Q&A: The Third Path and the Haredim
The Third Path and the Haredim
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
Recently I’ve been exposed a bit to the Third Path movement (mainly through articles in Sabbath pamphlets), and from what I’ve seen, you really are trying to appeal to the Haredi public by criticizing the way the activists there conduct themselves and calling for a fundamental change.
But I didn’t really understand what exactly you’re aiming for. The Haredim have built around themselves a kind of ideological ghetto that I don’t really see how it can be breached. Early childhood isn’t relevant, because a child follows his frameworks and his parents; the yeshiva high-school age also seems less relevant, because the boys there aren’t very exposed to media and mostly cluster around the yeshiva and its framework; and the Haredi young man who has already grown up gets a match arranged for him (based on the yeshiva he attended) and then goes on to study in kollel—and there too, even if he is exposed to your content and even agrees with it, he probably won’t risk all the frameworks he is embedded in (his children’s schools, the kollel where he studies, etc.) and follow you.
So it’s not really clear to me who exactly you are addressing. Even now, when the Third Path issued a notice to the Haredi public to follow the instructions because of the air-raid sirens, who exactly were you aiming that at?
The way I see it, only creating alternative frameworks could somehow bring about some kind of change (like the institutions Rabbi David Leibel is establishing), but it neither seems nor sounds like that is the direction you intend to go in.
And if you say that you’re applying pressure from the outside that may eventually seep inward—that also doesn’t seem very practical. In Haredi language, any criticism is perceived as an attack and provocation (in a childish way, of course), and they don’t really examine their conduct in light of such criticism.
So my question is: do you really have a work plan for creating effective change in Haredi society, and are you aware of the problems I mentioned? Or are you basically just trying to amplify your messages publicly, even though they probably won’t succeed in penetrating the wall of Haredi ideology?
Answer
You are presenting things in black-and-white terms. There are people who will be exposed to this and influenced by it, and there are many who won’t. Will it succeed in establishing an alternative? Maybe. Certainly not in changing all of Haredi society, but in rescuing people from within it who do not identify with it. In the end, you can’t do the work for them. You can call on them to wake up, and help them. But not act in their place.
Discussion on Answer
Things on the ground admittedly are not black-and-white, and I assume every Haredi person has his own views and not everyone holds the same opinion. But still, even if someone thinks there is something that ought to be done, like military enlistment, and the prevailing opinion on the street is that at the very least those who are not studying in yeshivas should enlist—still, nobody will do anything. Nobody will go against the rabbis, the “great ones of the generation”; nobody will risk going against the consensus (which is dictated by the activists) when nothing is waiting for him outside, and he lacks the education and tools to live an individual life detached from his community.
So it doesn’t matter which arguments and ideologies he agrees with when they are presented to him; in practice, nobody will really do anything with it.
What does it mean to be a member of, or part of, this movement, and what does it involve?
And are there, or will there be, opportunities for people around the world (England specifically) to join?
All Jews from around the world who observe the commandments are welcome. You join via WhatsApp (you can see it on the Facebook page or on the website).
It’s easier to change the ayatollah regime in Europe than to change the standard-bearers of Degel HaTorah. There was one such person in the time of the Chafetz Chaim who founded that kind of liberal yeshiva in the Radin area, and the Chafetz Chaim said at the time that it was permissible to desecrate the Sabbath in order to save a boy from there. And do you know what came out of that yeshiva? The Mizrachi movement and its offshoots, of which today a significant part has recognized its mistakes and is trying to return to its roots, while another part became Reform, secular, even Kaplanist—and its fate will be the fate of those parts of the Jewish people that we lost to us, painful as that is.