Q&A: The Podcast with Moshe Radman – How Do You Change a Mindset
The Podcast with Moshe Radman – How Do You Change a Mindset
Question
First of all, I enjoyed the podcast. I think this is the first time I’ve heard your view and found myself persuaded—“it goes down smoothly,” unlike in texts. Now for the question, and then one more comment at the end: You said that your rabbi friends, Rabbis Lau and Stav, despite your shared identification, are not willing to give up the label “Religious Zionist.” And most importantly, you said that you too are struggling with what you grew up on. I know about myself how hard that struggle is, and I don’t really find a solution for it, to the point that sometimes I’m left feeling detached, and then I prefer to go back to “church-like” thinking, in your words. For example: on the one hand, I try to think only practically when it comes to security matters, and so I become a secular fascist without apologizing; on the other hand, the consciousness of the Kuzari and what they sold me in first-year yeshiva about the history and intelligence of the Jewish people really is convincing, and then the tendency awakens to see the whole world as merely a reflection of some great spiritual system. It’s very hard to disconnect from the past, especially since I identify with it and think that part of it is correct (as Rabbi Stav presumably thinks too, for that matter). At the same time, over the years I’ve discovered that I’m not all that smart, and certainly not always right, so who guarantees me that leaving the church will take me to an independent and intellectually enlightened world? How do you do it? How do you do this yourself? You said that it’s also hard for you to disconnect, which means that you have some degree of trust in classical religious thinking. And now a comment regarding Smotrich: I think you exaggerated about his inferiority complex toward the Haredim. I heard explicitly from his spokesman and a close adviser that the reason for yielding to the Haredim was fear of some kind of “change government” being formed, which would enlist the Haredim into broad cutbacks contrary to economic and security considerations in Judea and Samaria. A pragmatic argument, not something stemming from feelings of inferiority.
Answer
I don’t remember referring to specific rabbis. And certainly not in relation to what you brought here.
The fact that something is hard for me doesn’t mean I trust it, only that I have an ingrained tendency in that direction. That is really not the same thing.
Smotrich’s rabbis are completely in that place. As for him personally, I don’t know him, and he’s not really important.
Discussion on Answer
I absolutely did not miss it, and I answered that too. This is a psychological tendency, not a belief that it is true. So that is what needs to be overcome. If it’s hard for you, that’s a question for a psychologist, not for me. How do you overcome the urge to speak gossip or sexual urges? That’s not a question for me.
Hello Rabbi Michael Abraham,
Thank you for your response, but allow me to point out gently that it seems to me you missed the main point of my question.
The examples I gave (Rabbis Stav and Lau) were only meant to create context for what you said on the podcast. It’s possible I wasn’t precise in the quotation, and that’s completely fine—but that wasn’t the main point.
What really interested me was your statement that you “are still dealing with” things you grew up on. That sentence caught my attention because I know this struggle firsthand, and not because I’m leaving tradition—but because I’m trying to distinguish between commitment to content and surrender to social expectations or to ethoses that are not really binding.
I wasn’t expecting an emotional or personal answer—just a conceptual expansion. How do you deal with it? What principles guide you? How does one deal with the remnants of a mental burden embedded in you, even if you don’t believe in it?
To sharpen the point: I, for example, feel this tension also on charged issues like LGBT matters. On the one hand, I aspire to a humane approach that respects the person; on the other hand, I don’t ignore my natural aversion, the halakhic prohibition, and the question whether a discourse of full legitimacy also creates harm for someone seeking to build a traditional relationship—especially if he is religious. That tension is not resolved for me, but I’m not running away from it. I’m trying to live with it honestly.
So I’d be glad to know how you, as someone who places himself in a position of critical-religious thinking, recommend—or personally tend—to approach tensions of this sort, even if you don’t have the “right” answer, but only a way of working through them.