Q&A: Again about the Haredim…
Again about the Haredim…
Question
In the context of your criticism of the Haredim:
The main objection to it is not that the shortcomings in Haredi society are untrue. Likewise, many in the Haredi public are themselves aware of and pained by this criticism. One can even find a bit of reference to this criticism between the lines among some of its thinkers [for example, in Rabbi Wolbe’s Alei Shur there is some reference to it]. a0
Rather, despite the great and painful shortcomings, there is no preferable alternative.
A good example is Rabbi Kanievsky, who indeed in certain areas has extremely weak knowledge and understanding [to put it mildly…]
But the reason that apparently caused this weakness is the same reason that caused his virtue as a person with rich Torah knowledge, who devotes most of his life to Torah and reverence.
The question is whether one prefers religious qualities, even though the very thing that builds those qualities leads to major shortcomings on the human level [and perhaps even the religious level too, though it seems that this deficiency is smaller than the advantages, at least the religious ones, in the Haredi view].
Although I myself tend to think that we have indeed reached a point where the shortcomings in the Haredi outlook have become too great, because the public has become too foolish, and the disadvantages outweigh the advantages,
that still does not mean that the Haredi outlook is fundamentally mistaken, but rather that this is a call for criticism that will lead to a change in dosage. That is, more openness, which will lead to more general wisdom, even though such a process may lead to a painful decrease in Torah and reverence.
The main point of what I am saying is that the Haredi outlook [at least the basic one] recognizes the shortcomings, but is always in conflict over whether to prefer the advantages, which are religious qualities, despite the disadvantages of this approach.
And this question is the center of gravity that needs to be analyzed: what is preferable? [Of course, implicit in what I am saying is the assumption that there is a contradiction between the two things and that it is hard to combine them together. But that seems to be quite well proven, because one cannot deny the Torah qualities that exist in the Haredi public.]
Answer
An important question, and I don’t have sharp criteria for it. But still I’ll make a few comments (and I’ve written about this more than once in the past).
1. Haredi society sanctifies the shortcomings (ignorance, poverty, lack of contact with the world and with one’s surroundings), and doesn’t merely put up with them. This hardly exists in any other public. The modern public does not merely resign itself to the need for work and education, but actually believes in them. There is a difference between accepting a situation after the fact and sanctifying it.
2. I have never doubted the important need for Torah scholars who are immersed in the four cubits of Jewish law. Everyone needs the “masters of wheat,” and without the devotion of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and the like to Torah, it is hard to grow that way (even if in my view this is not the main model for greatness in Torah, and this is not the place). I’ve written this more than once. See, for example, at the end of my interview with Dr. Roi Yuzvitz, and in the eulogy for Rabbi Elshayiv Knobel. But these people should not be given leadership or status that enables them to give instructions about day-to-day conduct. Let them sit in their room and answer questions in Torah study, or simply study, and all of us will support them with a handsome salary, as befits such elevated people.
3. Even if the benefit of the falsehood is great, that does not necessarily justify it. The moral costs of ingratitude, living a lie, parasitism, lack of understanding of reality, living on empty slogans, etc., are a heavy price in my opinion.
4. An incorrect belief cannot be justified by the fact that it is stable. The value is to preserve the correct belief, not to preserve belief even if it is not correct. The question is whether considerations of survival are not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
5. Benefit does not justify any price. Maimonides says that someone who fears he cannot avoid sin should flee to the deserts. Nobody does this, and nobody recommends doing it either. If someone cannot avoid speaking slander or lies, let him live in a cave, that’s all. Why not, really? Because the Torah was not given to ministering angels. The Torah is meant to be implemented in life, meaning in the world that the Holy One, blessed be He, created. And if there are problems, they must be dealt with, not escaped from. Therefore the utilitarian considerations that are raised as an ultimate justification are far from convincing me, even if they were correct.
6. I’m not at all sure that the overall benefit is indeed greater in Haredi life. First of all, the entire secular world around us came out of there—from lack of coping with the Enlightenment and from isolationism. So even if in the short term it looks safer and more survivable, I’m a great believer in the survival of an open world. In the long term it is safer and more survivable because it learns to cope. Adaptation. Haredi society will pay (and is already paying) heavy prices for its policy, and I’m not at all sure that the total benefit, even in sheer survival terms, is really greater. The Sadducees were very conservative and opposed the innovations of the Pharisees (midrashim of Jewish law, etc.). So too Rabbi Eliezer, who never said anything he had not heard from his teacher and refused to accept the innovations of his colleagues. Check the survival of those groups. It’s roughly the same debate as between capitalism (a free economy) and socialism (a managed, centralized economy).
7. A continuation of the previous point: your assumption is that a person should preserve himself in the short term even if there will be prices—both for Haredi society itself and for the Jewish people—in the long term. I advocate open education that takes risks in the short term in order to improve our situation in the long term (even if my own children abandon faith and commitment, all of our grandchildren will benefit from it). This is, of course, in direct opposition to the Haredi outlook, in which everyone looks out for himself and let the world burn.
8. In several columns in the past I pointed out that if you define a utility function by the person’s own desire, then there is no irrational person. Every person who does something, however foolish, did it because that is what he wanted. So from his point of view the utility function was fulfilled optimally. A person invests a million dollars in a lottery that yields a hundred dollars with a probability of 0.01. Is he irrational? He simply does it because he enjoys it. Therefore by definition he is rational. What I mean is that any nonsense can be justified by saying there is some indirect benefit that outweighs the nonsense. The question is whether that holds water. In my opinion, absolutely not. I assume that from the Haredi perspective it does, but as I said, that doesn’t matter to me, because one can just as well claim that every person is rational from his own perspective.
9. Even the benefit that the Haredim derive is not a result of Haredism but of the fact that around them there is a non-Haredi society that sustains them in a great many ways. Therefore this benefit is not a success of Haredism but an exploitation of the surroundings. That success (to the extent that it is a success) belongs to society as a whole. By the same token, the success of Haredism (which, as I said, I do not agree exists at all—but I’m speaking according to your view) shows that I too (= the secular person, the gentile, the Religious Zionist, etc.) am right, since without me Haredism would not succeed.
10. There is much more to say about this, but this is not the place. In closing, I’ll just say that I also do not agree that there is necessarily a contradiction between sensible, rational conduct and religious-spiritual success. It is possible to improve at least quite a few of the aspects without necessarily harming the success (which in your view exists there). At least that is how it seems to me.
I tried to sketch a few main points. Each of them deserves much discussion, but I think they are enough to show that utilitarian considerations are not necessarily correct, and even if they are correct they are not necessarily the right criterion for conduct. I think that is the main point at issue between us. In a certain sense, it sums up the ten points I wrote.
Discussion on Answer
You wrote in claim 1 that “the Haredi public sanctifies the shortcomings.”
In my opinion, this assumption also underlies your claim in point 3: “living a lie, parasitism, lack of understanding of reality, living on empty slogans, etc.”
You assume that Haredi society sanctifies its shortcomings—or more precisely, that the creators of the Haredi outlook sanctified the shortcomings despite being aware of them, in order to preserve Haredi society. And therefore you rightly claim that this is basically living a lie.
I won’t deny that such a public does indeed exist within Haredi society [in a rough and general way, this public is called “the Bnei Brak crowd,” usually graduates of Ponevezh Yeshiva, which is a mother-yeshiva for other yeshivot in its image]. But there are many in the Haredi public [and even in the conservative Bnei Brak public, when it matures…]
There is also a large public within Haredi society [again, roughly speaking, graduates of Hebron Yeshiva and many others like it] that is indeed aware of and pained by the shortcomings. It does not sanctify the shortcomings, but is pained by them. And it does not live a lie or on empty slogans. Rather, it is aware that a heavy human price has to be paid in order to excel in religious qualities.
For that style of “Haredism,” of course, claims 1 through 4 do not apply.
This claim also greatly softens your criticism in point 6. If we assume awareness of the many shortcomings in Haredi society, and with clear eyes one still prefers the religious advantage over the other virtues, survival will be greater. [The examples you gave are of conservative groups that thought there was value in conservatism itself, and that there were no advantages in the other public. According to the lines I’m describing, the Haredi public defines conservatism not as a virtue but as a necessity. Therefore it is aware of the advantages in the non-conservative public, but still prefers the advantages in conservatism, even though its basis is not correct [since a society needs development]. But nevertheless it prefers conservatism out of necessity in order to preserve religious qualities.]
In point 7 you wrote: “in direct opposition to the Haredi outlook, in which everyone looks out for himself and let the world burn.”
Again, I’m sorry, but in my opinion you built a straw man and are attacking it.
Countless times I have heard from thoroughly Haredi rabbis that a Haredi person is supposed to be in constant tension—between the situation that a person ought to influence society and be a public-minded person, and the need to raise the person as a private individual.
The conflict between these two poles means, of course, that a person is supposed to be conservative—that is, not open to his surroundings—but at the same time he is indeed supposed to have influence.
That is the true Haredi outlook, and not, as you say, that everyone just looks out for himself. Rather: how can I preserve myself and still exert influence?
A major expression of this outlook is the large number of outreach organizations in the Haredi sector [as far as I know, even more than in the Religious Zionist sector], out of an understanding that a person ought to influence and not merely preserve himself.
Point 9—you are right that the general public does indeed help Haredism. What is flawed about that? Clearly the secular public helps the Haredi public. But why does that show that the outlook of openness is correct? In my opinion there is a confusion here between assistance—the general public does indeed help—and being right.
Regarding points 5 and 10 [and this also softens point 11]:
I do indeed agree with you [as I noted in the question] that there is an extremism in Haredi society that causes irrationality. But the walls were not intended for irrational or inhuman conduct, and therefore that does not mean that the core of Haredism is incorrect. Let me explain a bit:
Indeed, there is no contradiction between rationality and sensible conduct on the one hand and religious success on the other. Rather, the contradiction is between a world full of stimuli, both material and intellectual [at least before a person has acquired self-criticism], and religious seriousness. [Parenthetically, in my opinion the focus is on materiality; for example, even as someone with a Haredi outlook, I would prefer that my grown child enter a site with heretical arguments [hopefully high-quality ones…] rather than porn sites.]
Therefore I think that the walls really do need to be lowered, so that conduct will be sensible,
but not shattered. Lowering the walls in order to increase wisdom and humanity and not to flee from life. But on the other hand, even though the lower walls that remain will indeed reduce wisdom [though people will not be blatantly unwise, and certainly not stupid as in part of the public],
still, despite the shortcomings that will result from the walls, it is preferable that these shortcomings exist in order to increase religious qualities by distancing stimuli [and not logic, as you understand it to be for]. Again, this point sharpens the fact that a person always has to live in conflict between the two poles: conservatism as a necessity, and the deficiency within conservatism. [In my opinion, this is the explanation of Maimonides’ words.]
Here you are falling into a common error in discussing the characteristics of a society. Of course there are exceptions, and of course every description is neither exact nor complete. The question is whether there are characteristics here that are essential to this public. My claim is that there are.
Regarding 7: being torn, but not doing anything about it. That is exactly what I was talking about. That feeling of inner conflict is a tremendous help to the Jewish people.
As for the rest, I’ve said what I had to say, and the reader may choose.
Regarding your first claim—it’s strange that you construct Haredi society the way you want to construct it, and then attack it. As someone who is inside Haredi society, the essential characteristics you build are simply not correct for a large part of it.
But that is not my concern here. My claim is that we are not discussing only Haredi society, but the Haredi outlook as an ideal. And for that, one has to formulate what the ideological outlook of that way of life really is, and only then argue with it.
After that stage, one can discuss whether there is in fact a match between the abstract outlook and its realization in reality.
My main claim against you is that you skip the first stage [you don’t try to distill what the conceptual basis of that outlook is, or alternatively you raise one possible definition but it is not the correct one], and jump to the second stage [diagnosing how Haredi society actually behaves]. And in my opinion, as a result of this you have two flaws:
1. You define the Haredi outlook by a certain outcome, and therefore you think they behave in a certain way. If you had formulated their outlook differently, you would see their behavior differently…
2. Therefore you call for shattering the conduct of the society, rather than refining its conduct. Before claiming it should be shattered, one must define what exactly is being shattered at the conceptual level too, and not only how the idea was realized. To shatter a certain mode of society, one has to check where the basis of the society’s mistake lies: whether the form of expression and realization of the Haredi ideal is wrong [as I think], or whether the Haredi ideal and philosophy of life are wrong [as you think].
You are arguing for shattering the conduct and mode of expression of the Haredi ideal, because you are arguing with the way it conducts itself. But you have not shattered the Haredi ideal as it is really formulated, only as it is sometimes formulated by its practical realization [as I answered you when defining what the Haredi idea is, and for some reason you thought I was trying to define Haredi society rather than the Haredi ideal].
And therefore the way of life has not been shattered either; rather it needs to be refined, since you have not shattered the abstract outlook underlying Haredi society.
As for your second claim, that Haredi society does nothing with that sense of inner conflict—I also do not understand it.
1. Haredi society focuses the world around a religious outlook, and therefore in that area it does a great deal within the general public, as I noted: Haredi outreach organizations do a great deal, even more than the Religious Zionist public [even if one can argue that their method is mistaken. But still, your claim that they do nothing with the sense of inner conflict is contradicted by their activity].
2. If you are looking for material help, then indeed Haredi society has less influence. But that is not because it does not care, but because its main capacities are religious.
And an expression of this is that there are many charitable organizations operating in Haredi society, far beyond their proportion in the population. And the reason is that in the ways they can help, members of Haredi society do help, in order to compensate for that sense of inner conflict.
I hinted at this, but it’s important to sharpen it:
11. The Torah qualities that exist in the Haredi public are indeed high, but this is only one narrow Torah facet. In my opinion, a narrow horizon also means narrow Torah greatness. In my view, Torah greatness today includes an understanding of the world and broad education. Combining all of these in study and in halakhic ruling produces results of much higher quality than complex moves of Brisker-style learning (and no one can suspect me of not liking that or not seeing its importance. I’ve praised it more than once).