showing that even today it has practical ramifications. Well, no. I explained to him that even the draft issue is not connected to Zionism but to modernity. The reason Haredim don’t enlist is not their stance toward Zionism or the state, but their desire to remain apart from their surroundings and preserve their bubble. In other words, it’s mainly a matter of attitude to modernity and the environment, not to Zionism and the state. Even if you hear some Haredi argument that invokes anti-Zionism, that is demagogic anachronism that doesn’t really reflect the true reasons. It’s exploiting the fixation described above for polemical needs. For this reason, arguments raised against Haredim from the power of “milhemet mitzvah” (obligatory war), “helping Israel in time of trouble,” “the groom from his chamber and the bride from her canopy,” or other Torah sources are irrelevant. The argument isn’t there. Moreover, even if I were a lone Jew living in Zimbabwe, if there were an existential threat to the state I would be obligated to enlist and contribute my part to its defense. This has nothing to do with Zionism, and not even with Judaism. It’s a matter of basic morality and justice. Simply being a mentsch.
And note: in column 665 I described the rapprochement between Hardalim and Haredim on the conservative side. They work in a wondrous symbiosis to promote the terrible desecration of God’s name they are producing together within the current coalition of horrors. The symbiosis is not only between politicians but also between the rabbinic leaderships of the two groups. Anyone who thinks this is mere interest-driven cooperation is gravely mistaken. It is a real convergence, because they understand (even if they don’t admit it or are not conscious of it) that there is no real difference in their conceptions. Both sides understand that the question of Zionism is almost irrelevant, and on questions of modernity they are entirely partners to a conservative and ossified conception of Torah and halakhah.
This indicates that we must give up the Zionist seam line also on the more open, modern flank of both groups. We must rotate our identity axes so that the front lines and identity seam lines—around which our polemics are conducted and our religious identities set—are around the question of attitude to modernity, not to Zionism. That way, Haredim (sociologically and/or theologically) can be connected with national-religious (sociologically and/or theologically) who share a more modern and liberal outlook, exactly as I described here the linkage between the conservative wings of the two groups. That is the goal of the “Third Path.”
A Look at Haredism and Hardalism
One can say that the conservative-separatist Haredi conception espouses a “Noah’s Ark” ideology. The Torah, or the beit midrash, stands in constant confrontation with the world. It protects us from its terrible influences, and our mission in the world is to survive pure and not be soiled by what happens outside, which is of course fundamentally defective. This view sees the world very childishly: it was all created for us and we sustain it. Everything outside the Jewish-religious community is merely a cast of extras whose role is reduced to how they relate to Jews. The whole world is nothing but a series of tests, and our task here is to withstand them and be saved (like a computer game; outside the ark there is no real reality). The mission is to make it safely from this filthy, dangerous corridor to the world to come. This is the theological dispute described by R. Hayyim of Volozhin in Nefesh HaChaim, Gate 4, regarding the “filthy passages” (whether there is value or holiness in the profane realm of the world; whether the tzimtzum is literal).
Note that what stands opposite the “Noah’s Ark” conception is not the Religious-Zionist view but the modern one. Religious-Zionism can live within a “Noah’s Ark” consciousness, and indeed that’s what you see in the Hardali world. The whole world is against us, and even the part that is for us has only one function and meaning: to serve as a backdrop for our conduct (we who sustain the world). Once this was conducted in the “World Central Yeshiva,” a place eccentric in itself, until those atlas-angel supporters of the world, bearing it on their backs, split and went off to Har HaMor and Givat HaLevonah.
It’s very easy not to notice this because in the Hardali Religious-Zionist world—the one that today represents Religious-Zionism in public and political discourse—there is a theoretical ideology that appears completely different, from the school of Rav Kook. One of Rav Kook’s revolutions was to begin seeing the world as a valuable entity: to leave the childish picture everyone grew up with that the Holy One, blessed be He, has nothing in His world but four cubits of halakhah; to see value in art, in science, in the new morality, in democracy, in equality, in literature and poetry, and so on. Yet at least in practice the Hardalim are entirely Haredi. First, they too, following Rav Kook, agree that everything was intended for our sake. We are the soul of the world and everyone else are extras—even if they have some value (usually deep inside them, and only the crystal eyes of the “greats of the generation in faith,” those who can discern amid the storms that Katzav was accused wrongfully, can perceive it). In this, Rav Kook himself was Haredi. Beyond that, Rav Kook’s Hardali disciples deviated from his path in that they disqualify anything that threatens them—anything from “outside.” The Kookian ideology remains almost a dead letter: a theoretical declaration without practical ramifications. They wage war against academia, against art, against other religious conceptions and streams; they see anti-Semitic (i.e., anti-Hardali) demons in everything that happens in the world; and de facto they close themselves off, at least intellectually, almost like Haredim. All this together with lofty declarations about Rav Kook’s doctrine and positive recognition of the world and all that is in it. Words (usually empty and pompous) are their craft.
“The Third Path”
The alternative of “The Third Path” proposes a different way to relate to the world. In part, this is what Rav Kook originally advocated. In our view we must approach the world with empathy, see value in what happens within it—even in what irritates and appears in extreme and disturbing forms. This applies to academic research, to philosophy, to art and literature, to personal and self-expression, to democracy, and even to the challenging of gender and LGBTQ questions, and the like. The world is not a cast of extras (and for my part I would also forgo the idea that we are the ones who sustain it, “the soul of the world”—an exclusive and somewhat childish discourse).
This is modern Judaism, and it need not be tied specifically to a Zionist conception. A person can be Haredi (sociologically and theologically) and still espouse such a view. Some adherents of “Torah with Derekh Eretz” were like that. The goal is to connect those who identify with this direction from both sides and thereby break the existing identity map (i.e., rotate the front lines).
Imprisoned Consciousness
Seemingly this is a change of consciousness. We must persuade people from both camps (Haredi and Religious-Zionist) to adopt a worldview different from the one they currently hold. But the picture I sketched above—namely that we must rotate the axes and create different coalitions—assumes otherwise. My claim is that even now there is a not-insignificant Haredi public that identifies with modern-liberal conceptions, and we call to it to connect with the non-Haredi public that holds them. The claim is that that slice of the Haredi public already identifies within with those conceptions, and yet for various reasons still identifies itself as part of Haredism (Haredi-lite). Such a person lives with the consciousness that the ideal model is the conservative-Haredi model and that the rabbinic leadership is the conservative Haredi “greats of Torah,” except that I am weak and am not there myself. He tells himself: that is the utopia I too believe in, though I don’t live that way. I’ll try to educate my children in that path in the hope they will be better than me.
This consciousness is what preserves the identity anachronism described above. It’s what keeps the determining identities as Haredi versus Religious-Zionist. There is an imprisoned consciousness, where within the person there is one conception, while his actual conduct looks completely different. Usually this is perceived as capitulation to desire and weakness, but the Third Path’s claim is that this is a different conception, not weakness. The movement calls on such Haredim to release their imprisoned consciousness and bring it out of the closet. We seek to give them an alternative label that will take them out of the Haredi identity prison. They must stop defining themselves as Haredi-lite (second-rate) and internalize that they hold a lechatchila (a priori) alternative ideology: Torah with Derekh Eretz. They must reject what they imagine as utopia and recognize that what they feel inside toward it is disagreement, not weakness. Of course there are Haredim who truly are “lite,” but the Third Path addresses those who are not really such and only live with the false feeling that they are.
The leadership that belongs to the conservative core makes sure to pump into them that they are “lite,” because there is only one model of Torah greatness and service of God. If a person sees himself as Haredi-lite, that doesn’t threaten Haredism, because he accepts the Haredi utopia. He lives that world inside, in his private domain, but declaratively and ideologically he continues to condemn it like the conservative Haredim. As long as you’re like that, the Haredi establishment is willing to recognize you as a half-legitimate periphery. The Third Path’s step threatens them because it calls to free oneself from this identity and conceptual prison, and thereby dismantle the existing Haredi framework.
I’m dealing here with Haredism, but it’s worth noting that the same applies to conservative Religious-Zionism. Its leadership also pumps into anyone who isn’t Hardali that he is “lite.” The only rabbi to whom he can’t listen is the Hardali rabbi. Thus each such person can be a half-legitimate Religious-Zionist, since he still maintains the correct utopian model, even if in his own conceptions and conduct he is not there (that’s the advice of the evil inclination; no one is perfect).
The Third Path tries to gather both groups with these imprisoned consciousnesses, bring them to light and connect them into an alternative path. We call on them to recognize that they are not Haredi-lite or Religious-Zionist-lite. They are modern religious Jews, and as such they belong to one group: the Third Path. From this you’ll understand the basic assumption: many in the Haredi world feel inside that the world is something positive to participate in (in a measured way). They actually oppose the “Noah’s Ark” ideology. They only need to free themselves from the assumption that this is weakness or desire, and recognize that it is another ideology.
Haredi Doubleness and Its Meaning
Note the implications. When I speak with such a person and try to convince him of a different model, I’m attacking the problem on the wrong plane. Inside he is already there. The problem lies elsewhere entirely: even if I think this is right, the question remains whether it truly is right and whether I should implement it in practice. The goal is not to create another consciousness, for it already exists. The goal is to free it, recognize it, and get people to conduct themselves by it. The insight I reached in recent weeks is that the discourse with modern Haredim must take place on that plane, and to do so we must understand better imprisoned consciousness and mental/intellectual doubleness. Again, in this column I’m focusing on the Haredi side of the map. The situation on the other side (=the sitra achra) is similar, but there are significant differences that are not our topic here.
I’ve often spoken with Haredim who, to my sense, are already in that place, and again and again I find that nonetheless it is very hard to persuade them of it. Time and again I feel my arguments don’t fall on listening ears. I assumed the arguments apparently aren’t strong enough—at least in their view. They weren’t convinced. At some point I realized the problem is elsewhere entirely: even if they are convinced, that doesn’t mean they’ll think and act that way from here on. They live in doubleness. Inside they can be convinced of the modern thesis and oppose the “Noah’s Ark” ideology, yet the ideology that accompanies them day-to-day and their utopia haven’t changed. They continue to hold the conservative ideology and act by it (vote in elections, send their children to “ark-ish” institutions, and the like).
In short, to change someone’s conception and cause him to behave differently, two stages are needed: present arguments that will persuade him of the claims in question, and cause him to act practically according to those conclusions and claims. The problem in discourse with Haredim is not the first plane. Many of them live in doubleness: inside they hold one conception while in actual life they act by another and experience a religious picture different from what exists deep inside them. They perceive the dissonance with what is inside them as their weakness.
I described the state of doubleness in earlier columns (see e.g., 199, 575, 584 and more). When a person acts in a way that does not match his inner conceptions, this is not always a struggle of desire versus values/ideology. In many cases a person backs his desires with conceptions he develops to anchor his manner of conduct. Therefore, a person can live with a conception that does not match what he truly thinks. Note: he not only acts differently, he also thinks differently. That sounds very strange. When we speak of cases where a person acts differently from what he himself thinks, that’s what philosophy calls “weakness of will.” There too are not-simple philosophical and logical problems, but we know such situations well (see columns 172–173). But the claim that a person thinks differently from what he thinks sounds like an oxymoron. Yet in those columns I showed that such states indeed exist within us at times. Some will call it false consciousness, and more generally we can speak of doubleness.
My claim is that mental/intellectual doubleness is very characteristic of Haredi society, and that is mainly what blocks it and doesn’t allow it to progress (or: that’s what preserves it, as conservatives would describe). Haredim can cynically mock the fixers who manipulate their “greats of the generation,” and at the same time obey everything they say. They can hold anti-Zionist declarations and behave the opposite. They can grasp the interests around “kosher smartphones,” and still support them. Understand that everything is in our hands and declare that everything is in Heaven’s hands. Understand that the doctor heals and the soldier protects, yet explain passionately that only Torah and prayer protect and save (hence the thesis of “hishtadlut,” refuted from within). Understand that in the Haredi press the only correct thing is the date (unless there’s an interest in changing that too), and consume only it. Understand that the rate of sexual molestation in the Haredi world is horrific compared to the general population, and still praise wondrous Haredi modesty. Revolt against the attitude to women and at the same time accept it. Understand the distortion in Haredi social and political conduct, and yet not oppose it in practice and even produce pilpulistic arguments for it and continue voting for Haredi parties. Decisively fix principles of faith that one must not participate in government and must not appoint women to religious councils, and when a need arises flip everything on its head (“Da’at Torah” understands that now “It is a time to act for the Lord”). So too it will be with the draft when heavy economic sanctions are imposed. I promise you that “we will die rather than enlist” (i.e., you will die and we won’t enlist) will evaporate in a cloud.
Implication: The Failure of Discourse and Haredi Stagnation
Note what happens in a state of doubleness. Suppose I want to change Haredi attitudes toward women. I raise arguments and/or various sources in favor, and my interlocutor is persuaded. But all that means is that inside he has become a feminist. That has no bearing on what he will say or do from now on. Externally he lives with the consciousness of a Haredi conservative, and what is inside is merely the advice of the evil inclination. As is known, the intellect too is part of the inclination. Using one’s intellect is the most dangerous inclination. Look and see what the Haredi filters most rigorously filter out: pornography or other opinions. Why is a Haredi filter needed at all?! One can use a regular filter at the strictest levels.
If so, what blocks the move to create a modern Haredism is doubleness. What we must address is not arguments and sources but the tendency to live in doubleness—that is, not to implement what you yourself believe. This, in my view, is a golden insight for anyone who wants to promote processes of modernization among Haredim. Want to get a Haredi to enlist? There’s no point quoting “the groom from his chamber and the bride from her canopy,” or obligatory war, “helping Israel in time of trouble,” “shall your brothers go to war,” etc. You’re not attacking the problem on the right plane. Everyone knows all that, and even if not—it’s easy to inform them. The crucial problem is not how to get him to think so, but how to get him to act as he himself thinks. Haredi stagnation lies here.
To deal with this situation, it’s important to understand it better. We can suggest several reasons and different features of this doubleness, some of which I’ll now note.
Discourse with Haredim: Torah Scholars and Am-ha’aretzim
I’ve often written here that it’s much easier for me to discuss my radical views with conservative Torah scholars. They understand that there is room for the considerations and sources I bring. They can agree or disagree, but they understand what I’m talking about. In contrast, when I speak with balabatim, it’s a lost cause. For them, since they’re not Torah scholars, everything descended to us directly from Sinai. Whenever I go against some convention, I immediately become an apikores. My sources and arguments won’t help, because they stand against an explicit “halakhah from Moses at Sinai” (the obligation to wear a suit, women’s stockings, or just such-and-such halakhic stands). The problem is twice as bad when I speak with women. As is known, women are forbidden to study Torah, and thus their blessed ignorance is preserved. Now go present sources and arguments to show that a woman can serve as a rabbi, be called to the Torah, is not obligated to send her husband to kollel, may study Torah, and the like. All these are, in her eyes, laws from Moses at Sinai (via R. Shach and the Hazon Ish, with a salute).
Try to undermine Haredi articles of faith: the status of women; education; democracy and morality; the “Noah’s Ark” approach; attitudes to LGBTQ people and to the non-Jew (what is a non-Jew); someone mentioned in the Gemara can resurrect the dead; one who dies for his Judaism is holy; “turn it and turn it, for all is in it” (all wisdoms are in the Torah). There’s no one to talk to. The basis for these bizarre phenomena is the Hasid Ya’abetz myth, according to which those who stood the test at the time of the Spanish expulsion were mainly the amei ha’aretz/balabatim; the Torah scholars failed. Behold how important ignorance is for preserving our tradition. See column 62.
But here it’s not even doubleness. With women and other amei ha’aretz, the person is not even persuaded inside that I’m right. He can’t accept such arguments at all. The phenomenon of doubleness appears specifically among Torah scholars. As I described above, in the discourse I conduct with Torah scholars on various topics, in many cases they are willing to listen and hear my arguments, but in the end, bottom line, of course they won’t agree with the conclusion. Why not? Sometimes because I didn’t persuade them. But usually they won’t agree because there’s no connection between what they think and what is right and what one does in practice. That is the essence of doubleness. The reasons they’ll supply are varied: tradition says otherwise; the greats of the generation say otherwise; we are simply used to otherwise; or with no reason—I think inside X and continue to act as if I think Y. So what good is it to persuade him of X? I’ll achieve no change that way. Somehow we must attack the second layer: not persuade what to think, but address one who already thinks like you and try to get him to internalize that this indeed is his stance (free his imprisoned consciousness and doubleness and bring it out) and to do what he himself thinks.
Analytical Study and Halakhic Ruling
I think the root of the matter lies in the methods of study in yeshiva and kollel. When yeshiva students or kollel fellows learn iyyun (analytical study), they can raise any hypothesis, consideration, or argument; any interpretation, as creative as can be. The sky’s the limit. But when you want to know what to do, you turn to the Mishnah Berurah. “To settle the sugya in accordance with the halakhah” is taken to mean: study Torah entirely freely—but rule halakhah from a given, agreed-upon book.
But of course this is crooked. Many times in the past (see column 582 and elsewhere) I pointed out that “to settle the sugya in accordance with the halakhah” means: study the sugya and rule in accordance with the conclusion you reached in your learning. And if your conclusion isn’t like the Mishnah Berurah? Examine his view carefully and form a stance of your own. In the end you must act according to what came out for you. This disconnect between theoretical study and analysis and the practical conclusion is what underlies the doubleness also in Haredi thought and way of life. In yeshiva we got used to the idea that thought is free, but there’s no connection between the conclusions I reach and the truth and what I’m supposed to do. That is dictated by various know-it-alls.
This principle itself will, of course, be very hard for you to attack; it too is a “halakhah from Moses at Sinai.” But my conclusion is that the only way to crack Haredi stagnation is to attack that very idea: the disconnect between thinking and truth and actual conduct. We must persuade people that if they think differently from what is accepted, or from what the “greats of the generation” say, this is not desire or weakness. It is what that person thinks; it is his truth; therefore he must act accordingly. Those “greats of the generation” were appointed by the Yated Ne’eman system straight from the mouth of Heaven, preferably at an age when they can barely breathe and it’s not clear how aware they are that they are still in this world (that way the control over them is better). Every Haredi knows this, but it still doesn’t stop him from obeying everything they instruct. Doubleness, did I say?…
Markers of Doubleness
There are several phenomena that can serve as indicators or markers of mental doubleness. I’ll note two: absurd arguments and extreme conduct.
If you encounter absurd defensive arguments—especially when they come from someone who seems intelligent—know that he lives in doubleness. He is defending something he himself doesn’t believe. He knows inside that it’s nonsense, but finds himself obligated to defend that thesis because “that is the truth.” See columns 73, 655, 203, and more. This is somewhat reminiscent of the difference between a supporting (or maintaining) derash and a creative derash. In many cases, when the commentators encountered a very dubious derash, they explained that it’s a maintaining derash—the halakhah was known, and the derash came post factum. Their assumption is that a maintaining derash can be less persuasive, since if the result is known one can make do with dubious arguments that support it. So too here. In such discourse with Haredim you feel you’re talking to a wall. For your interlocutor, the conclusion is known in advance, and the only question is how to recruit an argument—however dubious—to support it. In those columns I discussed the phenomenon of arguments that are formally valid yet devoid of any sense and opposed to common sense. Here I add another phenomenon: arguments that lack validity even on their own terms.
Another indicator of a state of doubleness is extremism. In column 330 I noted that an extreme reaction usually reflects the fact that the ideas he fights against have found a foothold within him as well. He is fighting himself and projecting onto those outside. The more extreme the Haredi reaction, the more it is a battle over a principle that is less understood and grounded. When you see them defending a preposterous claim, the advice is to go out to jihad. Thus radio and television, then computers, the internet, SMS and smartphones, all magically became articles of faith of “be killed rather than transgress.” So too with the draft. Any reasonable, sane person understands that here too the Haredi thesis is utterly preposterous. That is exactly why they take to the streets with the militant declaration “we will die rather than enlist” (see the translation I gave above). Keep this rule in hand: the intensity of the battle reflects the weakness of the substantive arguments.
See the war against anyone who dares think—and especially if it moves into action—starting with Rav Leibel, continuing with Rav Inbal, and onward. The chief sin of these two fellows is that they deny the principle of doubleness, which is the supreme Haredi principle: it’s permitted (post factum) to think, but under no circumstances may one draw conclusions, and certainly not act on them.
So, in states of doubleness—when you yourself understand you have no real basis for the thesis you are defending—there are several techniques: crank out absurd arguments from anything at hand for your strange thesis; lean on supernal authorities and mysticism; negatively label anyone who opposes (that apikores); turn the thesis into an article of faith given directly at Sinai; and then go out to jihad. The other side of the coin is that all these techniques can serve as markers of a state of doubleness. If you see any of these, you can assume that the person before you lives in doubleness.
Treating States of Doubleness
A state of doubleness is seemingly immune to argument and persuasion. It’s a black hole with no way out. When you try to persuade someone to change his stance, you must raise arguments that attack his stance and support yours. But with someone living in doubleness, persuading him won’t help, because even if you succeed it will remain inside. He doesn’t conceive that he must also think and act that way. To try to move anything, you must address the second layer: freeing the imprisoned consciousness, or recognizing it and acting by it.
This process has two faces: (a) the psychological face—removing blockages so that the person will think and act as is clear to him himself; (b) the philosophical face—the person living in doubleness can wonder whether the truth lies with his imprisoned consciousness, or perhaps the inner (modern) consciousness is merely the advice of the evil inclination and the truth lies in the external consciousness that accompanies him in practice (the conservative one, “the instructions of the greats of the generation”). He tends to attribute to the inner consciousness a source in desire and see the external consciousness as the truth. We must persuade him that the situation is the reverse.
The first piece of advice is first to identify the state of doubleness, define it, and be persuaded that there is such a thing. Then one can try to diagnose it within yourself or in others. If you can explain this very state to a person, he can open up to the idea that perhaps he himself has an imprisoned consciousness. You can mirror this by looking at other people and groups—members of cults or pagan believers, toward whom we all feel they have an imprisoned consciousness and themselves understand that the thing doesn’t really work and isn’t really right. Then projecting inward to me can help me grasp that perhaps I too am in such a state.
Sometimes we can follow the path of the sage in the tale of the “Turkey Prince”: act on the practical plane and hope that “after the deeds the hearts are drawn.” See column 199. If you bring a person to behave in practice in a different way, at times it will dissipate the false consciousness within which he lives and open him to the possibility that his inner consciousness is the correct one.
Sometimes the obstacle is not intellectual doubt but a psychological blockage. A Haredi person fears losing the community and the sanctions it will impose on him. Here it’s important to see that the mountain is not always a mountain. Sometimes it’s a mouse seen as a mountain. From my experience, if a person acts in a way he himself is whole with, and he has well-formulated arguments for it, the Haredi environment respects it. There aren’t always immediate, heavy prices. I have not-bad experience here. Those fears often stem from lack of self-confidence and inner doubts. Inner confidence and integrity are received with greater respect and honoring outside as well.
Sometimes there are real fears about the results (not the social price). What if I’m wrong? What will be in the heavenly court? How can one arrive there “on the safe side”? And sometimes even if I understand that I’m right in principle, I see the prices of openness (the children secularizing, less fear of Heaven, halakhic sloppiness, etc.). Such fears can be addressed on several planes. First, one can point to the prices of living in doubleness itself. If you’re not whole with yourself, you don’t live well with yourself, and perhaps it’s also hard to convey that to your children and others. So it’s worth considering whether your beliefs differ from what you yourself think. Beyond that, even if you succeed in preserving commitment for your children and your piety, that fear of Heaven and that piety are devoted to the wrong God. You are very devoted to the wrong religion. The assumption that any price is worth paying for religious survival is preposterous. Finally, it isn’t true that prices exist only in open education. Closed education carries very heavy prices—sometimes far heavier than open education. Because that claim is so common (it came up at that parlor meeting), I’ll elaborate a bit more.
A Brief Discussion of the Costs of Closure
The most common claim in favor of Haredi conduct is that conservative education is more successful at preventing the secularization of students. Usually this claim is seen as a winning argument with no answer. It justifies all distortions and neutralizes all counter-arguments. It came up more than once at the parlor meeting too. Let’s examine the claim that seems so self-evident to so many.
First, it’s important to remember that all secularization we know today is the fruit of the conservative education given in past centuries. The Haredi inability to deal with Haskalah and the awakening in Europe in that period is what cooked up for us the products that surround us today—namely, the secular majority among Israel. I think this means the short-term survival achievements must still be examined in the long term. The intensifying disintegration these days indicates that a process has already begun. In the time of the Haskalah, the Haredi conceptions (“anything new is forbidden by the Torah”), which depicted everything new as treif and forbidden and refused to see even a sliver of value in it, set before the youth an impossible dilemma: be righteous (and foolish) or wise (and wicked). Small wonder that many chose wisdom over righteousness and abandoned their religious commitment. Such a faith I too would abandon. That situation is recurring today, and its bitter fruits are already evident and, in my view, will intensify unless Haredism gets a grip and wakes up. So closure and conservatism are a recipe for ruin in the long term. You may win your son/daughter with higher probability, but you lose all your other descendants in the long run.
Beyond that, even factually I’m not sure the picture is so clear-cut. As is known, there is a lot of secularization in the Haredi world. Part of it is outright secularization (there are indirect statistics, since in the Haredi world they don’t tend to address it and share data), and part of it is secularization under the frock coat and beard (the phenomenon of the “anussim”), for which it’s hard to produce statistics. The statistics that are published from time to time show secularization of not insignificant scope, not very different from secularization in the non-Haredi world. Haredism here presents a façade of success, with a frock coat under which lies a fairly hollow space. This too is an expression of the doubleness described above. For Haredim, if externally everything is in order, then there is no problem. This is hollow Judaism.
Furthermore, there’s a very powerful claim I haven’t seen made. The reason Haredi society survives as such is mainly its environment, which provides it with security, health, livelihood, funding and economy, various public services, and above all answers to its questions and difficulties. As is known, the perplexed of the Haredi world don’t go to R. Dov Landau with their questions, but to me. Ironically, I and my ilk have a not insignificant contribution to the survival of the Haredi world. I don’t think we properly understand the meaning of this situation, and I’ll try to sharpen it with a parable.
Think of a Haredi person presenting the following claim: it is far more reasonable and proper not to enlist, because Haredi youth who don’t enlist survive physically (remain alive) far better than youth in other parts of Israeli society who do enlist. As is known, among those who “give their souls” in the tents of Torah in Ponevezh there are very few who pay for it with their lives (that’s about like the slogan “we will die rather than enlist,” which of course is only said because there isn’t even a thought that they will be asked to pay that bill in practice—couch-potato self-sacrifice). The generals of Ponevezh apparently employ strategies far better than those of the IDF, hence their improved results. Would you accept such a claim? (By the way, I’ve heard it with my own ears more than once. I’ve often commented on the embarrassing level and the moral and ethical disconnect of Haredi arguments.) I dare assume you would not. Because the fact that you survive is only because others take the necessary risks and pay the prices required on your behalf.
So too here. If others didn’t study medicine and engineering, serve in the army and police, run all the economic systems—and also think and develop Jewish thought that offers answers to Haredim’s difficulties—Haredi society would not survive one minute. Absurdly, even the Judaism of Haredim is built on others, and certainly their physical existence. Therefore, to use the relative survival of Haredism as an argument against those paying the prices required to sustain it is infantile logic and anti-moral cynicism, at about the level of the draft argument above. It’s exactly the same thing.
And I haven’t even mentioned the terrible costs exacted by Haredi closure: the quantity of sexual offenses in Haredi society; the quantity of suffering and persecution of anyone different and anyone who dares think differently; the quantity of distress of those who don’t fit study; the poverty and suffering of parents who must mortgage their lives to buy an apartment for their sons and daughters so they won’t have to go out to work, God forbid; the racism and discrimination toward Mizrahim; the distress of women who bear an impossible burden and don’t receive answers to basic needs (including spiritual needs); and just the moral cost of parasitism toward the rest of Israeli society. And what about the cost of corruption of the Haredi establishment in every domain just to survive and continue controlling their captive flock? And of course there’s the intellectual cost of such a shallow, low, childish Jewish faith—filled with foolishness and darkness. The conceptual level of kindergarten children, called there “the pure hashkafah” (which came down from Sinai—what a terrible insult to God).
This intellectual closure and these horrific social and moral distortions are prices paid for that closure and that survival (which, as noted, may not even exist in true reality). Are you so sure it’s worth it? I am definitely not sure. Does it seem right to you not to keep Shabbat and not to eat kosher so that Judaism will survive? Then how are all the other commandments and values that are mortally harmed by Haredi closure any different, if these distortions are paid at the same price as preserving true Judaism? There is no logic to this.
Da’at Torah and the Authority of Sages
One of the main barriers to autonomous conduct—i.e., freeing the imprisoned consciousness—is the Haredi ethos of emunat hachamim (belief in sages) and the authority of sages. These are two different principles. Emunat hachamim is the conception that sages generally don’t err (what I’ve often called “substantive authority”)—not only in halakhah but in all areas of life. This is a baseless mystical conception that has undergone monstrous expansion in the Haredi world. The authority of sages is the conception that one must obey them regardless of whether they are right (what I’ve called “formal authority”). Its basis is in the Torah itself, “Lo tasur,” etc.; but it too has been wildly expanded: originally it applies only to the Sanhedrin; later it was extended to the Talmud; today it is attributed to the sages of all generations. It’s not clear how to relate these two assumptions on the map described above—are they part of the psychological barrier or the substantive layer? I think there’s a combination here of an authentic (but mistaken) belief that creates difficult psychological barriers.
I’ve often been asked how I dare disagree with the greats of the generation—those immersed in Torah day and night who have become very great Torah scholars (see for example here). There’s an assumption that they don’t err and that halakhic-learned wisdom carries added value in the general world. In light of what I’ve written, it’s clear that both assumptions are preposterous. One can bring opposing sources and prove that these assumptions lack any basis, certainly are not necessary. I think it’s very useful to demonstrate this via the conduct of various cults, where the members are convinced to place blind faith in the leader and anyone who deviates even slightly is labeled a heretic in the fundamentals. After showing that there is no real basis for these two assumptions, it’s easy to see the analogy between cult conduct and the Haredi world. It’s eye-opening reflection.
As an addendum, we can also attack the method of choosing and identifying the “greats of the generation.” Everyone knows it’s political manipulation by fixers. Everyone knows these are very elderly people who are not really attuned to what is happening around them. Everyone knows they make rather foolish decisions and that their abilities of thought outside the learned Talmudic realm are usually quite poor. If we can persuade a person of this, perhaps the way will open for him to free his imprisoned consciousness and rid himself of the assumption that “the greats of the generation” are by definition right, and therefore even if I think otherwise I must bend my opinion. This can also help rid oneself of the claim of formal authority.
Beyond all this, it’s very important to show the duty of autonomy—that even if those sages were right, as long as we’re not dealing with a Sanhedrin then not only do they lack authority and there is no duty to obey them, but each person has a duty to conduct himself as he himself thinks. This means his inner consciousness—even if it weren’t the right one (i.e., even if the “greats of the generation” were right)—should govern him. I’ve dealt with this more than once and won’t return to it here (see my article on authority and autonomy in halakhic ruling, column 626, and much more). I’ll just note briefly: a person is held accountable for his actions even if he relies on various know-it-all “greats of the generation.” No one excuses an ISIS man who slits throats because he merely obeyed his “great of the generation,” al-Baghdadi z”l. An adult bears a duty and responsibility to examine his path, and he cannot hang himself on other trees—tall or not. In the heavenly court the excuses that you relied on the view (or lack of view) of R. Dov Landau won’t help you. I assume they’ll ask you there why you weren’t Zusha.
Revolutions and Their Prices
Haredi people have often asked me: how and when will change come? How will we make the revolution? They wonder why I don’t go out to a more extreme world war (apart from writing on the site and other venues). I tend to rebuke such wonderers and tell them there is no revolution without prices. They expect others to make the revolution for them, but they are not prepared to pay any price. They won’t come out publicly because they’ll lose the matches, the kollel, the heder, the girls’ school, their social standing, and so on. This cowardice characterizes both rank-and-file Haredim and Haredi rabbis. I already mentioned what I read from Rabbi Tamir Granot (head of the Orot Shaul hesder yeshiva, a bereaved father and activist for drafting Haredim), who told that one of the prominent Lithuanian rabbis told him he is entirely right, but Haredi society is like a bunch of children that someone needs to save from themselves (see column 677). They expect others to do the work for them. That rabbi has matured and understands all this too, but he too will never go out publicly and say it clearly. And there are many more like him (I’ve met more than one or two). Haredi rabbis too are “captured children,” and they too are not prepared to pay the prices. It’s a society imprisoned within itself and imprisoning itself. Leaders are imprisoned by the led, and vice versa.
In the communist revolution and likewise in the Zionist revolution, people gave their lives on the altar of the change they believed in. There was insane self-sacrifice. In the Haredi world there is wondrous self-sacrifice of draft opponents who are willing to die rather than enlist (so long as it’s clear they won’t actually have to redeem that bill, of course). But I haven’t found that self-sacrifice among activists for change. Part of this is doubleness and the doubt that the inner consciousness is the advice of the evil inclination. I once heard in the name of the late Uri Elitzur that extremists have extreme self-sacrifice, and moderates have moderate self-sacrifice. We must understand there are no instant revolutions. Whoever wants a revolution must come out of the closet and be prepared to pay prices. Here no one is asked to give his life, nor anything close. There are prices—and I don’t belittle them—but no one will do the work for you. The only groups that improved their situation are those prepared to go against accepted dogmas and pay the required prices.
Maslow’s pyramid sets a hierarchy of needs. People engaged in basic needs won’t make time to invest in promoting higher ideas. A cobbler who works morning to night will generally not deal in philosophy and repairing society. Many Haredim grapple with not-simple difficulties in their lives—economic, social, personal advancement, philosophical and psychological suffocation, and so on. It’s no wonder they don’t tend to fix the world and are not prepared to partner in it. They are in distress and therefore seek help and answers mainly for themselves.
From my experience, even Haredim ready to join such efforts do so to advance their personal interests (education and schooling for their children, livelihood, and the like). You see this in the drafting of Haredim to the army, such as it is, which is mostly based on the fact that it opens avenues of schooling and livelihood for their future, not really from a desire to contribute to society and the army. That consideration is secondary, if it exists at all. The same holds for other activities aimed at advancing Haredim. The goal is always the Haredim themselves, not advancing society at large. The security and economic danger to the state is a consideration that doesn’t really speak to the Haredi public. It’s the same childish self-focus described in column 677.
The groups that managed to pull themselves out of the pit and advance their status were those that understood they must take their fate into their own hands and even pay prices for it. Moreover, they had to look with a wider gaze at the society in which they operate. So too with Haredim. To solve the problems of schooling and livelihood, they must free themselves from the childish gaze that focuses only on themselves and their distresses—even against Maslow’s pyramid. In the Haredi case it’s entirely clear, because the problems begin with the philosophy and descend to the ground. They imprison themselves because of their manner of thinking and conduct, and it’s not outside groups that restrict their steps. To change philosophy they must understand that their separatism and childishness are the root of the problem. Their conception of Torah is distorted and childish, and their leaders are “like the face of the dog,” as in the famous parable. Therefore, for Haredim this conceptual-ideological-philosophical repair is a necessary condition for repairing the smaller distresses. Involvement in the general society and participating and helping address its distresses are conditions for progress in their own. The combination of Maslow’s pyramid and the cowardice described leads Haredim to a childish self-focus. This is in fact a reflection of the “Noah’s Ark” approach that defines Haredism.
The “Third Path” movement, on whose behalf that parlor meeting was held, tries, among other things, to offer Haredim a connection to the outside world. For those prepared to join the effort, come out of the closet, and pay prices—there is a group here that will help. But no one will do the work for you. This requires treating doubleness—freeing the inner consciousness and realizing it in practice. Haredim are called upon to tear the existing shell and labels and move from the sociological prison to autonomous conduct; from sociology to essence altogether.