Q&A: Your opinion on this post by Rabbi Ido Fechter
Your opinion on this post by Rabbi Ido Fechter
Question
He presents the phenomenon of becoming less religious and proposes a solution for it. Do you agree with the direction he is presenting?
A letter to someone becoming less religious
You’re going through stormy days. Your parents educated you for many years in a certain path. You studied in religious institutions. You accumulated knowledge in Torah. You came to know halakhic life from the inside. Prayer, Sabbath, kashrut, a kippah, blessings, tefillin, refraining from physical contact, and many other Jewish laws had already become second nature to you, to the point that it’s hard to imagine you any other way. But you no longer find any sense or meaning in it, and you want to stop and leave.
But the price is heavy. If you decide what you decide, you are not only leaving religion. You’ll manage with God. You are also leaving the family, with a kind of feeling of betrayal. Your parents raised you in a certain way, and now you are abandoning it. You are disappointing them, hurting them. From now on, you will be marked as the different child; the one who left the path, who did not remain faithful to the track laid out for him. You will be the subject of quite a few conversations and bits of gossip in the community and in the synagogue.
But in your mind, the exact opposite thoughts arise. It’s not that you are leaving the path; it is they—and in fact the whole world around you—who have left the path. You, by contrast, want to be authentic; not to do things just because someone said or wrote that they should be done, but because there is value in them. And you don’t understand what the value is in so many of the things religious people do.
You do not accept the simplistic explanations that celebrity rabbis provide. And you are right. There really is no proof for the existence of God, and the revelation at Mount Sinai cannot be proven in any way either. You are also right that the editor of the Mishnah, the editors of the Talmud, the author of the Shulchan Arukh, or the Mishnah Berurah, were human beings, like me and like you. They did not receive the Torah they wrote through divine revelation, and even if they did—why should one person’s revelation obligate me today to do something I do not want to do?
You are also right that there are many things in religion that are hard to accept. How is it that in a world that grants women equal rights, a woman is not counted for a prayer quorum, and if she wants to separate from her husband she must wait until he agrees to release her? What is this disgusting religious politics, inside the rabbinical courts, in the Knesset, and in the Chief Rabbinate? How is it that in the name of religion—so as not, God forbid, to stumble over the laws of slander—people protect those who sexually abuse women and children? How did kashrut become a corrupt system whose main thing is money?
And alongside the criticism, the world outside is more alluring than ever. You identify freedom there, and a lot of fun. Yes, fun, and also pleasure. And those are not dirty words. Why choke life instead of celebrating it, if we can? Why adopt an anxious life of Jewish law when it is possible to live a much more open and relaxed life? And little by little you also discover that it is not like what they told you in yeshiva high school. Secular people are also good, moral, idealistic people, and sometimes they are actually more sensitive in matters between one person and another than the religious people you knew. So why not join their camp?
No, if you expect me to answer all the good questions you are asking, that will not happen. Not because I have nothing to say, and you may be surprised—with much of your criticism I identify as well. The point is that I do not think this is primarily an intellectual matter. What you are experiencing, in my opinion, is not only a matter of thought, such that a convincing answer would satisfy it. Even if I prove to you that there is a God (and as stated, I cannot), or that there was a revelation at Mount Sinai (and as stated, that too I cannot), that is not what will “bring you back to the path.” I think what you are mainly experiencing is a crisis of trust in relation to your family and your community, that feeling that the path they led you on is not necessarily the one that is right for you, and that the world is opening up many advanced possibilities to you that until now were denied you. Something inside you has become detached from its root.
What I do want to suggest to you is to open your thinking and your consciousness to a third possibility. Life does not have to be “either-or”: either you are religious or you abandon the path and become secular. It does not have to be either to take off the kippah completely or to keep it on. I want to suggest another possibility, a softer one, of a continuum. After all, you know, like I do, that alongside the great criticism of the religious system and establishment, there are many beautiful and uplifting things there. There are moments when prayer does manage to touch us. Sitting around the table on Sabbath and playing Takki with the family, without everyone being busy with their phone or running off on an outing—that is lovely and deep. There are also rabbis whom you do manage to appreciate and see as role models. Holidays can cast over us an atmosphere of holiness and spiritual elevation, and Torah study too can stir the mind and fill us with meaning. But above all, no one really wants to leave the family and identification with it.
I suggest a different path, in which you do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. You do not have to remain exactly as you were raised, but you also do not have to disconnect. It is possible to choose a softer option—to keep holding on to the good that you do see, and to do other things that you choose to do. Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that in many cases Jewish law knows how to contain and accept things that today are not even imagined. There is a much broader range of opinions than what is presented today in Jewish law. There are approaches and customs that are not sufficiently exposed. But it is not your fault that you do not know this; it is the fault of the teachers of Jewish law, who did not educate you to know them.
Instead of feeling that you need to make a decision—take it off or not take it off, keep or not keep—let us relate to what you are going through as a journey. Yes, even I, who am deep within the religious world, am on a journey. Like you, I wonder about God and religion. I ask questions and raise doubts, sometimes finding answers and sometimes not. Sometimes I am at a spiritual peak, and sometimes I am down below, feeling detached and alienated. But I do not feel that I have to decide all the time. Because I know that I am on a journey of personal clarification that will accompany me all my life, a bit like Abraham our forefather or the Jewish people in the wilderness. And the truth is that I do not think that at any point in history the Jewish people ever reached some clear destination that was fully settled in itself. I doubt it will happen even when the messiah comes. So why do you think you need to decide here and now?
I’ll let you in on a secret: even within the religious and Haredi world, not everyone does everything. There are many who knowingly give up certain fasts, wearing tzitzit, and even some of the prayers and blessings. But they see themselves as religious, and from their perspective everything is fine. I am not saying that because of them you need to decide that you are staying with a kippah. Certainly not. I only want to expose you to the possibility of living on a continuum, without feeling the need to decide all the time.
My dear son, you are on a journey. And that is excellent. Do not rush to turn every question mark into an exclamation point. Not every crisis is the end of the road; on the contrary, a crisis, so I believe, is the greatest engine of growth. I am not coming to force anything upon you. On the contrary, I am very glad about the place you are in. I only want to give a bit of perspective, from someone a little older than you, who has gone through a thing or two in life. I suggest to all of us—to you and to me alike—to relax. Not to make dramatic declarations, but to accept the fact that life is complex, and that sometimes precisely the declaration “there is” or “there isn’t,” “truth” or “falsehood,” is the greatest distortion.
And above all, I invite myself to join this journey of yours, if of course you will give me a place. As the prophet says: “And he will turn the hearts of fathers back to their children”? First of all, I want to return to you. Even if you are going on paths different from mine, I do not want you to disconnect from me. I still want us to be the closest in the world, the kind who are able to speak heart to heart in any situation. True, I grew up in a different generation and in a different atmosphere, but precisely because of that it is so important to me to succeed in connecting to you from your place, from your experience, to succeed in seeing the world through your perspective. And then, to ask the questions with you, and to seek answers, and sometimes to remain with doubts. But always, in every situation, to be together.
Will you give me a place in your world?
This is my humble request of you,
With love
Answer
If there is a specific question, please ask it.
Discussion on Answer
No, and I’m also not sure that’s what he meant to write. Regarding a sukkah on a balcony, he later clarified that this was a proposal of the lesser evil and not a halakhic proposal. It may be that here too he means that. If his intention is a different halakhic interpretation, a more flexible one, that is of course a different discussion. Here there is full commitment, and the question is what the correct interpretation of Jewish law is.
If people who leave religion are troubled by philosophical questions, why do they all become classic Israeli secularists and not adopt one of the hundreds of different philosophies in the world? Why is it so hard to find someone who left religion and became a Shintoist, a communist, or a Sufi? Is it just by chance that they all found the absolute truth in Israeli secularism?
We all know the truth: society, not philosophy, is the issue. And now go and learn the rest.
By the same token, the religious people who grew up in a religious home all somehow chose Judaism, and not Shinto or another faith. That is a very weak argument. Indeed, people are influenced by the environment in which they were raised, and they act on the basis of complex motives, but it is not correct to determine sweepingly that there is no substantive meaning to their decisions.
Beyond that, they were inside Judaism, so they examined it. They reached the conclusion that it didn’t seem right to them, and now they remained secular and did not go on to examine other things that they are not inside of. That too is a possibility.
Why is that a contradiction?
Indeed, both the religious people who chose religion and those who left religion and chose secularization do so mainly because of social influence.
You rightly wrote that there are those who examined religion and it didn’t seem right to them, and now they remain secular and have not examined other things. The question is why not, really? Someone seeking truth does not make do with knowing what is not true, but strives to find what is true. Someone who is satisfied with the absence of truth, I fear, is not really concerned with truth, but rather prefers fitting into the majority society—which also happens to be more comfortable in various respects and does not demand much.
As stated, religious people too are generally driven by environmental influence, except that they at least hold on to some truth (at least in their view), whereas secularism does not offer any truth at all, only its absence or denial. (I am assuming that maintaining proper and comfortable social life cannot be considered a truth, even if there are those who insist on calling it “secular values.”)
Yossi, as someone who left religion (from the Hardal world), I want to answer the question, “Why is it so hard to find someone who left religion and became a Shintoist, a communist, or a Sufi?”
I see secularism as a philosophy that rejects external (divine) interventions in the order of the world, and attributes events to the laws of nature and to human decisions. Therefore there is no point in my examining Shinto and Sufism, because I do not accept the basis of their faith.
I can say that I am not entirely influenced by the society around me, and this is expressed in my lack of connection to Zionist nationalism and to many cultural values, so it is not correct to say that I am simply a mirror image of society. For example, the anthem, the flag, and the like do not move me, and I have not voted since I left 10 years ago.
Hello to the commenter,
The question is not about you specifically, but about those leaving Judaism in general. It is not reasonable that by sheer chance all who leave Judaism found the truth in the majority culture around them, especially when in every period the majority culture was different. Is it also mere coincidence that those who left Judaism in the Land of Israel during the Second Temple period adopted Greek philosophy, in medieval Europe Christianity, in the 18th century Reform, in the twentieth century communism or secular nationalism, and in the 21st century Western secularism?
As Rabbi Michi noted, the same question also applies to those who grew up within religion and happen to think it is the truth. So the conclusion from both questions is that most human beings think according to the society around them, and the entire difference between those who hold to religion and those who abandon it is whether they prefer to identify with the minority society in which they grew up or with the hegemonic majority society around them.
As for you specifically, of course I do not know you, and it may be that you are among the minority who truly think independently. But I do not see how lack of connection to Zionist nationalism constitutes proof of that, since as is well known the dominant philosophy today in the West (and therefore in the Israeli left) utterly rejects nationalism with its anthem and flag. It is only to be expected that someone adopting today’s secular philosophy would feel lack of connection, if not outright rejection, toward nationalism and its components.
My impression from Rabbi Ido’s letter is that he is asking the person who left religion to connect to the culture within Judaism, not out of faith. He emphasizes that he has no ability to bring proofs for the existence of God or for the revelation at Mount Sinai, but all the same, “keep what is beautiful.”
That may be nice for someone who wants Jewish “culture.”
But what does that have to do with a moving, heart-stirring letter from a rabbi?
And in general, if even for himself he cannot produce evidence for the existence of God and for the revelation at Mount Sinai, what is the basis of his faith?
Without knowing him, and only from the letter, it ‘sounds’ like a closet atheist.
Why is a “philosophy that rejects external (divine) interventions in the order of the world, and attributes events to the laws of nature and to human decisions” secular?
The owner of this site, may he live long and well, advocates this philosophy and he is religious. He thinks that the laws of nature were set by an external agent, but that agent does not intervene in them except on rare occasions.
Dani, because the owner of this site is secular with a very thin and transparent religious shell.
The owner of this site serves God for its own sake. Someone who serves God so that God will be his kindergarten teacher is not serving Him for His own sake, but for the sake of his own enjoyment. In other words, he’s not really religious (even if he is looking for a babysitter to run his life).
Buddy, I do not understand why a view that denies divine intervention in the material world is secular. After all, the goal of serving God is to reach a purpose found in the spiritual world, so the question whether good deeds have an effect on the material world is secondary and irrelevant to the goal of religion.
One can argue that such a view contradicts tradition and the like, but it is not secular from any angle. (For example, Karaism contradicts tradition, but it is not a secular view at all.)
Dani, as I understand it, the owner of the site does not hold that serving God is for some purpose in the spiritual world; rather, serving God is commitment to the value of serving God, with no connection at all to the question of purpose.
The person who left religion does not accept commitment to external things either, and sees that too as a kind of external intervention; that is, from his perspective even a divine command is external intervention.
The use of the term “external” is mistaken, because if there is commitment to something spiritual, then it is not external but the inner essence of the world.
The claim of the person who left religion is probably that there is no spiritual thing at all, and that the whole world is composed only of matter. This is not a question of external intervention, but whether there is anything besides matter.
Rabbi Ido Fechter accepts with understanding and openness (and with all due respect, also pretty much because he has no choice) every person as he is, who has decided on his own to cast doubt on everything he was taught must not be doubted.
All the questions he raised are worthy of being raised, and some of them definitely also require doubt, revulsion, and rejection (for example: kashrut supervised by the Rabbinate, where for a long time now no one would dispute that in a city where there are thieves (the Rabbinate in this case), it is known that the rabbi loves bribery).
Strong faith and love of God are measured only by God, and not by society and people.
“And you shall love your neighbor as yourself” is the only relevant principle.
And regarding observance of the commandments, it is the choice of an intelligent person not to accept upon himself restrictions in this world whose source is doubtful. And it is the choice of an intelligent person to accept upon himself restrictions whose source is doubtful.
There is no difference at all between the two.
Rabbi Ido Fechter is in fact writing what is in his heart; this is a letter that is indeed aimed at someone who left religion, but is addressed to himself…
And what happens if the intelligent person chooses not to accept upon himself the “only relevant principle” of “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” whose source is identical to the source of the rest of the commandments?
Tom — I’m in favor of casting doubt, but you need to be consistent and cast doubt on everything. Also on the Western worldview that “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself” is the only relevant principle (along with a whole range of other views). What I find is that usually the skeptics do this only to Judaism, while they accept the truths of the secular world without reservation.
Do you agree with Rabbi Ido Fechter that one can, from the outset, live on a continuum within the religious world?