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 agree with Cappy, and with the reader to whom Rabbi Slifkin responds in this post.
To Rabbi Slifkin directly: While I agree with most of your positions on the matter (he's right, he's right, and you're right too!), in recent years you have been writing far fewer posts about the rationalist approach to Judaism and far more posts criticizing the charedi lifestyle and system. Such posts do of course have value, but there is a fixation and overemphasis that I feel is psychologically damaging.
This is of course a widespread phenomenon nowadays, where otherwise-innocuous blogs and Twitter accounts post one or two political messages as a one-time exception and then get gradually taken over by politics until they're no longer what they once were. Podcasts about television shows or board games gradually talk about those topics less and less over time. Everything is becoming political, and it's unhealthy - for the creators, for the consumers, and for society as a whole.
I'm not sure. As you say, human psychology is a wonder.
There really are problems in the chareidi community, especially if you don't believe in the level of bitachon we do, and perhaps the person who was in the community and didn't learn to appreciate these bitachon ideas has, for himself, a clearer picture of the issues having been shown the flaws personally. If the foundations of the chareidi ideology are indeed faulty, shouldn't someone speak about these issues? Most people who speak about them are an outsider's perspective. And although the Slifkin approach is also an outsider's perspective to us insiders, he is dealing with the right issues, such as questioning the whole bitachon approach, as opposed to the others who presume we're wrong and tackle outgrowths of our approach.
I'm not saying Slifkin doesn't have an axe to grind - I can only imagine the pain of hearing your very own leaders like Reb Elyashiv zt'l denounce you - but I think Slifkin really doesn't understand the idea that the chareidim profess about bitachon and he feels strongly that there needs to be more hishtadlus, from a pragmatic, thought out perspective.
The fact that he is busy more than most with these issues could be because he feels stronger about the issues since he was personally involved.
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)
One "sounds the alarm" when someone spots something no one else has seen. But anti-charedi speech and doomsday predictions have been heard for decades and decades, from countless haters. [In the 90s the Slifkins of the time thought it would happen upon the "power void" they imagined/hoped would occur upon R. Shach's death.] And, one after the other, the predictions fail.
Be real. Many years ago you tried to join a community, and were so excited about it you even wrote a book to sings the praises of the community to the world. Fast forward a few years and you're now writing a blog to tell the same world how wrong you were. Don't you think we know that, if we just wait a few more years, you'll be doing the same thing about religion in general?
As another one of your commentators wrote, your last posts brought tears to his eyes. Well, when I read that post and saw the picture of YOUR Tefillin bag, and how through all your Torah bashing, you seem to have still kept your old Erleche velvet Tefilin bag, it brought tears to MY eyes. Because yes, I agree with the beginning of your post, that the different style Tefilin bags embody the different style Yidishkiets - and I realized looking at your current Tefilin bags, that you never really left us.
I Think this latest post of yours proves it even more.
By the way and without trying to be obtuse, you wrote in the last post about how nervous you are about your sons spiritual future, if I'm not mistaken you wrote something similar about your daughter in some other post of yours. If that's how even you feel, how the heck do you have the audacity to criticize all of us for not doing the same.
So long as Shas and UTJ are part of the government, nothing will change. The PM made a deal with the devil and we must live with it.let us hope we can survive till the next election. Then we can elect a government that does not need the religious parties to survive. The future is in our hands. Wake up Israel.
Perhaps there is room for an article about the causes and roots of the Charedi mistrust of secular society and how that can be addressed? The damage done by the Maskilim continues to hurt us almost two centuries later.
I have a serious question, with regard to previous post and applications to this one (I realize you didn't allow comments because topic was personal, and I respect that. But I'll ask, and if you don't want to discuss, I understand.)
You wrote that you are concerned for your son's physical *and spiritual* safety in the IDF.
If you feel that joining the IDF is a threat to his spiritual well being, how can you allow him to join? Is there a value out there that's more important to you as a parent than your child's netzach netzachim?
His son's spiritual life is intertwined with Yishuv Eretz Yisrael.You miss that because you think spiritual life is confined mainly to the Bait Hamedrash.Yishuv EY is a Mitzvah Dioraitah. Time to awake rise up and fulfill Torah as it should be in EY.
Let's assume you are correct. You have zero influence. You sounding the alarm does nothing whatsoever. It just incites hate.
For example, consider the many problems of the Black community in the USA. Someone with no influence who kept focusing on their issues and how they are harmful to society would rightfully be considered racist.
That's not true, I have lots of influence. There are over four thousand people who receive this blog via email and thousands more who read it online. Many of these people make decisions about where to send their kids to school in Israel, which parties in Israel to vote for, which organizations in Israel to support, which type of Orthodox Judaism to align themselves with.
This should have been the argument in your post. Not that you are just like all the rest of the millions which is simply not true. Rather, you do spend an unusual amount of time criticizing charedim, but the reason for this is because you are in a particular position to have a large influence on an important constituency. That is at least an argument that makes sense.
How many of your thousands are in the choir, how many in the opposition, and how many on the fence? How many who subscribe to another dozen stacks and read yours when time permitting?
All my children and grandchildren served in the IDF defending Israel and all its citizens, charedi and Chelonia. Now their taxes are supporting them while they curse our soldiers. They won’t even pray for the welfare of the land. For shame.
The vast majority of charedim don't curse anyone, certainly not soldiers.
And we do pray for the welfare of the land and the soldiers, just in a different text than the one used in most non-charedi synagogues. Just today I got an email (Modiin Illit email list) with a request to pray for the border police etc. in view of the recent increase in terror.
My friend Rav Menachem Bombach is an absolute hero. But he would concur that there is a very serious problem, and that it is not at all clear that there are enough people like him to turn things around fast enough.
Huh? He runs dual curriculum schools geared for charedim. He is revolutionizing charedi society and running against the grain of its ideology. He still identifies as charedi and is effecting real change from within. You run a biblical museum that bends over backwards to not threaten the status quo of charedi ideology and society. He gets daily threats and harassment for what he does. I doubt you get much flack about your museum. Do not compare yourself to him.
While it is true there are others who criticise the Chareidi community's shortcomings, an astute and intellectual mind as yourself is expected to be impartial and balanced. This would mean giving credit where it is due. You have done that on occasion, I know. But an effort to be unbiased would mean searching for a counter-argument within the very criticism being discussed.
For example, there was a post exhibiting the Chareidi community's lack of economic contribution to society. You fail to mention the positive economic contributions they make by lowering crime rates, lowering substance abuse, violence, increasing safety of women and children, and thus keeping the police able to spend more resources elsewhere, and keep the prisons less populated. This more than mitigates the wage gap between Chareidim and their Secular counterparts.
Similarly, after all of the attention about Chaim Walder and the Chareidi community's slow response, does your average seminary girl feel more safe at 2 a.m. in a Chareidy Yerushalayim neighborhood, or in broad daylight in a Tel Aviv high school of an equally salaried parent body? And I won't even ask about 2 a.m. over there...
These are things you would mention under normal conditions, but might not make an effort to notice when these are people you had a bad experience with. This is understandable too, and we all get it.
"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....."
So to be clear, its just a coincidence then that many of your posts are directly against the sect that banned you?
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 agree with Cappy, and with the reader to whom Rabbi Slifkin responds in this post.
To Rabbi Slifkin directly: While I agree with most of your positions on the matter (he's right, he's right, and you're right too!), in recent years you have been writing far fewer posts about the rationalist approach to Judaism and far more posts criticizing the charedi lifestyle and system. Such posts do of course have value, but there is a fixation and overemphasis that I feel is psychologically damaging.
This is of course a widespread phenomenon nowadays, where otherwise-innocuous blogs and Twitter accounts post one or two political messages as a one-time exception and then get gradually taken over by politics until they're no longer what they once were. Podcasts about television shows or board games gradually talk about those topics less and less over time. Everything is becoming political, and it's unhealthy - for the creators, for the consumers, and for society as a whole.
I'm not sure. As you say, human psychology is a wonder.
There really are problems in the chareidi community, especially if you don't believe in the level of bitachon we do, and perhaps the person who was in the community and didn't learn to appreciate these bitachon ideas has, for himself, a clearer picture of the issues having been shown the flaws personally. If the foundations of the chareidi ideology are indeed faulty, shouldn't someone speak about these issues? Most people who speak about them are an outsider's perspective. And although the Slifkin approach is also an outsider's perspective to us insiders, he is dealing with the right issues, such as questioning the whole bitachon approach, as opposed to the others who presume we're wrong and tackle outgrowths of our approach.
I'm not saying Slifkin doesn't have an axe to grind - I can only imagine the pain of hearing your very own leaders like Reb Elyashiv zt'l denounce you - but I think Slifkin really doesn't understand the idea that the chareidim profess about bitachon and he feels strongly that there needs to be more hishtadlus, from a pragmatic, thought out perspective.
The fact that he is busy more than most with these issues could be because he feels stronger about the issues since he was personally involved.
I wonder is all.
"I wonder is all."
Huh?
Meaning I don't know, all I do is wonder
Thank you for explaining.
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)
One "sounds the alarm" when someone spots something no one else has seen. But anti-charedi speech and doomsday predictions have been heard for decades and decades, from countless haters. [In the 90s the Slifkins of the time thought it would happen upon the "power void" they imagined/hoped would occur upon R. Shach's death.] And, one after the other, the predictions fail.
Be real. Many years ago you tried to join a community, and were so excited about it you even wrote a book to sings the praises of the community to the world. Fast forward a few years and you're now writing a blog to tell the same world how wrong you were. Don't you think we know that, if we just wait a few more years, you'll be doing the same thing about religion in general?
As another one of your commentators wrote, your last posts brought tears to his eyes. Well, when I read that post and saw the picture of YOUR Tefillin bag, and how through all your Torah bashing, you seem to have still kept your old Erleche velvet Tefilin bag, it brought tears to MY eyes. Because yes, I agree with the beginning of your post, that the different style Tefilin bags embody the different style Yidishkiets - and I realized looking at your current Tefilin bags, that you never really left us.
I Think this latest post of yours proves it even more.
By the way and without trying to be obtuse, you wrote in the last post about how nervous you are about your sons spiritual future, if I'm not mistaken you wrote something similar about your daughter in some other post of yours. If that's how even you feel, how the heck do you have the audacity to criticize all of us for not doing the same.
Surprised you didnt mention that belz is potentially turning the corner now
So long as Shas and UTJ are part of the government, nothing will change. The PM made a deal with the devil and we must live with it.let us hope we can survive till the next election. Then we can elect a government that does not need the religious parties to survive. The future is in our hands. Wake up Israel.
The chances of electing a government without the charedi parties are very low.
"Wake up Israel."
Sounds like you're among the literally millions of people who agree strongly with the post. Why do you spend less time than Rabbi S writing about it?
Perhaps there is room for an article about the causes and roots of the Charedi mistrust of secular society and how that can be addressed? The damage done by the Maskilim continues to hurt us almost two centuries later.
Rabbi Slifkin, you have a typo. Sentence "Their are people whose entire life..." should be "There are people whose entire life...".
You're the most recognizable name of the Jewish substacks. Maybe I should try a little more controversy.
I have a serious question, with regard to previous post and applications to this one (I realize you didn't allow comments because topic was personal, and I respect that. But I'll ask, and if you don't want to discuss, I understand.)
You wrote that you are concerned for your son's physical *and spiritual* safety in the IDF.
If you feel that joining the IDF is a threat to his spiritual well being, how can you allow him to join? Is there a value out there that's more important to you as a parent than your child's netzach netzachim?
And why don't you ask how I can let him join in light of the physical dangers?
Because I recognize that there are values higher than physical life.
People can disagree over what specific values, but the principle is understandable.
I don't understand even in principle how there can be a value that's worth sacrificing one's nitzchiyus for.
Do you?
It's amazing how you are proving my point.
How about sacrificing to help other people live?
Uh, isn't that exactly what Chabad does?
No.
That's an easy one. Physical dangers are temporal. Spiritual dangers are existential and eternal
His son's spiritual life is intertwined with Yishuv Eretz Yisrael.You miss that because you think spiritual life is confined mainly to the Bait Hamedrash.Yishuv EY is a Mitzvah Dioraitah. Time to awake rise up and fulfill Torah as it should be in EY.
Let's assume you are correct. You have zero influence. You sounding the alarm does nothing whatsoever. It just incites hate.
For example, consider the many problems of the Black community in the USA. Someone with no influence who kept focusing on their issues and how they are harmful to society would rightfully be considered racist.
That's not true, I have lots of influence. There are over four thousand people who receive this blog via email and thousands more who read it online. Many of these people make decisions about where to send their kids to school in Israel, which parties in Israel to vote for, which organizations in Israel to support, which type of Orthodox Judaism to align themselves with.
This should have been the argument in your post. Not that you are just like all the rest of the millions which is simply not true. Rather, you do spend an unusual amount of time criticizing charedim, but the reason for this is because you are in a particular position to have a large influence on an important constituency. That is at least an argument that makes sense.
How many of your thousands are in the choir, how many in the opposition, and how many on the fence? How many who subscribe to another dozen stacks and read yours when time permitting?
It's interesting, the recent Trump post brought a number of commenters, notably some women, out of their silence. Or they don't read non-Trump posts.
Which is why irrational started their blog...
No other reason?
Points taken RNS but you still clearly have a personal animosity for the chareidim
Not!
All my children and grandchildren served in the IDF defending Israel and all its citizens, charedi and Chelonia. Now their taxes are supporting them while they curse our soldiers. They won’t even pray for the welfare of the land. For shame.
The vast majority of charedim don't curse anyone, certainly not soldiers.
And we do pray for the welfare of the land and the soldiers, just in a different text than the one used in most non-charedi synagogues. Just today I got an email (Modiin Illit email list) with a request to pray for the border police etc. in view of the recent increase in terror.
Thank you for the service of your descendants!!
the Charedi world is changing fast in the right direction: Rav Menachem Bombach and many others…
My friend Rav Menachem Bombach is an absolute hero. But he would concur that there is a very serious problem, and that it is not at all clear that there are enough people like him to turn things around fast enough.
I do do what he does, for most of my day. But this is also needed.
Huh? He runs dual curriculum schools geared for charedim. He is revolutionizing charedi society and running against the grain of its ideology. He still identifies as charedi and is effecting real change from within. You run a biblical museum that bends over backwards to not threaten the status quo of charedi ideology and society. He gets daily threats and harassment for what he does. I doubt you get much flack about your museum. Do not compare yourself to him.
Who is R’ Menachem Bombach?
Dear Nathan,
While it is true there are others who criticise the Chareidi community's shortcomings, an astute and intellectual mind as yourself is expected to be impartial and balanced. This would mean giving credit where it is due. You have done that on occasion, I know. But an effort to be unbiased would mean searching for a counter-argument within the very criticism being discussed.
For example, there was a post exhibiting the Chareidi community's lack of economic contribution to society. You fail to mention the positive economic contributions they make by lowering crime rates, lowering substance abuse, violence, increasing safety of women and children, and thus keeping the police able to spend more resources elsewhere, and keep the prisons less populated. This more than mitigates the wage gap between Chareidim and their Secular counterparts.
Similarly, after all of the attention about Chaim Walder and the Chareidi community's slow response, does your average seminary girl feel more safe at 2 a.m. in a Chareidy Yerushalayim neighborhood, or in broad daylight in a Tel Aviv high school of an equally salaried parent body? And I won't even ask about 2 a.m. over there...
These are things you would mention under normal conditions, but might not make an effort to notice when these are people you had a bad experience with. This is understandable too, and we all get it.
Thanks Nathan for this, SC and carry on...
S.K.
"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....."
So to be clear, its just a coincidence then that many of your posts are directly against the sect that banned you?