Q&A: Where can one study the teachings of a religious person who wants to be free in an orderly way?
Where can one study the teachings of a religious person who wants to be free in an orderly way?
Question
Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time around universities, and I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon.
There are lots of religious people who go off the rails, and pretty quickly, in the whole university environment. It seems that all the years they studied in yeshiva, and the path they tried to build for themselves, fell apart within a year and didn’t hold water. I’m talking about people who studied in advanced yeshivot, studied Torah, and came from strong religious homes.
All the temptations, the single life, and the goal of “studies,” which on the face of it seems clear and concrete, simply pull them in a secular direction.
I think one of the major ills in religious society is that over the years all kinds of added voices and bans have accumulated, such as refraining from physical contact, legumes on Passover, absolute separation between men and women, three prayers a day, meat and milk (honestly, I laugh out loud at everything connected to that—people have simply become excessively strict with themselves), etc., things that simply do not fit the modern person, and for a large portion of people are impossible to maintain over time.
The problem is that there’s no clear middle path. Very few voices come out against prayers, against one stringency or another. And for me, as a “light” religious person who wants to be truly religious and Orthodox on the one hand, to observe everything as it really should be observed, but on the other hand doesn’t want to be strict about anything—
I want to be free and liberated from all these social ills. For a person like me, there is no guide, no halakhic decisor, no such Shulchan Arukh.
All that remains for me is to grope around in the dark and figure it out on my own.
My question is: where can one study the teachings of a religious person who wants to be free in an orderly way?
Answer
You’re asking where the shackles of the free religious person are? Where does one learn what a person should do if he doesn’t want to do what he should do?
I assume you meant a religious person who wants to do what he should and not what he shouldn’t. Free only from imaginary shackles, not from the real ones.
That is learned in yeshiva. That’s where one studies Torah and Jewish law, and there one can see what is obligatory and what is not. To be “free” without knowing Jewish law is being light—meaning, not really religious. I’m reminded of something Leah Shakdiel, who is well known to our students at the Be’er Midrasha in Yeruham, once said. She said that the people of the religious kibbutz, at the beginning of their path, did not want a rabbi for the kibbutz. Their way of doing that was not to be “light,” but the opposite: to become Torah scholars so that they could rule for themselves.
Discussion on Answer
You have unrealistic and incorrect expectations of a yeshiva and a Torah institution. They are supposed to teach you how to learn and make the halakhic literature accessible to you, not teach you the bottom lines. Of course many do try to do that too (especially in pre-army academies, where it’s impossible to really study seriously), but you don’t have to play their game. Learn the tools and the sources, and then formulate positions on your own. As for classes dealing with whether Arabs need to be fixed—I wouldn’t walk into them. In any case, a pre-army academy is certainly not the right institution for this, but yeshivot definitely are. Pre-army academies are basically 13th grade of high school and give you nothing besides preaching. You don’t get abilities and skills there.
To the questioner:
I didn’t understand—according to you, one doesn’t need to refrain from physical contact, pray three prayers a day, and follow Jewish law regarding the separation of meat and milk? And who said there is no obligation to pray if you don’t believe in providence?
Rabbi, you’re telling me there’s no way, other than to go out and study again in a Torah institution.
That’s something I’ve thought about:
The problem is that for someone my age, around 27, there’s nothing to look for in a yeshiva. There really aren’t any organized Torah frameworks for people my age,
and I need something structured. True, I have a brain (with God’s help, probably a doctorate in the exact sciences next year), but I haven’t opened a page of Talmud in about 9 years, I’m not at all familiar with Torah literature, and I don’t know how to learn or what to learn. I can’t just land in some study hall and learn.
The only things I know are various institutes for the newly religious (for example, Machon Meir). I’m not newly religious, and I’m pretty sure that specifically there I’d become secular. I’m a very practical person; I’m not looking for people to mess with my head with all kinds of inconsistent and illogical ideas.
You can’t have it both ways. If you want to make informed decisions, you first have to study. You can’t form such firm positions as you expressed here without having the tools to do so. That’s not serious.
If it doesn’t suit you to actually enter a yeshiva, then do it in your free time and gradually, at a pace that suits you. But make sure to keep progressing and to acquire skill, not just knowledge. When you’re competent, you’ll be able to formulate and express positions on these issues.
As I wrote to you, when you go to a yeshiva or another place to study Torah, you don’t have to accept their mindless chatter. Focus on learning skill and halakhic skill.
Where will they teach me, from the foundations, things like this for example:
Will they teach me about principles of faith and explain to me that there is no reason to pray if you do not believe in providence, and that lack of belief in providence does not contradict your being a believing person?
I don’t know of things like that apart from the blog here and the Rabbi’s books.
By contrast, I remember that in my pre-army academy they taught me all kinds of nonsense and drivel, for example: “Arabs need to be fixed.” I think every Torah institution will simply waste my time for nothing.
What institution won’t waste my time on such nonsense?