Q&A: The Ethos of Life and Education of the Haredim
The Ethos of Life and Education of the Haredim
Question
Happy Purim,
Would the Rabbi agree that from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s critical stance against the ethos of bourgeois life one can also derive a critique of the ethos of Haredi life and education — that is, that raising Haredi children solely according to external goals and measures of success in learning, while ignoring the child’s nature, needs, and abilities, will shape a Haredi person whose humanity is diseased and hollow? Such a product of the Haredi educational system will grow up to be, at one and the same time, both depraved and miserable.
Depraved — because all he has before his eyes is success in learning, and on the way to achieving a selfish and spiritual goal he will also legitimize the most improper and despicable means.
Miserable — because the constant development of one’s sensors for spiritual rewards, alongside the atrophy of the sensors for one’s personal and inner needs and voices, will necessarily lead to self-betrayal, inner alienation, and the Haredi person’s estrangement from himself.
Such a Haredi person, in Rousseau’s view, is nothing but externality, falseness, and empty posturing. Any attempt to find the real personality within such a Haredi person will turn up only an image or a ghost?
Thanks in advance,
The student, Benjamin
Answer
I understand that this is part of the philosophy of education studies you’ve embarked on, and I, in my poverty, am not familiar with it. I’ll repeat here what I wrote in the parallel thread (about education and training). It’s not a good idea to harness everything you encounter to the struggle and criticism against the Haredim. That agenda-driven approach weakens the force of the criticism and makes it less credible.
Even here I share the criticism that in Haredi education the child’s own personality is not given enough room, and far too much emphasis is placed on the mold. But your extreme formulations are inaccurate and harmful to the critique.
I know quite a few Haredim who are not hollow, who do not betray themselves, and who are not alienated. They genuinely identify with the system (which I do not identify with), or at least think it is the lesser evil. It’s not worthwhile to generalize in such a sweeping and unconvincing way.
If you came out of that system (as I understand it, you too are a graduate of the Haredi system) and found yourself with criticism, there are others as well, in varying degrees. And even those who have no criticism at all — it may be that this truly is their position (one that you and I do not agree with). Not everyone who is not like you or me is an alienated robot with no personality.
I’m often accused of extremism and excessive sharpness in my criticisms of others, and I won’t deny that there is something to that. But note that I am not criticizing you for the extremism or the sharpness, but for the one-dimensionality and agenda-driven way in which you portray reality. It seems to me that this is harder to find in my own writing. And as our sages already said: life is not a guava (there, there).