"An Unnatural Fixation with Charedim"
Do I have an unnatural obsession with criticizing charedim - and why?
Recently a reader wrote to me as follows:
It seems to me - I'm no expert of any sort - that you have an unnatural fixation
with Chareidim. My feeling is, how could such an unnatural, rare, thing
exist?! It can only be as a result of the torture to which you were
subjected.
I’ve heard the same thing countless times. But the truth is that my feelings about charedi society are not remotely unnatural or rare. And in my case it has very little to do with my books being banned (which I totally sympathize with as a social policy) and much more to do with life in Israel.
Here in Israel, there are literally millions of people who have the exact same criticisms of charedi society that I do. And many of them are religious, and are even the type of people that in the US would be called "yeshivish." Their are people whose entire life is built around trying to solve the problems created by charedi society. Some of these people are even in the charedi community!
Many Americans just don't get how different things are here (and when they immigrate to Israel, they often mistakenly assume that the black-hatted community in Israel is the natural one for black-hatted immigrants from the US to join; Ramat Beit Shemesh is full of such people). There are two basic differences between charedim in Israel and black-hatted, “yeshivish” Jews in the US/UK.
One is that charedim in Israel receive far less of a secular education than black-hatted Jews in the US/UK; the charedi school system here is deeply ideologically opposed to even basic secular studies. Charedim in Israel are also far less likely to work for a living, since they are heavily culturally conditioned against it, and those who do work are generally in low-paid, non-professional careers, because that’s all that they can do once they join the workforce in their forties. There are no charedi physicians or scientists in Israel, for example, other than immigrants or baalei teshuva.
The second is that black-hatted Jews in the US are a minuscule fraction of the population, whereas charedim in Israel are a significant proportion of the population and are growing exponentially. This has enormous ramifications for everyone else. When you have an exponentially growing sector of the population that does not believe in contributing to the IDF and to the economy, and believes in being under-educated and financially supported by non-charedim, this is not only deeply upsetting and annoying for everyone else; it’s also nothing less than an existential threat to the entire country. The tiny State of Israel, surrounded by hostile countries that seek to destroy it, cannot survive with a Third World economy. Even some people in the charedi community acknowledge this.
The alarm needs to be sounded, and sounded again, until things are changed.
I'm sorry but you are being disingenuous in this post.
Yes there are many people in Israel who have a negative opinion of charedim, even millions. But very very few of them (unless they are in an actual decision making position to do something about it - unlike you) spend even close to the amount of time and energy focusing on it. Most people just get along with their lives and can't be bothered to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking and posting about such things. Roughly a third to a half of your blog posts are attacking charedi society or ideology in some way. Why do you think that is? Why do you think you out of all the millions are spending so much time? Why aren't they all sounding the alarm as much as you? Is it that you are just more selfless than all of them so you are willing to give more time to this holy cause?
Secondly, it wasn't just that your books were banned. You were basically booted from the community/society that you were at the time a part of. This would be a severely traumatic experience for any normal person and I would be very surprised if you didn't have a chip on your shoulder and axe to grind. The fact that you deny this just causes you to lose credibility in the eye's of your readers.
You seem to think that if you admit this then you lose the credibility to criticize and so you have convinced yourself that it isn't true. But the truth is that this denial has damaged you more then you think. Because of it you've never been able to really get passed your trauma. Acceptance is always the first stage of healing. Its quite sad to watch. You can't even talk about how proud you are of your son moving on to his next stage in life without disparaging charedim at the same time.
Its one of the wonders of human psychology that something can be so clear to everyone else, and they can even tell you about it, but a person himself/herself (the most nogeah badavar) will still deny it.
I'm sorry Rabbi Slifkin, but I find this post and the previous one sad and distressing. I'm not sure what you meant to bring out, but the message that comes across is that 30 years ago you defined your chareidiness by finding flaws with DL, and now you define your DL status by finding flaws with charedim. When will you just be comfortable enough in your own skin to just be you, with your own unique maalos and chisronos, and let others be who they are, with their maalos and chisronos?
(This point is even more apt regarding the previous post but you didn't allow comments)