Q&A: An Honest Questioner
An Honest Questioner
Question
You wrote in some comment:
“This is probably trolling indeed.
Most Haredi rabbis also support the current coalition and the corrupt hacks in their parties. Most of them also forbid texting on a phone and *think you need to wear all kinds of ridiculous clothing unsuited to the weather*. They think lots of other things too. So because these or those rabbis think something, that makes it binding?”
Now I’m really asking. Not to troll. You’ve gone through a lot of changes. You deny providence, and that has logical implications (for instance, backing away from your view on hermeneutics is probably a direct result).
But the statement about clothing: you yourself dressed that way and were part of that public (more or less) 15–20 years ago.
Not that I think there’s any commandment to dress that way, but really, why do you hate them so much?
Would you have written that text 20 years ago? What changed? Back then people wanted to dress that way for various reasons, and today too, I assume, for the same reasons.
How does a change of opinion about providence lead to such hatred toward people who once shared the study hall bench with you? Was there some other fundamental change of opinion?
If this is too personal a question you can (of course..) delete it.
Thank you
Answer
First of all, I never dressed that way. It always seemed like nonsense to me. I was indeed part of that society, because at the time I thought its advantages outweighed its disadvantages. I’ve matured since then. Beyond that, here I was only illustrating why the question whether one should obey rabbis’ opinions on such matters is foolish. The change in my view about providence has nothing whatsoever to do with my attitude toward the Haredim. I don’t react this way to everyone who holds a different position from mine. My attitude toward the Haredim stems from the fact that Haredi society conducts itself in a vicious way. And that attitude is toward Haredism, not toward the specific people, among whom there are very good people and less good people, like in any society. I do indeed loathe Haredism to the depths of my heart, because in my view it is the most corrupt and vicious society that exists in Israel. And again, these remarks refer to Haredi society, not to Haredi individuals. Most of them are like captured infants.
Discussion on Answer
To the simple questioner.
Are you really trying to understand feelings of profound hatred using logical tools?
At some level, it could be that the hatred comes from jealousy. Rabbi Michi came to an inner realization that he would never succeed in positioning himself, with all his oddities and intellectual deviations, in the chain of tradition and gain legitimacy from the Haredi public. That rejection leads to hatred. And the more absolute the rejection, the deeper the hatred.
Notice that it’s hard to get expressions of affection and love out of Rabbi Michi. He also hates the Hardali public with profound hatred. (By the way, Rabbi Michi, whom do you hate and despise more? It seems to me that he despises the Hardali public even more, like his friends on the left.)
So it’s not because of “not sharing the burden” or all that sort of thing; it’s a hatred that stems from frustration and an inability to belong to any group whatsoever.
An inability to belong to a group usually comes from arrogance, stemming from the thought that he is superior to others because of his impressive intellectual abilities, and therefore it is beneath his dignity to belong to a group that is also made up, in his eyes, of inferior people.
People like this, as the years go by and they don’t receive recognition for their superiority, become more bitter and their hatred intensifies. In the end they grow old while becoming alienated even from members of their own family.
And in one word — pity.
If this pathetic psychologizing weren’t about me, it would have been deleted.
Someone once said that Haredim are the first case of Torah without basic decency.
If we’re discussing the Rabbi’s hatred of the Haredim, in my opinion it comes from the fact that the Haredi leadership [the rabbis and all the rest] doesn’t relate seriously either to people or to itself, and therefore they behave with a particular kind of malice, which they justify by saying that if we don’t do such-and-such no one will be religious, and so on every question on every subject they answer, “Our master the Rabbi of blessed memory said such-and-such.” There is no original thought about anything [except money], because the world and everything in it is vanity and emptiness, and Jewish law is merely a social function and nothing more, and their great fear is change—not because of righteousness, but simply because most of them depend on the institutions of the rabbis / activists, etc. I wrote this in a mixed-up way, but anyone who knows the subject will understand even from shorthand.
I also join the questioner’s request. I already once asked the Rabbi to explain the problems of the Haredi public regarding the army, work, culture, and the Rabbi compared it to not needing to write about Hitler because it’s obvious. The last question proves that apparently it isn’t.
As explained above, Chairman of the Tiny Ones
Michi, I wish you one thing (which is really what I wish everyone) — *that God will judge you.*
My general bet is that God’s judgment includes first and foremost where the heart is, and only afterward commandments.
For intellectual preoccupations connected to Torah study that give pleasure to the person himself, in my opinion there is no reward at all.
And who determines the heart? Mine doesn’t have a fixed place. Does yours?
Since we’re already dealing with psychologizing about Rabbi Michi and his loathing of the Haredim (or Haredi society or mentality), I too will share my view:
First of all I have to say, based on some acquaintance with Rabbi Michi, that he is not strange and has no intellectual deviation whatsoever (there is no such thing). He is not a heretic and not an apikorus (I think. One has to understand exactly what an apikorus is and what exactly is wrong with that in order to decide). But he is somewhat frivolous toward the pre-Torah intellectual world of the Sages.
His loathing for Haredi society is built mainly on a kind of betrayal by that society against him, plus indeed a certain maturing in how he perceives it. I should note that I was never part of that society, and for a large part of my life I truly loathed Haredim and its self-righteous mentality (and that of the Hardali society), and I still loathe it today. I understand and completely justify his loathing because of the betrayal, although it stemmed from his failure to understand the mindset of that society, and it was probably the trigger for his development. But—and this is a big but—his loathing of it led him into madness and loss of common sense. First of all in his preference for the Arabs, who have the same mentality and in addition are wild people lacking culture, which makes no sense at all. And secondly in his de facto joining the progressive left, which is anti-national and anti-common-sense, anti-truth, and anti-justice in general.
I should note that today I understand somewhat more the attitude of Haredi society toward the rest of the public here, though I still do not justify it. Their not serving in the army, on the other hand, I completely justify. What has become clear to me in recent years is that almost all senior IDF commanders (like almost all senior people in public service) are not worthy of any Hebrew mother (Jewish woman) sending her children to fight under those commanders. They want more to be global Jews (“little Jews,” as it’s called) and to go on trips abroad than to safeguard the lives of their soldiers, and I say this with great sorrow. In fact, in light of the rise of the religion of progressivism, the Haredim seem entirely righteous. And apparently they grasped at the founding of the State with whom they were really dealing (then communism was the ruling religion). In short, the left is (and very possibly always was) not just normal secular people who want to live well, but fanatical religionists who see nothing beyond themselves. And when Rabbi Michi supported them in practice (even if not in thought), that had its effect. Society influences a person, and these are among his friends at Bar-Ilan. Consequently their hatred of Haredim and Hardalim and religious people and Mizrahim, and above all of the people of Herut, disciples of Jabotinsky and Begin—a hatred that knows no bounds—has stuck to him as well. Today it already seems that he hates all of these, because otherwise I have no logical explanation for his behavior. At this rate, in the end he will also actively join the enemies of the Jewish people.
In any case, because of the left today I am a bit more forgiving and understanding of their conduct, although they still don’t understand their situation and in the end sabotage their relations even with their allies on the right. That’s what happens when everyone becomes your enemy and you care about nothing except your community, and ultimately only yourself. But the left is even worse than they are even on that parameter. It simply has no community at all, and there each person really cares only for himself. They have no concept of communities.
Correction: in the previous comment, in the last paragraph,
“In any case, because of the left today I am a bit more forgiving and understanding of his conduct …” — instead of “his” it should be “their.”
But Yosef, you’ve already written this hundreds of times.
But why so much? Why corrupt and vicious?
And especially—what’s different from 20 years ago? Did maturing really open your eyes that much?
I honestly find it hard to understand why the change is so extreme, from someone who is part of that society (because it has advantages) to loathing it to the depths of your heart. And practically speaking, they haven’t changed all that much in recent years.