First of all, thank you for the detailed response!

I’m fairly young, 26, married with 3 children… Unfortunately, Rabbi… I also expect this of myself, as you said, but what can I do when psychological biases are what dictate my social conduct… I was not educated for thinking outside the box, all the more so not for living according to it…

A. Is there some article in which you summarized what you wrote at the end of your book The First Existent? And if not, where can I buy the book? [I live in Jerusalem].
Of course I don’t think the various films portray history exactly as it was, but I do think they base themselves on the historical knowledge available today [and exaggerate a bit]. People used to be much less critical in rational terms, and more gullible and prone to believe baseless theories [not that this has changed across the board today]. You wrote that within the conceptual framework you present in your book it is not reasonable that an entire people was deceived, but do you take that improbability seriously enough to fully commit yourself to the story?

C. I’ll try to ask my question again [apparently I didn’t explain it well enough before], and it divides into two parts:
1. All the experiences I know today, I also have definitions that define them [I haven’t gone through all of them yet, but at least for some of them, and for what I’ve gone through until now, it seems to me that I have definitions; and what I don’t have—I indeed do not currently accept 100 percent, if you ask me]. There are experiences I am incapable of having or imagining in my mind’s eye, but I am still capable of “defining” them. As I currently think—all concepts must be defined. If not, they simply do not exist; that is, the intellect will not accept them or be convinced of their truth.
2. The “revelation” that I’m told about—I simply do not understand at all [!!!] what it is I’m being told here. Maybe “revelation” means a feeling of love toward a certain star?… Or a feeling of submission before a great fire?… I have no idea what the content of the feeling is, and therefore I have no idea what lessons and messages I am supposed to take upon myself as a result of this “revelation.” I am aware of the consequences for those people who were present there and experienced it, but I have no idea whether they drew the appropriate lessons from the experience or learned things from it that were unrelated. In short: let’s say I believe the story of the experience of “revelation,” but why should I believe the meaning and interpretation they gave to that “revelation”? [And accordingly, also the conclusions they drew from it.]

D. Thank you very much indeed for attaching the article. I read it and delighted in its contents. I also identified very strongly with everything you wrote there about the Haredi public and its closed-mindedness. My only question is: how long ago was the article written? And since then, in your opinion, has there been any progress on the matter?

E. At the moment I’m in a society such that if I don’t have NetFree filtering on my computer, they won’t accept my daughters into the schools, and my wife will be very angry with me, and so on… Also, and consequently, I’ll absorb a lot of insult and humiliation etc. etc. I imagine you already know what I’m talking about… [Those coerced by reason…] I’m terribly “afraid” to do what I think I should do. I don’t know what will be… God help…
Is there no way at all to upload all of the Rabbi’s articles to some place that is open on NetFree, from which all Haredim interested in these contents could download them by link? I believe many could benefit from them…

Hello,
This fact—that we were not educated for something—is no excuse for anything. Pagans too were educated for idol worship, and secular people were educated for secularity, and so on and so on. A person is supposed to be capable of breaking free from the chains of education and society and acting according to his own understanding. I wrote not long ago on my site that among Haredim I repeatedly find a lack of courage. Many want change and even revolution, but nobody is willing to pay the prices required for that. So either they leave or they remain in the “closet.” But there are no instant revolutions, and revolution has a price.
Each such person has the feeling that society is to blame and that personally there is nothing he can do. But society is you and him and the totality of individuals. When each individual does not act properly, the result is a distorted society. Sorry for insisting, but I hear these things again and again, and it infuriates me. As I have written on the site more than once, a Soviet citizen bears responsibility for the conduct of the Soviet Union, even though an individual citizen there could not do anything. But the Soviet Union is the sum total of its citizens, and therefore even if an individual is not guilty, responsibility still exists for each one. (The difference between guilt and responsibility is a very important principle that many people miss.) I connected this, of course, to the men of Shechem in the story of Dinah. Note that a Haredi person is not expected to pay the kind of price a Soviet citizen would have paid for rebelling against his state (danger of death, torture, and loss of everything dear to him). Among Haredim it is a bit of social pressure, and at most reaching a situation where they would need to leave that society. In most cases it is simply fear that turns every mouse into an elephant. When you conduct yourself independently, מתוך inner confidence in your path, there is a decent chance that you will suddenly find that Haredi society manages to digest you, and suddenly you will see that there are others like you, and you may even find a match, and so on. When everyone is afraid and nobody dares break through these fences, that itself is what keeps the fences standing.
True, if we are talking about your wife not agreeing with the path, that is much harder. But sometimes in her case too it is only fear and habit, and so with her too one must work on courage (unless she truly disagrees at a deep inner level. For women this is of course harder, because they did not study and do not know that not every line they are fed came down to Moses at Sinai).

A. You can buy the book in Jerusalem. Call my wife, Dafna, at 052-3322444, and she will guide you. This is a whole set of considerations that begins with the plausibility of the existence of a philosophical God, because in my view this whole complex should be examined together and not each detail separately. The question whether an entire people can be deceived also needs to be examined through the overall prism, not in isolation. Of course there is no certainty about anything, but that is how it is in every area of life.

C. I did not understand what the problem is. The fact that I did not experience revelation does not mean anything. Just as a blind person does not experience sight. If he becomes convinced that someone else experienced it, he can believe him (and he can also choose not to). He does not need to know and experience it himself. I assume that if you are a graduate of Haredi education, you do not understand medicine, physics, or mathematics, and yet you believe people who build devices and create medicines on the basis of those fields.

D. The article was written long ago. As for progress, I do feel there has been some, but of course that is very subjective (I have not been inside Haredi society for many years). Various circles are developing within Haredi society, and it is learning to live with them (despite the wars and the anger, and perhaps because of them). I again refer you to the opening of this email.

E. See the opening of this email. I just now wrote on the site, in response to a similar question, that as far as I’m concerned it is my policy not to take these requests too much into account anymore. I get them very often. I do send materials by email to whoever asks, of course, according to request, but he needs to say exactly what he wants. But I do not make an effort to open an accessible platform (and I also do not know whether it would remain accessible, since the filtering there is ideological). I expect someone for whom this is important to make the effort himself and use a different internet and filtering service, and not surrender to ideological and political filtering imposed on that society for ulterior motives. It takes a bit of courage and willingness to pay prices. There are no instant revolutions.