Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Ezra Brand's avatar

Perfectly said:

"It’s just a claim that they brandish to feel good about themselves and to rationalize their avoidance of sharing national responsibility."

It's pure self-justification, to feel morally superior and excuse themselves from participating in the collective obligations of citizenship. Instead of engaging with shared duties, they frame their disengagement as virtuous, deflecting from their lack of contribution to national responsibility. Avoiding accountability while maintaining a facade of righteousness and "contribution".

(Cue all the Charedi defenders who will now psychoanalyze Rabbi Slifkin's supposed obsessive hate for Charedim.)

Expand full comment
Mark Smilowitz's avatar

I have such a hard time understanding Orthodox Jews who deny human responsibility for the effects of human actions. The entire halakhic system simply cannot work if you deny the natural cause-effect chain due to human action. If every action I do does not mechanically cause results according to natural rules but needs God to pull the strings that determine what will happen next, then how could a Jew ever be guilty of violating Shabbat or eating non-kosher? I didn't cook the food on Shabbat; God did! God could have decided that the food would not cook. According to the view of the writer in Yated Ne'eman, there should be no such thing as non-observant Jews.

Expand full comment
51 more comments...

No posts