A. Your impression is completely mistaken (another indication that you have a biased emotion toward Haredim). I listened to the whole thing and read quite a few of your books and articles. You’re ignoring the fact that you presented the matter of asking a rabbi in Jewish law (!) as a practical recommendation with no real necessity.

B. Don’t you think there’s a bit of a difference between saying “the atheist outlook is not rational” and “Haredim believe in delusions; preschool-level thinking; separate yourselves from this evil congregation,” and other gems ten times harsher than these examples that popped into my head just now?! It’s enough to look at the respect you give Aviv Franco in the debate to be appalled. A man speaks a pile of nonsense, attacks what you say, and you respond respectfully and politely. If he were Haredi it would look something like this (especially if it were an exchange on the site): “What you’re saying is empty chatter unworthy of a response. It’s obvious you understand nothing of what you’re talking about. We’ve exhausted this.”

It’s important to me to note that atheists are much more harmful to humanity in the long run than local social harms like the Haredi sector. In the end they lead to irrationality and to loss of meaning in life. By the same token, they also harm happiness and health. Not for nothing are believing societies happier and healthier.

C. I wasn’t talking specifically about this question of mine. No response moves your opinion. It only strengthens it. Like classic apologists… I’m willing to bet that before you post a column here, you don’t show it to anyone for criticism. And I’m willing to bet further that if you did show it, you would change things written in it. But once the responses come afterward, it already becomes a defense of things written and signed. Another indication that maybe Maimonides and Meiri were right that it’s worth making for yourself a rabbi…

Yossi the Haredi—I agree with you about the Rabbi’s contempt for Haredim. On the other hand, this long-term damage from atheists that you mention sounds strange to me. The people who built this state and created it were mostly atheists, or at least people who did not institute religious practice in the state (aside from the status quo achieved under pressure from a handful of Haredim, which to this day forces the secular-traditional majority to marry against its will). Emancipation was a thoroughly secular process. The scientific revolution was achieved by removing the Church’s control over science—that is, secularism. In short, most of the things today associated with rationality were achieved by secular people and atheists. And many good things happened because people cast off the yoke of Jesus and the yoke of Torah and commandments (unfortunately not many cast off the yoke of Muhammad). As for happiness, there’s something to that, though I don’t think that’s the main point.

Rabbi Michi really does have a selectively negative attitude and projects hatred toward Haredim,
but in practice I (officially Haredi) understand it for the simple reason that Haredim project hatred and contempt toward anyone who isn’t them.
And it’s obvious that someone who projects contempt will get it back.
The same is true of leftists who hate the right and constantly project hatred and contempt—they get paid back in the same coin.
Hopefully the Haredi discourse, both up top among the fixers and in the institutions and the like, will become respectful; then Haredim will have grounds for complaint.

I’m apparently talking to a wall, and not for the first time.
These idiotic comparisons between my attitude toward Haredim and my attitude toward atheists are part of that same Haredi stupidity I’m talking about. The attitude I give a particular group is a function of its conduct and character. Each group has its own characteristics. There is no group/community of atheists that behaves wickedly and exploits its surroundings. This is also not a childish approach but a mistaken one. Atheists do indeed hold a wrong and foolish view, and I say this again and again. Do you want me to say they are parasites and benighted people who follow the great rabbis of the generation, as I say about Haredim? What can I do—they aren’t like that. Is there no limit to stubborn, foolish apologetics?
Fine, I won’t address the rest because it isn’t worth addressing. See column 655. But there I dealt with valid arguments detached from common sense. Here we are dealing with stubborn obtuseness and total lack of understanding, while ignoring facts and distorted quotations. Here the arguments themselves are defective.

By the way, I don’t “project hatred” or speak hatefully. I do hate. I hate a society that conducts itself in a warped and despicable way, exploitative and immoral, primitive and foolish, that behaves like a cult following disconnected leaders who are manipulated by cynical operatives. And all this with self-righteousness and passive-aggressive offense when someone dares to answer them in kind. What exactly is there to love here? About this it was said, “Those who hate You, O Lord, I shall hate.” There is an obligation to hate the wicked. Though as I’ve written more than once, this is hatred of Haredi-ism, not of Haredim (“let sins cease, not sinners”). Haredim as individuals are like captured infants. Toward them I mainly feel pity.

I deliberately quoted expressions that could be equally true of atheists—delusions and so on. To an atheist you would not say “the arguments themselves are defective.” It seems that you are the one ignoring facts and quotations. As well as your own quotations about asking a rabbi on matters of Jewish law. You’re disqualifying others by your own flaw at top speed.

Watching from the Side—I don’t think the founders of the state were necessarily atheists; they were secular. In any case, there’s no connection at all between their being secular or atheists and the fact that they established a state; that’s not what caused them to establish it. If anything, there’s an inherent conflict in building a state on the basis of a book they don’t believe in. In any event, I was talking about a broad and long-term influence on humanity.

To Rabbi Michi,
my grandmother used to say:
If three friends tell you you’re drunk, go to sleep.

Again you’re proving what we claimed. Saying words like “atheists hold a foolish position” basically turns lots of people who disagree with you on some issue into fools. And I’m saying this because I see it recurring on the site—labels like “nonsense,” “a pile of nonsense,” and so on. I, for example, am an atheist who left religion, and it bothers me that people like you dismiss my view and call it foolish just because it happens that you don’t agree with it.

David, he projects hatred toward Haredim as individuals—that’s the problem. Even toward people who come to the site here intending to open themselves up and hear views very different from their own. Hatred not only toward them as a society. If what I wrote had been written by someone named, say, Hayuta Deutsch, his response would have been different. More than once he responds to the person rather than the argument, and then lectures about that very issue. It really bums me out on a personal level: an educated person who suddenly loses it on certain subjects, as also with Bibi, (whose follower I am in no way), and the measured, reasoned, carefully analyzed discourse turns into blunt, poorly reasoned, impulsive talk.

Eliko, an update for your grandmother: if three biased people tell me I’m drunk, then apparently I’m on the right track and they’re drunk.

Watcher, when there’s a foolish argument I say it’s foolish, and usually I explain why. Not every opinion I disagree with gets called foolish or nonsense by me. Only opinions that really are such things (in my view). I assume you too would not treat the claim that the earth is flat the same way you’d treat the case for communism or capitalism (I don’t know your position on those matters).

It’s convenient for Haredim to see themselves as righteous and others as mistaken (the Religious Zionists) or wicked (the secular). To hear, and even more so to think, that there is a possibility that they are the wicked ones while others are right (modern Orthodox according to Rabbi Michi’s view) or mistaken (the secular)—that’s not easy.

And the difference between Haredim and atheists is pretty simple according to Rabbi Michi. The problem with Haredim is moral and religious. The problem with atheists is cognitive and intellectual. The different treatment corresponds to the type of error.

Y.D., atheists also negatively affect religion no less, of course. Morality too is bound to be harmed (as are the happiness and meaning I mentioned).

I don’t know about transgressions (there there is major dispute), but regarding commandments it’s clear to me that atheists are like potted plants. As for social issues like trans people and the like, people argue with them, but the argument is on a different plane than an argument with Haredim. On this particular issue I’m actually more with the Haredim (there are no trans people in Bnei Brak), but as Rabbi Chaim of Brisk said about the prodigy from Meitshet, his student, who taught in the Lida Yeshiva of the rabbi of Lida, head of the Mizrachi—
The fact that I agree with him on one issue does not mean I don’t have an argument with the yeshiva, or with the rabbi of Lida, or with Mizrachi, or with Zionism.

To Yossi the Haredi—it’s impossible to expect a person hated by a public, and even called a heretic by it [justly or unjustly], to love that public and speak about it gently and politely.
And even though Michi advocates not labeling a person but addressing arguments on their merits—the laws of nature are stronger than anything, and even in your case after this responsum exchange some small feeling of hatred toward Michi has apparently slipped in.
That’s completely natural.
And even if you personally as an individual Haredi are not like that, when you ask about attitude toward Haredim, that means a general attitude, and it may be that when you meet Michi one-on-one the attitude toward you will be very positive. I’m pretty sure of that.

David, that is exactly my complaint. Michi pretends to be a person free of bias, a completely objective person, intellectual and rational. And the expectation from him is that at the very least he recognize that he is an emotional person and that he often falls into the abyss of emotion. When I ask about the attitude toward Haredim, he shouldn’t respond in the same coin of language as the Haredim. He should relate to me as a human being who asked a substantive question; even if I were an atheist I could have asked the same question. His answer here proves my point—and by analogy as well.

When there’s a substantive question here and not just slanderous and false declarations, I’ll be happy to address it substantively. Walls, walls…

I tried substantive questions and ran into a wall (like whether there has ever been a response that moved your opinion, or whether everyone always runs into a wall). Right now the exchange is with the other commenters; there wasn’t a question.

Eliko, an update for your grandmother: if three biased people tell me I’m drunk, then apparently I’m on the right track and they’re drunk.

Rabbi, the opposite: when many people think the same thing, that ought to set off quite a few alarm bells for you.

With him it’s the opposite: the more people think the opposite of him, the more it only strengthens what he says. This isn’t arrogance in the classic sense—he doesn’t think he’s so great; he simply thinks all the commenters here are stupid. The more fitting parable is that guy who drove against traffic and couldn’t understand why everyone else was driving the wrong way.

Yossi, the fact that Haredim think Haredi-ism is justified, despite of course flaws here and there, and that they too have criticism but overall it’s basically the least bad option—that doesn’t mean much. Talking to Haredim is pointless; it isn’t really in their hands, and persuading them against their built-in biases in their own favor is extremely difficult. It isn’t in their hands, meaning that what interests the one trying to persuade is persuading others, so that they understand and internalize the scope of the disgrace and its depth, and act accordingly. The Haredim themselves in the current generation are a lost cause. Since Haredim are not the target audience of the criticism, but only the subject the criticism is about, the fact that they disagree with it and with the critic is not all that interesting.

Yikheh (allow me to call you by a shortened nickname), you can influence anyone. Proof: masses leave religion… The question is how to do it. In a pleasant and non-aggressive way you can influence more. As our mutual acquaintance Rabbi Kook said, “the righteous do not complain,” etc. Second, Michi talks about why he isn’t succeeding in influencing Haredim today, in the short term. And I gave him a reason that in my view makes the most sense.