Ba'al Tshuvas Anonymous

I'm OUTTA HERE!

2007-09-16T00:15:00.000-04:00

I haven't been remotely observant for a long time. I realized as I was driving to the bank during Rosh HaShona how great it is to not have hang-ups about going about my life as I like. Judaism is so low on the totem pole, folks, it simply isn't worth the guilt and the hang-ups that are the fabric of it all.

Even when I intellectually knew Orthodoxy wasn't for me and was turning the lights on and using the computer on Shabbos, there was an initial stage of guilt. I'm here to say that 90% of people's observance isn't fear of god, it's fear of their neighbors. I know so many outwardly observant people that "transgress" when in private. What a sick culture Orthodox Judaism has created! It all boils down to Freudian analysis. OJ causes a lot of people to repress a lot of normal urges. It also demands repression of one's own intellect, one's own doubts.

Not a single Rabbi starts off admitting the Torah might be false, might be manmade, might be full of lies and errors. In fact, they start off assuming the truth of that which is impossible to prove true! No wonder they do so many things in secret... even they don't buy it.

Social pressure. Well, I could care less about that. Consider what the Rubashkins do in private. Or the Kolko's or the Mondrowitz's. Or the Aaron Feldman's, Elyashev's and on and on.

In public, they are pious, in private they are demons. There is absolutely no reason to give this religion even lip-service anymore.

Y'all are on your own. My advice, whether to Ex-Gadol Hador and the rest: Ditch OJ now, there is so much more to life than the time you waste obsessing about judaism.

Best to you all.

So if All Comes Down to the Golden Rule!

2007-08-23T01:21:00.001-04:00

I made it to the bigtime today when Godol Hador created a post out of a comment (and then proceeded to hammer away at it like an innocent little white harp seal).

But I agree with my comment, wouldn't you know? The amazing thing, is you really don't have to go to yeshiva to be a righteous person after all (or do you, see below)Here's what I said:

Dawkins actually has a few thoughts on this in the end of his Virus of Faith video. In short, we are all so fortunate to be alive. Clearly anyone who is blogging isn't terminally ill, or brain dead or some other horrible circumstance, e.g., dead.

We are alive! Consider how many unsuccessful combinations of genes never made it and never will make it to life. Think how many animals live a life span thousands of times shorter than ours. Think of how lucky we are to experience the feelings of love, beauty, music, poetry (and for those who like it, religious inspiration).

If you won the lottery today, you would feel incredibly happy because you would feel lucky and taken care of for life. Well, I bet most of you have homes and computers and cars, health insurance, ample food and fresh water, families that love you, etc. How lucky you all are!

A tremendous portion of the world suffers on the edge of poverty, famine, sickness. They watch their children die, succumbing to parasites or common illnesses. They are truly unlucky. No matter what god they believe in or pray to, their lives will be "nasty brutish and short".

You don't need religion to be inspired, take it from me, take it from Dawkins. You are not one of the 10,000 people in china put to death each year for unknown "crimes." You are not suffering from cholera or starvation.

You can celebrate your life. And yes, you can follow the G-O-L-D-E-N R-U-L-E.

If you were one of those less fortunate souls, you'd want someone super wealthy (any one of us by comparison) to help you.

Follow the Golden Rule, people. Don't do to anyone what you would not want done to you. It's really that simple.

Toss the Shulchan Aruch in the garbage. Hang up your tefillin for good.

Go for walks with your kids or elderly relatives. Spend quality time because, yes, we only go around this crazy marble just once and when you come to the end of your life, you'll no doubt wish you'd spent more time with your kids, not wishing you could have made it to just one more mussar shiur or minyan.

FOLLOWUP:

Now, XGH had this to say:

All very nice and inspiring. But does it work? No it does not! Sure, if you're a healthy, happy 21st century Western person it sounds fine. But healthy, happy 21st century Westerners are the most privileged group of people ever to live on this earth. What if you are in a concentration camp? Or starving in Africa? Or any one of a gazillion other not so nice situations? Then what?

Someone else pointed out Hillel's statement of the Golden Rule was the essence of the Torah. I agree, in theory, but of course this was perverted by the Rabbis over the years.

I also went a bit further:

Take the most "righteous" mitzvahs in Judaism (or any religion) and you will find they always boil down to the Golden Rule.

It's really that simple.

However, I do have a confession to make. When I used to be religious, a non-religious person whose logic and opinions I respected posed the Golden Rule to me.

My counter to him was that the mitzvas train a person to have the discipline to actually act on the Golden Rule. IOW, it takes a measure of work on oneself to do the right thing in a lot of circumstances.

So, through a dialectic process, I came back to the Golden Rule, acknowledging that there was some "work" involved (being observant for a few years raised my awareness and developed the discipline to do the right thing). However, that "work" can be found in any respectable religion and in my opinion, but for the few true tzaddikim, all of the non-Golden Rule mitzvas in the Torah lead one down a road that is ultimately less moral.

A road of bigotry, mindless anachronistic rituals, emphasis on form over substance and all the other well-trodden arguements against orthodox judaism.

What Are You Looking For?

2007-03-27T00:51:00.000-04:00

I started this blog a year and a half ago spent a good bit of time trying to find answers to some basic questions. Sometimes my basic frustration with the answers led me off on tangents such as railing against some of the truly nonsensical aspects of religious belief and frmkeit in particular.

However, I can not escape the fact that I'm happy in life in many ways because of where my adventure in frumkeit led me. My wife and I were talking earlier and she said it best: "If you find the right spouse becoming frum will make your life great, if not it will ruin your life." Meaning, you'll either have a loveless marriage or divorce, or spend years trying to find someone the "right way."

Since I don't believe in religious "truths," that makes me one for whom happiness and fulfillment are the paramount aims of life. If doing makebelieve religion got me there, so be it. I wonder, what makes you tick and what are you looking for?

And, aside from what got me here, I wonder where it will lead from here as well. Again, I've come full circle. I'm curious what sort of adventures you have been on in the last couple of years and where some of you ended up.

Halacha of Adultery: Proof that Yahweh was Immoral Had He Existed (which of course he did not)

2007-02-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

A married man can have sex with a woman (so long as she's not married/property of another man and so long as he doesn't rape her) but he cannot eat chicken with milk or turn on a light switch on Shabbos? Or wear shatnez?

Now, if this isn't a litmus test for how morality has shifted (Shifting Moral Zeitgeist) for the better since the writing of the Torah, what is? (feel free to submit as many absurdities as you like).

Meanwhile, a woman who is married is prohibited from adultery and is killed for it. Whereas, if a man rapes an unmarried girl, his penalty is to marry her! Moreover, the torah spells out the elaborate (and Wizard of Oz-like) Sotah ritual in great dirt-eating detail, while no such test of a man's character exists.

To add insult to injury, chazzal decided to use the Sotah ritual to further knock women down. It is the sole "source" for a woman's "obligation" to cover her hair (usually with a sheitel/wig which looks like a dead cat). This absurdity is one that orthodox women live with to this day, public submission that ensures that at least a part of the Sotah humiliation will live on.

The above fact are well-known aspects of halacha, however unspoken. They are PROOF- yes
P-R-O-O-F to those that believe in Yahweh, that was totally immoral by today's standards.

So You "Learn" Because the Talmud is the "Mind of God...?"

2007-01-23T05:37:00.000-05:00

How many of you have heard from overeager BT's or even Rabbis that they knew all this rabbinic judaism was "true" because learning gemara revealed the "Mind of God?"

You won't hear that phrase in the litvish circles, but they would no doubt say something along those lines about the gemara- that studying it gives one insight into what God "thinks" or perhaps strengthens their emunah because everything "fits together so well."

Strange, the gemara doesn't really fit together so well, now does it? And as for this mind of god business, well, just read and random page and I dare you to believe god had anything to do with it.

If Orthodox Jews are so convinced there must be a creator because of the complexity of the world, and how well the world "fits together," I have a suggestion: instead of wasting all day reading the gemara, learn "Molecular Biology of the Cell" by Alberts, et al., or a similar text, to study the majesty of "god's work."

The more you learn, the more you will be duly impressed, but your emunah, where will it go? I'd bet my bottom shekel that, once you'd studied, with a chavrusa even better, you'd come to the same conclusion as 99.9% of biologists- that all this amazingly intricate function of the cell and its organelles, DNA, RNA, etc., all came about through a long, progressive course through minute changes over the eons. You'd have a very difficult time with Noah's Ark, or any of Genesis.

But that's OK! Just because orthodox judaism isn't so accurate, and Molecular Biology of the Cell is a far better representation of the true "mind of God"- unfeeling, uncaring, unthinking evolutionary progress over millions of years resulting in fantastic complexity- none of this means you can't glean some of the wisdom of the religion and toss out the rest that is pure nonsense.

PS- I am aware of the frum doctors who know these subjects well yet still believe, but I think that is more a function of their willingness to completely partition their rational professional pursuits from their religious ones. Ironically, the folks that trot out "Intelligent Design" are almost never people that have studied biology to any great extent. The great exception is Collins, but he's no creationist, and rather claims that God 'designed' evolution. A sorry copout indeed.

Can the Skeptical Blogs Make Marriage Matches?

2007-01-04T14:50:00.000-05:00

I've gotten word of an idea whose time is long overdue- a Formerly Frum/Ex-BT/Or Simply Skeptical Shadchan blog- for setting up men and women with similar worldviews, don't buy frumkeit hook, line and sinker, but see the benefits in a tradition-based marriage.

UPDATE: The TopShadchan Blog Has Gone Public- Send All Inquiries Directly to Them. There is a groundswell of interest about this and I hope to hear about happy marriages down the line- but unlike your BT days, don't rush into anything. ;)

No Need to Go "All the Way" Frum
I have often said that the biggest benefit that most BT's are seeking is finding a strong, meaningful marriage. We live in a hectic, frenetic world, and Judaism and some of its more profound traditions can certainly enable a marriage to get over the rough spots in life. We don't hear about "shalom bayis" in the secular world too often, even the skeptics must admit that.

But there are SO MANY men and women who, despite the apparent benefits, just can't bring themselves to live a lie. And yes, we skeptics feel that living as if the orthodox version of things is all true is not being true to ourselves in varying degrees.

Where are the Ladies?

First of all, I am happily married with kids, as I have said before on this blog. I'm not doing this for myself but rather out of a sense of frustration at seeing the smart, thinking men and women that have written to me asking me "what's the solution if none of this religion is true?" I can't tell you how to live your life, but I can say that if you got married and were half as happy as I am, you'd be very fortunate.

There are a lot of women lurking in the shadows of skeptical blogs but they hesitate to post very often. I figure this is because of the lack of knowledge (after all, they have little exposure to talmud and halachic debate thanks to OJ's doctrine). But we all are enlightened and know that women are just as smart as men and must see the questions and flaws in being a "true believer."

A lot of women have less of a problem with yiddishkeit than men because it isn't foisted on them the way it is on men- the tziztis, the tefillin, 3x/day davening, learning (imbibing) the gemara with all of its strange philosophy and proto-scientific expressions.

The Solution

"Jews Marrying Jews- even the Skeptical ones." That's the tagline for now. I suggest that if you are interested, whether male or female, any age or location, that you 10 post a comment in support of this idea, 2) send this page to anyone who might be interested (they have to be skeptical because the match just won't really work so well- no "hook, line, and sinker" types please) and 3) you should email me the following and I'll see that it gets to The Skepto-Shadchan (TM). ;) He is not me, by the way.

In the email please include the following:

1. Gender
2. age
3. single/divorced
4. kids?
5. want kids?
6. keep kosher to any degree?
7. keep shabbos to any degree?
8. how long involved in some sort of observance?
9. how long have you been doubting "the mesora?"
10.Think the written Torah is most likely written by God?
11. Think/believe that Sinai really happened?
12. How badly do you want to get married (to the right person of course) in the next year?
13. Did you ever attend seminary/yeshiva? if so, for how long and which one?

Those answers would really speed up the process.

I promise to forward all legitimate emails to the Shadchan. This is clearly not a dating service or for hooking up like jdate. So, please respect the intentions of people involved and don't waste anyone's time. No one is asking you to marry a person you don't want to, but just that you be sure you are serious about marriage before contacting us. Any age is fine.

I can already hear the testimonials: "I was skeptical about a skeptical shadchan blog, but..."

My email is baaltshuvaanon@aol.com

Bilbulastia has a post on the Skepto-shadchan as well.

Dawkins' "Shifting Moral Zeitgeist"

2007-01-03T01:26:00.000-05:00

I can't stop thinking about this theory of Dawkins'- the [youtube] Shifting Moral Zeitgeist (SMZ).

In sum, Dawkins points out that even the most enlightened men of their past generations 40 or 100 years ago say things we would say are immoral, while the evilest people of our times would seem more tame by comparison with the same time frames.

Abe Lincoln, HG Wells, TH Huxley all enlightened for their times would seem horribly immoral for our own times, irrespective of one's religious views (unless one is a muslim, puritan, jewish, fundamentalist of the most extreme proportions).

Likewise a Donald Rumsfeld would seem like a pussycat compared to Bomber Harris of England in WWII during the blitzkreigs on Dresden.

You can take anyone, say Thomas Jefferson and point out he was a slave owner, for example. We all collectively shrug our shoulders and acknowledge that we can't hold people from so long ago accountible for our morals today.

Dawkins' point is transformative- it is like a time machine that by its presence in a room explains why a person in colonial garb is standing next to you.

We can come up with all kinds of theories as to why this phenomenon is, whether it is a good thing and so on, but do we agree Dawkins is in fact correct? If he is, he has identified why "Conservatives" are less "moral" by today's standards than "Liberals/Progressives."

That is, Conservatives wish to hold onto the values and viewpoints of the past. Liberals, at a minimum want to "live and let live" but often prefer to push the envelope in terms of what is accepted. These are generalities, broad-brush statements, but they tend to show how conflicts arise. They also explain why the press and universities are for the most part more socially/morally "liberal."

The press is by and large comprised of reporters and editors who have exposure to universities, and universities, at least nowadays work hard at presenting diverse viewpoints. Of course, the press and universities weren't always this way! It took social change from within and without to shape the collective "morality" of these two institutions.

A few examples of how this whole SMZ plays out:

Race and the Rights of Women and Children, and of people in general.
If conservatives have essentially longed to hold on to what they have, and have consistently done so, then they have fought hard for slavery, and to keep women from voting, and to maintain segregation, and to limit civil and criminal rights for the general public.

So, were/are they immoral to do so? That is an irrelevant question. The important question, from where I'm sitting is, who is most likely to shape morality of the future and is this a "good thing?"

I think we can see from Dawkins' examples that we can all agree racist attitudes that blacks are inferior genetically to whites or that women are less intelligent than men are immoral nowadays. We feel good that we've come so far, that women can vote and blacks are considered equal citizens in our democracy (something even Abe Lincoln was startlingly against at one point).

We might even think to ourselves, what can we do next? Gays' rights and acceptance seem to be the next step. If we were to fast-forward 100 years, or perhaps just 25 years, would our societies' current attitudes toward homosexuals seem awful or immoral? Are we better now than we were decades ago? It would seem, with all the gay-oriented TV shows and movies and the like that a lot of progress has been made in that regard.

But one liberal's "progress" is likely to be Exhibit A of the decline of western civilization to a conservative commentator.

Yeridas HaDoros?
According to Orthodox Judaism, there is a phenomenon that earlier generations were on a "higher spiritual level" than ours and call this "yeridas hadoros" - declining of the generations. I think we can only imagine what it would be like to be in the company of a man from 3000 years ago. The image, especially if the person is an ancient Jew, is one of perhaps someone pure and simple, but with totally distorted and deficient views on human interrelations, science and social justice. For him, multiple wives are fine, even necessary. Same for slaves. Same for selling or beating ("abusing" nowadays) his wives, children and animals. Same for genocide on the biblical scale and corporeal punishment and torture.

Can we really say such people were on a "higher plane?" "Of course not!" you would reflexively say. But they clearly were for their time.

In reality, we judge morality from our own vantagepoint, even the religious among us do. Reading the Talmud on a daily basis, perhaps even for the whole day every day, is in many ways a time transport back to medieval times and mindset. I think that is what irked me the most about it. Sitting in daf yomi and just getting a fast forward of how backward the sages were compared to our times was very grating for me.

Apologists try to harness whatever moral progress has been made and apply it to the Torah or the Talmud. However, the authors of the torah and gemara would be appalled by our modern day sensibilities, that much we can all agree on.

Picking and Choosing- Even Chazzal and the Gedolim Do it
Perhaps the most profound lesson to learn from the Shifting Moral Zeitgeist theory is that it shows a road map of picking and choosing, even by the most religious people (other than wahabbist moslems who seem impervious to progress of any kind).

For example, even the most religious man in Lakewood or Israel wouldn't dream of having two wives. It would be unseemly and overtly sexual. And yes, the reason for the extra wives in the old days absolutely was sexual one. The men who had enough money or property and possessions could have more than one wife and this suited him to not just have other women available during the times his wife was nidah or too pregnant/infirm/etc, to serve his needs.

Hence, when we hear about King Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines (not the 1000 wives of the artscroll version, btw) we are talking about a man whose wives were much more sexual objects for him than anything else. The Shifting Moral Zeitgeist meant that even in medieval times, the Jews had to abandon polygamy. And nowadays, even the richest or most powerful or most learned Jew wouldn't think of having a second wife and would feel queasy just thinking about owning slaves. He likely wouldn't want to see even Saddam Hussein have hot lead poured down his throat rather than hanged.

This is why the real blowhards like Dennis Prager and Medved and all the christian evangelical nuts are so infuriating when they selectively quote the bible, or want the 10 commandments in a courthouse. Don't they see how many other parts of the torah they are overlooking because such parts are so immoral in comparison with the zeitgeist of today?

Mark Twain's Guest Post: Or, The Skeptic's Annotated Bible is a Far More Important Commentary than Rashi

2006-12-17T03:40:00.000-05:00

The torah selection below is from Shmuely Clemens' (Mark Twain) "Letters from the Earth"

Twain wants to show, plain as day, a passage that shows just how immoral God was, assuming he wrote the bible and that the events of the bible happened (which I do not, and I assume Twain didn't either). But if you do, I think it will help to see that just quoting the torah is a form of reductio ad absurdum! Think about it, I just have to say, "OK, you believe in god, right? And he wrote this book? Ok, flip to Numbers 31. And so on. There's no way any of you can believe this God is the one you pray to, "the most vindictive character in all of fiction" as Dawkins would call him. Thus, you cherry-pick what laws to obey or what things to internalize and comfortably delete the rest. There are consequences for this, the least of which is not that you are wasting a lot of time indoctrinating yourselves and your kids, infecting them with the virus of faith.

Here's Shmuely's commentary and quote:

"Will you examine the Deity's morals and disposition and conduct a little further? And will you remember that in the Sunday school the little children are urged to love the Almighty, and honor him, and praise him, and make him their model and try to be as like him as they can? Read:

1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people....
7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.
8 And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.
9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
10 And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.
11 And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.
12 And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho.
13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
14 And Moses was furious with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
19 And do ye abide without the camp seven days: whosoever hath killed any person, and whosoever hath touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day.
20 And purify all your raiment, and all that is made of skins, and all work of goats' hair, and all things made of wood.
21 And Eleazar the priest said unto the men of war which went to the battle, This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord commanded Moses....
25 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
26 Take the sum of the prey that was taken, both of man and of beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest, and the chief fathers of the congregation:
27 And divide the prey into two parts; between them that took the war upon them, who went out to battle, and between all the congregation:
28 And levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle....
31 And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses.
32 And the booty, being the rest of the prey which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep,
33 And threescore and twelve thousand beeves,
34 And threescore and one thousand asses,
35 And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of woman that had not known man by lying with him....
40 And the persons were sixteen thousand; of which the Lord's tribute was thirty and two women.
41 And Moses gave the tribute, which was the Lord's heave offering, unto Eleazar the priest, as the Lord commanded Moses....
47 Even of the children of Israel's half, Moses took one portion of fifty, both of man and of beast, and gave them unto the Levites, which kept the charge of the tabernacle of the Lord; as the Lord commanded Moses.

Later, in the book of Judges, Yahweh instructs the Jews to mass-murder the Midianites again, this time 120,000 of them.

The finest version of this scriptural source is in the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, a contribution to insight into the real torah far greater than Rashi. Why? Because you see who God really is, not who Rashi, Tosofos, Avigdor Miller, Artscroll or your yeshiva or kiruv rabbeim tell you "God" is.

Here's a similarly immoral selection from the torah:
10 When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it....
13 And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:
14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.
15 Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. 16 But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.

Nowadays, you have nice Artscroll books (you gotta love the chapter on "dealing with bullies!")and shiurim and the like and you've grown up believing in "God."

But is your "God" this god? If you're a good frummie, and a parent, your living room bookself is no doubt adorned with books that glean all sorts of lessons on child-rearing and how to be a good spouse, right? There isn't a single book that says God's ideal environment would be say, like what we're seeing in the streets of Baghdad, correct? So, where does all of this come from? After all, God commands daughters who lose their virginity before marriage (according to incredibly primitive means of determination that are inherently barbaric- presence of absence of blood in sheets) to be stoned to death in front of thier father's homes! That must be great for the girl's siblings to see, and her parents. And, thanks to Yahweh, you virgins are damned if you don't, damned if you do- since He apparently orders fathers to swear to kill their daughters for remaing virgins as well! Or, if not killing them, putting them to use, of course, by offering a virgin daughter to a rape-thirsty mob. What say you, Rabbi Artscroll?

And, just be forewarned, in case you actually decide to start thinking morally for yourself, beware of the consequences.

I have said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating, you didn't get any of your basic morality from the Torah. If you followed the Torah strictly, you'd be more like the religious maniacs in baghdad, blowing each other up, executing and torturing each other for religious reasons.

Anti-Religious Crusaders, e.g. Dawkins, Sam Harris (and BTA): Overlooking the Female Perspective?

2006-12-08T03:08:00.000-05:00

Wouldn't it be ironic if enlightened scientists, who ardently argue for atheism because religion sets the world back to the Dark Ages, had in their writings and arguments demonstrated a glaring blind spot in overlooking the differences between religious men and *women*?

I have been thinking about this point lately, as Dawkins and Harris in particular have been making wonderful inroads in the quest for a world based on scientific principles of evidence, inquiry, rational thought, and ultimately, enlightenment.

Dawkins has a powerful new book, called The God Delusion, a compendium of intelligent and truthful answers to the most common and fallacious arguments of religious believers, and outright fundamentalists. Some of the arguments are as follows:

1. There too many religious wars and acts of violence to justify religion's existence;
2. Hypocritical religious fundamentalist preachers are influencing the laws of this country and others, and are often caught in secret acts demonstrating the hypocrisy (think Ted haggard, the gay priest who lobbied for an anti-gay marriage law);

I oftentimes feel the need to point out the hypocrisy one sees all the time in the orthodox jewish world, especially the chareidi world. There you see venerated rabbis, aka "gedolim" willing to defend pedophiles, just as the catholic church did for decades. Those days are hopefully coming to an end soon.

So, here's my thought (and it has some very interesting implications): All of the atheist*** spokesmen are just that- men. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, so long as the perspective of 50% of the world's religious folks, i.e., women are taken into account.

But they really aren't. I would argue that most of the arguments levelled against religion apply much more so to men than to women.

Wars:
Men waged them. Some would say religion was essentially an excuse to reinforce tribal similarities and to tap into ancient animal instincts tending towards xenophobia. Irrespective of this, women didnt wage wars.

Other kinds of Violence:
Again, women weren't inquisitioners. They weren't sanhedrin members pouring hot lead down a criminal's throat (or a shabbos violator's). And yes, there are now some female suicide bombers, but this is quite recent and still quite rare.

Child Molestation and other sex crimes:
Again, men are the ones you hear about. I don't know of any female religious Jew who molested a child in school. Any counterexamples out there?

Financial Improprieties and Crimes:
We've all heard about the financial scams, tax and mortgage frauds perpetrated by religious Jews. Has anyone heard of a woman getting arrested for these things? If so, we're talking about the exception, not the rule.

Now, I can already hear some of you commenting that "of course women didn't do all these things, it's because men had all the power." But that isn't really true, now is it? We have women congressmen and senators, do we ever hear about them sexually harrassing their pages? Likewise, given the power, does anyone assume women would become very violent? Corrupt perhaps- I'll concede that.

What all this leads to are really 2 points:

1. It is quite clear that religion is manmade because it so clearly caters to men's inherent violent nature, and the tendencies of men to act in sexually deviant or immoral ways when exposed to constant repression.

2. It would make sense to investigate independently whether perhaps the world would be still be ok if the women were religious. Obviously, this is untestable, and of course women play a huge role in religious indoctrination of their kids. Still, without the male influence, it's arguable that religion wouldn't be so bad at all.

However, without men, I doubt we'd even recognize Orthodox Judaism even in the slightest.

***For the sake of brevity, there are many semantic arguments for the definition of "atheist" from strong to weak, to "really an agnostic" and so on. Let's just use atheist to designate a person who doesn't believe in a god (especially of the Daddy in the Sky variety).

Sam Harris v. Dennis Prager

2006-12-05T02:35:00.000-05:00

Here is a great internet moment. Sam Harris debates Dennis Prager on the basic question- Is it rational to believe in god? Prager is forced to write and voice his views, two things he is very well-known for doing well. However, in this forum (e-mail debate) he isn't simply writing an essay that allows no response. And, unlike the radio show, he can't fade out to a commerical break or talk over the person he disagrees with.

The result: I've never "seen" Prager so upset and frustrated. That's what happens when someone shows how stupid your views are. You be the judge.

I have agreed with some of Prager's points in other fora, so I thought I'd try hard to read this objectively. I found Harris to come across as razor-sharp and reasonable- easily a cut above Prager's intelligence, which lost its patina of respectability without the aforementioned crutches that he and the other radio flacks enjoy so much.

In my view, Harris had the command of the facts and the arguments. Prager was obtuse at times and cagey and immature at other times. He was off his game and very nervous to have to put it all in black and white. He tried to run to the refuge of Francis Collins, a brilliant christian geneticist who happens to be a christian. But Collins' faith had little to do with scientific inquiry, as Harris is quick to point out in a scathing manner that nearly made me cringe with embarassment for Prager and Collins both.

There were two misteps that Harris made, which is certainly forgiveable, given the veritable field day he had with Prager. However, as something of a debater myself, I can't help but be frustrated that the following two points weren't forthcoming:

1. How does Prager justify not becoming christian in the face of the superior intellect Collins' "realization" of the truth of christianity? Prager is fond of touting "judeo-christian" values, as the servant Jew of his christian owners at Salem Communications, a nutty christian radio conglomerate. Well, let's see- Christianity is Judeo-christian, but Judaism is only Jewish. Better to be christian and have the best of both worlds, eh, Denny?

2. On the topic of how the world would fall apart without belief in God, I am reminded of the common argument that atheists did terrible things, such as Stalin and Hitler. However, virtually all of the Nazis who killed and tortured and horded all the innocents in WWII most likely considered themselves christian! Same for the Russians who slaughtered 20million of thier fellow russians under Stalin.

Hat-tip: CarbonShidduch

Resurrection of the Dead without "Heaven"- Proof there is No "Heaven"

2006-11-26T18:17:00.000-05:00

Thought that would get your attention.

I was think aloud to someone today and this thought crossed my mind (also out loud):

Whatever flimsy evidence there is in Torah/Tanach/Talmud that Judaism believes in some kind of life after death, relates to tekias hamesim (reviving of the dead bodies). Belief that god will somehow revive all the dead bodies of Jews (apparently not the other 99.98% of humankind) in the "end of days" when moschiach (the messiah) comes is in fact an article of faith as far as Maimonides was concerned. The 13th Principle of his 13 Principles of Faith reads as follows:

"I believe with complete (perfect) faith, that there will be techiat hameitim - revival of the dead, whenever it will be God's, blessed be He, will (desire) to arise and do so. May (God's) Name be blessed, and may His remembrance arise, forever and ever."

Umm, ok. Note, there is no reference to "gan eden" or some sort of paradise. You'll often hear rabbis of the Talmud or even your local fanatic referring to "Olam Habo" aka, the World to Come. There is no such reference in the Torah or Tanach to any such divine, eternal place outside of this world, and perhaps not even outside of Israel!

It seems to me that a lot of people have taken up "Pascal's Wager" (i.e., "I might as well follow this religion in case it's true and I'll go to 'Heaven') and ought to take a closer look.

At best, you are wasting hours and hours in shul over something which is purposefully vague in few instances where it is actually discussed. Of course, you might want to be equally wary of one who refers to heaven in great detail without any evidence whatsoever, as religious nuts are wont to do.

Ask yourself, is Orthodox Judaism simply belief in fairy tales? Better yet, why not take a close look at what you've gotten yourself into (if you're a BT) or what your parents got you into (if you're FFB) and ask would I sign a contract that was this vague?

Imagine buying your house (or any other incredibly major purchase or decision) online. Imagine what you got was described in terms as vague as the Torah/Tanach's*** regarding raising of the dead. Would you wire your life savings? Would you risk the rest of your life's wages on it?

If not, why would you spend hours and hours on praying and going to yeshivas, based on pie in the sky?

Serious aside:
I don't look forward to my death, or that of anyone I care for. My own innate instincts to survive and to avoid pain make the thought of death an extremely unpleasant one that I've spent a portion of my adulthood coming to terms with. However, intellectual honesty requires that we acknowledge our own blind faith and what kind of a crooked path it leads us on. Those who would gladly break the law here because they've learned it won't jeopardize their "portion in the world to come" are abusing themselves and others.

Just a quick look at Islam would make it plain as day the evils involved in religious focus on the world to come. However, what did Jews do on the misguided basis that they would go to "heaven?" Why is the story of Rabbi Akiva gladly being flayed to death by Romans (with an inspired centurian throwing himself on the burning body of the rabbi to go to heaven) so celebrated? What does this teach our kids? Also, if the whole world is going to be thrown asunder and then revived somehow, why even bother stopping war or greenhouse effect destruction? After all, Yahweh will fix all that in the "end of days" right?

Worst of all, are the religious Jewish nuts who gladly risk their lives and those of thier kids living formerly in Gaza and still in the West Bank, figuring even if they die, they'll all go to paradise together eventually. That might be an acceptable thought under the extreme duress of having just tragically lost a loved one. However, it is not rational or moral to teach nonsense about heaven to kids, especially to drill it into them or put them in harm's way figuring God will sort it all out. I shudder to think of the Jews who let their kids perish rather than convert based on the teachings of narrowminded rabbis throughout the eons.

*** Mesopotamia and the classical world
In the literal sense of the word, resurrection refers to the event of a dead person returning to physical life. Thus it is not to be confused with things like Hellenistic immortality in which the soul continues to live after death, "free" of the body.
"Centuries before the time of Christ the nations annually celebrated the death and resurrection of Osiris, Tammuz, Attis, Mithra, and other gods" [1]. A cyclic dying-and-rising god motif was prevalent throughout ancient Mesopotamian and classical literature and practice (eg in Syrian and Greek worship of Adonis; Egyptian worship of Osiris; the Babylonian story of Tammuz; rural religious belief in the Corn King).

[edit] Judaism

[edit] The Hebrew Bible
See: Jewish eschatology: Biblical verses
The Torah rarely plainly addresses the issue of bodily resurrection. When Jacob dies, he says "I am about to be gathered to my kin. Bury me with my forefathers in the cave which is in the field of Ephron the Hittite." [Genesis 49:29] All the Jewish patriarchs (except Rachel) were buried in the family cave, and so were many other biblical personalities, including King Saul and King David.
The Hebrew Bible refers to the term Sheol, which in traditional Judaism is translated simply as "grave" and is perceived as a transitory state. Critical views (see below) interpret it as a referring to a permanent, shadowy underworld. For biblical references to Sheol see Genesis 42:38, Isaiah 14:11, Psalm 141:7, Daniel 12:2, Proverbs 7:27 and Job 10:21,22, and 17:16, among others.
Passages in the Hebrew Bible traditionally interpreted as referring to resurrection include:
Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones being restored as a living army: a metaphorical prophecy that the house of Israel would one day be gathered from the nations, out of exile, to live in the land of Israel once more.
Daniel's vision, where a mysterious angelic figure tells Daniel, "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake; some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." (Daniel 12:2)
1 Samuel 2: 6 - "he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up"
Job 19: 26 - "after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God"
Isaiah 26: 19 - "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise"
Ezekiel 37: 12 - "I will open your graves, and cause you to come up"
Other passages may be more ambiguous In the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), Elijah raises a young boy from death (1 Kings 17-23), and Elisha’s duplicates of the feat (2 Kings 4:34-35). There are a multiplicity of views on the scopes of these acts, including the traditional view that they represented genuine miracles and critical views that they representedresuscitations rather than bona fide resurrections. Other common associations are the biblical accounts of the antediluvian Enoch and the prophet Elijah being ushered into the presence of God without experiencing death. These, however, are more in the way of ascensions, bodily disappearances , translations or apotheoses than resurrections.

(From Wikipedia-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection)

Unintelligent Editing-The best proof that Yahweh didn't write the Torah

2006-10-31T22:15:00.000-05:00

Unintelligent Editing- Or “Why Didn’t God Mention Moose or Mexico...?”

Have you ever noticed that Yahweh (or sometimes Elohim, depending on the tribe of the author of a particular posuk) spends loads of precious parchment hammering out the details of mitzvahs that were never performed, or that would hardly ever be performed for the vast majority of Jewish history? Strange.

Stranger yet, he completely neglects to mention somewhat important religious topics such as life after death, “heaven”, the “soul”, and my personal favorite- the Oral Law. I mean, if you were going to be fair and give a little due process to all the Jews out there, wouldn’t you think it fair to explicitly spell out the 39 melachos rather than just leave them carefully hidden, waiting for an astute rabbi to come along and “reveal” that the close proximity of the mishkan (tabernacle) parsha was close to the shabbos one? Especially so if the same god sanctions death penalty for infractions involving these sacrosanct melachos). And for God’s sake, don’t wipe up that spill or water a flower on Shabbos!!

Likewise, if God intended to kill women in childbirth for not tithing from challah, kindling shabbos lights, or keeping all sorts of nitpicky laws about niddah (despite the fact that the torah only exhorts men to stay away from women “in their time” i.e., menstuation.) Why not warn them in advance? See, Mishna, Shabbos, Chapter Two, Mishnah Six. Ever notice how god is supposed to be killing mothers-to-be for violating d’rabbunan’s (rabbinical decrees)? How strange. Then again, not so strange perhaps for a god who would kill just about every living thing in the world in the Flood myth, er... parsha because they were “robbers” and the like.

Also, have you ever wondered (in my best Al Franken imitation) why the torah only mentions animals that were native to Mesopotamia? And ditto for geographical locations? I mean, Yahweh/Elohim surely knew all about moose, caribou, giraffes as well as Australia, Antarctica, and North/South America, no? Since he planned Avroham’s children to become “as numerous as the fish in the sea,” it would follow they’d head to new digs elsewhere in the world and would crave understanding. For that matter, Yaweh could have just saved Columbus the uncertainty and just told people to set sail for this vast continent, one with a LOT more milk and honey than mesopotamia. It’s almost as if God were short-sighted, even provincial when he wrote the torah, eh?

Another take: Isn’t it interesting that whenever god actually spells some politically incorrect mitzva or deed out, the rabbis explain it away as virtually irrelevant!? For example, the ben sorer umoreh (the wicked son who is killed by the beis din for gluttony and alcoholism). The rabbis say it never happened! What a waste of good scroll, when people are clearly thirsting for lots of rules, statutes, ordinances, regulations, dictates, and admonitions about “loshon hora,” the 39 melachos, chometz on pesach [passover], and so on. Same for the woman of beautiful form. We get similar apologetics.

Of course, this entire essay is rhetorical. Of course “god” had nothing to do with writing this collection of inconsistent myths! It was written by ancient folks. Only primitive men could have created a god who, as Richard Dawkins so aptly put it, is “the most vindictive figure in all of fiction.”

Yet, even well-educated folks, far smarter than I, still believe these myths to this very day. Some of them even believe in “Intelligent Design.” Then again, Pythagoras was smarter than them all and believed in dozens of gods...

However, among the many rational bases for disbelieving the divinity of the torah/oral law, I think the Torah’s “Unintelligent Editing” is the greatest proof of the manmade, primitive origins of the bible and this (and subsequent) religions based on this book.

People, it’s time to call a spade a spade, and the torah is a book of myths no different that The Odyssey.

Guest Post from a BT Yeshiva Alum and Kollel/Kiruv Rabbi

2006-06-15T00:17:00.000-04:00

After a spirited debate in the comments of the previous post, I invited Adam Singer to write a guest post. He tailored the post to address the main themes of this blog. Rather than distract from his post and dvar torah, a first for this blog, I will reserve any comments of mine for where else... the comments section. Thank you Adam for your contribution.

Guest Post by Adam Singer

I want to start by thanking BTA for allowing me the opportunity to share my thoughts with the people who read his blog. I have thoroughly enjoyed our exchanges over the past few weeks, and I hope that we will be able to continue over e-mail or perhaps on this blog.

I wrote the following is a parsha sheet for parshas Korach this year. I have been reading the postings for the last few years and they seem in a vein which I tried to address in this piece.

Like BTA, I studied at Machon Shlomo, although I think I was there for longer than he was. The complaints that he and other raised against MS, other baale teshuva yeshivas, and Judaism in general are familiar. Some of them I have had myself. I think a lot of them are important points for example, if your marriage works well, then your “teshuva-experience” will be bliss. If it does not, or you have a hard time finding a “shidduch” the life of a baale teshuva can be very unpleasant indeed. But in all truth, isn’t that true of just about any life decision? If you have a good marriage, most everything in your life is going to be better and more pleasant. If not, you are probably tied to a lot of misery, regardless of whether or not you ever even investigated Torah and observant Judaism.

Becoming observant might have made your dating experience more complicated, but it also might have given you resources and advisors who can make your marriage and your life richer and more satisfying. More than anything else, I think a person’s satisfaction in observant Judaism has more to do with the individual’s psychological resources going into the experience, his/her determination to make it work, and his or her mazal in finding good rebbes and friends than it does on anything else. And that is what I feel is my real underlying input for this site.

I think that lot of people find Torah or seek Torah because they are somehow dissatisfied with their secular lives or they are simply unhappy. Torah presents them with resources and opportunities that make them feel like their problems are solved and they can now have fulfilled and satisfying lives as observant Jews. Then new challenges develop and the old one’s somehow linger on, when you thought you were rid of them. The truth is that Torah has given them new resources and avenues they wouldn’t have had before, and more importantly, I believe they are living a better and more truthful life. But nonetheless, this is the challenge phase where I think you and many others just give up. People find the same-old hackneyed accusations to excuse themselves from Torah be it Holocaust, Genesis, or Olam Haba and then walk out. But ultimately, I really believe there are more personal forces at work. There are great historians, geneticists, physicians, biologists, and ethicists who deeply believe in Torah and a Torah life. I am happy to connect you to them if you’d like. But ultimately I don’t think that’s the real issue here. I think the real issue is that being a baale teshuva will not necessarily solve all of your problems and it might bring challenges that you never expected.

A lot of us who found Torah because of something dissatisfying, probably would have benefited a lot from some professional counseling. Indeed, sometimes teshuva should probably be the prelude or companion to good counseling. People might need to be more aware of that. Some people who are looking to become more observant might be well advised to seek good professional counseling at the same time. If you are already observant and are feeling like something’s not going right, it might be a good time to look into some counseling. You might be amazed at how much better your life and your marriage will be with some good counseling. And you will almost certainly be amazed at how much Judaism is a part of the solution, and not the problem itself. Many will make the mistake of abandoning meaning and truth for easy answers and a more convenient lifestyle. I truly believe that they are missing out and I will be amazed if there are not many times in your life when you will deeply agree with me.

With that as my prelude, I invite your comments and feedback here or directly by e-mail at ajsinger613@yahoo.com. Truly yours, Adam Singer, Savannah, Georgia

The Beginning of Wisdom

Why do you, or do you not choose to believe in G-d and the Divinity of Torah? We seldom know what really motivates us. When we consider why we believe something to be wrong or right, if we do so at all, the answer is hidden beneath layer after layer of the effects of nature and nurture. Of course it is true that murder is wrong, of course it is true that every human being is invested with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…but what makes these things true? Are there foundations to these truths? Is it just possible that we take these truths to be self-evident because we lack the motivation or purpose to truly investigate their foundations?

Investigate the inner motivations of your beliefs and you may find that a lack of faith is tied more closely to fear or even selfishness than to any challenge science or history might weigh against G-d or the Torah. There are people who are well-grounded in science, engineering, medicine, law, philosophy, and history and who live lives deeply committed to Torah observence. Why don’t you? Or why do you? Questions about the roots of our beliefs are the foundations of the future of our people. The issue of why we believe what we believe is also at the core of the story of Korach in this week’s parsha.
Korach dissented against Moses during the Jewish people’s journey through the desert. In many cases, Korach appears to be a democratic visionary. His dialogues with Moshe are replete with accusations that Moses gave preferential treatment to himself and his family. Why should Moses’s brother be high priest? Why should Moses be the leader? All of the Jewish people are holy! No one should hold more authority than any other (see Bamidbar 16:1-14). But all of Korach’s populist pandering was only an attempt to garner support for his coup. It was rabble rousing of the worst sort meant to turn the people against Moses, the humblest and most selfless leader who ever lived.
What was really motivating Korach? Truth? Integrity? A heartfelt devotion to the people of Israel? The Torah subtly teaches the root of Korach’s actions in the following verse: “And he [Korach] took Korach, the son of Yitzhar, son of Kehas, son of Levy took…” (Bamidbar 16:1). This verse is impossible to understand in its simple literal meaning. The first word of the verse is “And he took”, referring to Korach (i.e. Korach took). But the second word of the verse is Korach. In other words, the verse literally says that Korach took Korach? How should we understand these words? What did Korach actually take?

Second, we must understand a nuance contained in Korach’s genealogy. Why does the Torah list so many of Korach’s forefathers? Usually the Torah lists the name of an individual’s father, and perhaps a grandfather. Why does the Torah mention three generations of Korach’s forebearers (i.e. his father, grandfather, and his great-grandfather)?
The sages explain how to understand the verse when it says that “Korach took Korach”. What does it mean for Korach to take himself? It means that figuratively, Korach took himself out of the world. He removed himself from the list of those who would lay the foundations of the Jewish people. He removed himself from those who could have a positive spiritual impact on the world. He removed himself from everything good and important in life, and this is what it means to be taken from the world.

The definition of the Korach being taken from the world is similar to the meaning of the following statement in Pirkei Avos 4:28, “Rabbi Elazar HaKappar says: envy, lust, and honor, take a person from the world.” In this statement Rabbi Elazar HaKappar is teaching that the drives rooted in envy, lust, and the pursuit of honor will cause a person to forfeit everything that is most precious in life and thus take him from “the world”.

Indeed, envy and the pursuit of honor were Korach’s true motivation for his dissent against Moses and this is how he was “taken from the world.” The Torah alludes to envy and the pursuit of honor in Korach’s character in its description of his lineage. Rashi (11th cent. France) explains that the Torah’s extensive description of Korach’s lineage is an allusion to his envy for a position of honor which was given to his cousin, Elizaphan son of Uzziel. Elizaphan, Korach, Moses, Aron, were all grandsons of a man named Kehas. Moses and Aron were the sons of Kehas’s first-born son Amram. Korach was the son of Kehas’s second son, Izhar. Elizaphan was the son of Kehas’s youngest son Uzziel.

Korach was irate that he, the son of an older son, had been passed over for the son of a younger son for the position of prince of the family of Kehas. This fury from envy and love of honor were the real foundations of Korach’s feud against Moses.
Korach was a man seeking to assuage his hurt pride by undermining Moses and the system of the Torah which is the real foundation of everything good and selfless in creation. Everything he said was true. The Jewish people are holy, and indeed ideally they should not require any individual to lead them. But the shortcomings of the Jewish people at the sin of the golden calf and elsewhere showed that they needed a leader. Korach’s selfishness and short-sightedness were the greatest proof that he was not the right person to lead. It is a sad testimony that a person can know many things which are true, and use them all to lead others in the wrong direction.

None of us is really immune to envy, desire, and honor. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how we could really find motivation without these things. But we must be aware of what direction these emotions are pointing us. The sages teach that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of G-d. If we are motivated by the awesomeness of what it means to live in a world with a Creator, if we are motivated by the understanding that we and everyone around us will someday be held accountable for every one of our actions or inactions, there is much we can accomplish to build our world. If we are animated by the recognition that my ego cannot be the sole motivating factor in my life, and we take Torah as a guide for how to direct ourselves to grow to become better, less selfish people, we have a chance at gaining a real and satisfying direction in our lives. We have a chance of fulfilling our true potential, and we have the potential to truly build our world.
This week take a moment to consider something which is truly good. You choose what this is. But ask - why is this good? What do I have to gain from it and what could others gain from it as well.

May we all be blessed to be true builders of our world and may Torah allow us to find comfort and meaning in every aspect of our lives. GOOD SHABBOS!!!

Good Night and Good Luck

2006-01-23T01:22:00.000-05:00

Well, we've come to the end of the road together. It has been a cathartic and intellectually stimulating adventure. I hope I've given all of you 1/1000th the food for thought you've given me.

I started this with one principle aim in mind- to make as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time... er...- to gain clarity as to whether and how judaism and my life dovetail together/apart from here on out.

For those who don’t know, I was a secular atheist who became a BT and got married and started a family in rapid succession. I put aside my tough questions because I was enthralled by the family and community benefits that orthodox judaism present for the modern world. Since that time, I became hooked on Shabbos as “an island in time,” as Rabbi Donin called it in “To Be a Jew.” I even see the hidden benefits in keeping kosher and taharas mishpacha.

But, also I was roped in by the kiruv world, where the ends justify the means, and they want to add as many intelligent, successful Jews to the rosters of the BT yeshivas irrespective of whether the ideas they teach have any objective evidence to support them. The yeshiva world is a castle built on sand. I think orthodoxy works so long as you don’t get too ambitious, promise too much, and build the castle too high. In other words, Orthodoxy is easily crushed under its own weight. Simple, straightforward questions don’t jibe well with it. Because, when a tradition is given over with such gravitas, like the emperor demands deference to his new clothes, only contorted, convoluted answers that obscure the question will do. "Do not trust your instincts, for they are your yetzer hara." "Do no trust your intellect," because a lot of the jewish intellectuals end up with nothing close to the communities we have, and not even jewish grandchildren if you look at the statistics.

So, what’s a Jew like me to do? Who knows, I might keep you posted. But I want this blog to stay up as long as Google can afford to keep the lights on. Hopefully, they won’t go the way of Kozmo.com and have to sell my blog to the bankruptcy trustee for pennies on the dollar...

I want to thank all of you (not to be too grandiose- I only have around 6,000 hits, half of which are probably me) who have contributed. But seriously, I gained some valuable insights from the very smart, good natured Jews of the Jblogospere, especially, Mississippi Fred, Holy Hyrax, Chardal, Happy With His Lot, Responding to J Blogs, Mis-nagid, JakBlack, RebelJew, UnorthodoxJew, Kelsey, SL Aronowitz, Ben Avuyah, Ezzie, Jewish Atheist. There are others I’m sure.

Mostly, the "true believers" stayed away. Perhaps they thought my kashas were "klutz kashas," or perhaps they just didn't want to add any credence to any post questioning the mesora. That's too bad. I think Orthodox Jews got painted into a corner by indifference of that very nature. A lot of the real frummies questioned my lack of "respect" for chazal or the mesora. Of course, some played the "am ha'aretz card." But they were usually trumped in short order by one of the skeptical Rabbis or yeshiva grads who lurked most of the time here. I think the die-hards got it partly wrong. I do have respect for what we have, I just don't think it is divine. I see no evidence and have no need to make a leap of faith. Oh, and I am not in a foxhole.

And I must thank Godol Hador, although he never posted a single time here, he really started the skeptical blogging phenomenon for me. I’ve worked through and vented (which is valuable too) on his blog too many times to recount.

So here is my hope for the many hours of blogdom recorded here. This blog should remain as a buoy in a sea of sheker. It doesn’t have all the answers, but it has all the questions. Take them to your kiruv clown, or to the rabbis that demand so much of you. Hopefully, that should be enough to let any BT know he wasn’t the only one to feel he was sold a bill of goods. Once that’s off his chest, hopefully he can get on with living, and perhaps live with some of the valuable ideals of our tradition as his guide.

Also, I hope as the kiruv campaigns get underway, with their focus groups, slick movies, their logically deficient “proofs,” and utter distortions of science, that hopefully someone circumspect will acknowledge that it’s wrong to lie to potential BT just to get them to keep shabbos. Let the good stuff speak for itself. Let people go at their own pace and if they like it, great. If not, leave them with something to think about, and they can always come back to it again at a later time, with a clean slate.

A buoy, not a beacon, assures my salvation,
and guides my way more than sunlight.
If I’m to stay afloat and safely reach shore,
I can cling to the buoy all night.

Orthodox Judaism- Just Too Hard to Believe?

2006-01-19T17:07:00.000-05:00

Following up on my previous post on how the heck I am going to raise my kids, I got mainly posts from sympathetic skeptics, some with kids, some without. I am going to keep doing a lot of thinking about this, of course with my wife.

But I got an interesting post from my friend Chardal, a true believer:

"The enigma of BTA for me is that he pretty much has the moral/ethical code of OJ and therefore rejects major aspects of popular culture yet has theological positions that usually come with a more relaxed attitude towards popular culture. "

To that, I replied:

"The enigma of BTA for me..."
Chardal- would you agree with this statement- "The basic elements of OJ (let's say Rambam's 13 ikkarim) are objectively hard to believe unless one has been raised to believe them or has spent many hours internalizing them."

Rambam's 13 Principles of Faith are Inherently Hard to Believe:

Here is an uncontroversial translation of Rambam's 13 Principles of faith from the trusty OU website. There's a lot of history behind the 13 principles and a lot of debate over what they were/were not designed to do. Let's set all of that aside and not digress about Rambam or the wording of the 13 principles themselves, as we OJ's are so often wont to do.

Rather, let's use these principles as shorthand for what OJ believes and what an OJ is supposed to believe. Maybe after looking at these, we'll conclude that most orthodox Jewish people don't really believe one or all of these principles, and that I am not so enigmatic after all. Perhaps we'll all realize that when we go to shul, the guy to the left or right of us is only partially a believer in these principles.

Defining Terms- "I Believe in Principle X" as Opposed to "I Subscribe to Principle X":

Subscribe: (Definition) "To feel or express hearty approval: e.g., 'I subscribe to your opinion.'"
Believe: (Definition) "To accept as true or real: e.g., 'Do you believe the news stories?'"

Now, I know you philosophers see where I'm going and are going to wikipedia me to death. I know there's no such thing as an OJ catechism. I know there are oodles of books defining the difference between faith and belief, or in judaism between "emunah" as faith or as "trust."

Kiruv pros specialize in fine distinctions of emunah, so let's not join them for the moment.

Rather, let's just say that most OJ folks must find it easy to subscribe to the 13 principles, but not nearly as many believe in them. Why else, are there constantly shabbatons and shiurim dedicated to "chizzuk" (strengthening emuna)? Why are half of Artscroll's and Feldheim's libraries filled with books designed to mechazek one's emuna?

In the liturgy itself, Yigdal is the 13 principles. Those who daven are regularly subscribing to these principles. But, are they merely paying "lip service?"

Yet, how many of you believe in all 13, not just subscribe to them? Here they are- from the OU website.

1. I believe with perfect faith that G-d is the Creator and Ruler of all things. He alone has made, does make, and will make all things.

2. I believe with perfect faith that G-d is One. There is no unity that is in any way like His. He alone is our G-d He was, He is, and He will be.

3. I believe with perfect faith that G-d does not have a body. physical concepts do not apply to Him. There is nothing whatsoever that resembles Him at all.

4. I believe with perfect faith that G-d is first and last.

5. I believe with perfect faith that it is only proper to pray to G-d. One may not pray to anyone or anything else.

6. I believe with prefect faith that all the words of the prophets are true.

7. I believe with perfect faith that the prophecy of Moses is absolutely true. He was the chief of all prophets, both before and after Him.

8. I believe with perfect faith that the entire Torah that we now have is that which was given to Moses.

9. I believe with perfect faith that this Torah will not be changed, and that there will never be another given by G-d.

10. I believe with perfect faith that G-d knows all of man's deeds and thoughts. It is thus written (Psalm 33:15), "He has molded every heart together, He understands what each one does."

11. I believe with perfect faith that G-d rewards those who keep His commandments, and punishes those who transgress Him.

12. I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. How long it takes, I will await His coming every day.

13. I believe with perfect faith that the dead will be brought back to life when G-d wills it to happen.

I personally don't believe any of these and honestly don't see how anyone can believe in #'s 6,7,8,12, and 13, especially after some exposure to studying the subject matter. I could see to subscribing to the rest, if I believed in God.

So, I think FFB's ("Forced From Birth"?) do "believe" on some level, having grown up believing, but I really don't see how an BT's do. I also don't see how thinking adults, whether FFB or not, could actually believe 6-8,12 and 13.

My theory is that the value of living in an OJ lifestyle outweighs questioning and abandoning the lifestyle. Those who have "left the fold" do seem to be a rather unfulfilled lot.

So- do you believe in "The 13?"

Frum Skeptic Married to Frum Believer- Worse than Intermarriage?

2006-01-18T23:23:00.000-05:00

This post is dedicated to Godol Hador, who I gave such a hard time today about his post extolling the benefits of believer status over skeptic status. (Also Hyrax, Chardal, Responding to Jblogs, SL Aronowitz, Jewish Atheist, MikeSkeptic, RebelJew, Satyamanand Un-orthodox Jew, all of whom have indulged me with their own advice- amny hae posts on their own blogs about this.)

I realized that I was frustrated because I'm in search of a solution to this dilemma and find it to be a Gordian Knot. I also realized it's foolish to not want to acknowledge personal fears in this setting a) because my concerns are not unique to me, and b) I'm anonymous at present.

I've had many interesting email dialogues with folks in a similar position to me (see title). I started wondering, although I am blessed with a wonderful wife who understands me and is flexible, whether I am destining my kids to embody either/or or to become jekyll/hyde combination of my wife and I.

I realized that this must be just as absurd as the Jews who intermarry and say they'll raise the kids with "respect for both."

Now, I think it might actually be child abuse to raise a kid frum in OJ schools and then when they get old enough to ask "the questions," lie and forever betray their trust or tell them the truth and pull the carpet from underneath them.

It seems a much better option to enroll them in less than Orthodox jewish schools. But that raises another dilemma. I think that isolation from T.V. is a good thing in large part. I like the emphasis on learning and reading and character trait development to the exclusion of video games and the like. As my kids grow older, I hope I will be able to steer them clear of premarital sex and all the rest. Orthodox schools are not a foolproof innoculation against those concerns but it has statistics on its side. The question then, is do the statistics apply to a family like mine? Shabbos is also great for kids and families, and I have no problem with it.

I just hate being a hypocrite myself and wouldn't want my kids to be enrolled in OJ schools as non-believing skeptics! I don't see the alternative very well, as should be clear.

What do you think is the right approach?

Debunking the Kuzari (?)

2006-01-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

{Revised- Summary and Discussion Below}

It seems the Kuzari principle (that revelation at Sinai must have happened since so many people claim to have witnessed it and were it a fraud would have been scorned by their peers) keeps hanging around those dusty beis medrashim. And some dusty blogs as well. I have a response to the Kuzari which I haven't heard elsewhere, although I'm sure it's out there somewhere. Here it is:

In Nehamia, 8th Perek, it is clear that the Jews of the second temple era hear the torah for the first time in many many years, and weep because of their sense of loss.

What happens next is amazing: They learn for the first time about Succos! Now, Succos is supposed to be a remembrance of the exodus.

Moreover, it states clearly that Succos had not been observed since the days of Joshua ben Nun! Since he took over from Moshe, and I don't believe Moshe observed Succos, that would mean Succos had never been observed until the days of the second temple! (I could be wrong about Moshe not observing succos, but it wouldn't affect this refutation of the Kuzari, btw).

Now, if they didn't remember the "remembrance", how exactly did they all collectively (from their "bubbes and zaydes") remember the Sinai experience itself?

And another question, seperate and apart from this (and there are lots of opinions that address this question in the gemara and the commentaries, so it is not my main refutation): why didn't the Jews remember *where* Sinai was?! That would seem to be an important place. The aplogetics answer is because God didn't want them to worship the mountain itself. Why, then, do we essentially worship the temple mount and the kotel? Some say the temple mount was sinai. Some say, the location was lost during the initial dispersion. That would be a difficult admission for those zionists who claim continuous Jewish presence in israel since Joshua entered there.

Here is the relevant chapter from Nehamia:

8:13 And on the second day were gathered together the chief of the fathers of all the people, the priests, and the Levites, unto Ezra the scribe, even to understand the words of the law.

8:14 And they found written in the law which the LORD had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month:

8:15 And that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and pine branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written. [It appears that the purported Oral Law tradition of the Esrog being the "fruit of a beautiful tree" was totally unknown to them!]
8:16 So the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the street of the water gate, and in the street of the gate of Ephraim.

8:17 And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths: for since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness.

8:18 Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according unto the manner.

[It is worth noting that this seven day public reading/refresher course would have been an excellent time to mention there was a so-called "Oral Torah" as well and start studying up on it. Ah well, the Oral Torah isn't mentioned anywhere in the Torah/Tanach, so I guess that shouldn't surprise anyone. And it doesn't make it any less divine, or binding, got it? And the 39 melachas... And tefillin were really worn back then, even though they aren't mentioned here, right? By the way, it's strange that given the supposed importance of wearing tefillin, that after reading the whole Torah, they, including Ezra and Nehamia, all found it far more important to get the lulavim and succos set up rather than make tefillin. I guess that way they could avoid machlokess about whether to wear tefillin during chol moed... :D]

To read the entire chapter 8 and how they wept at hearing the torah for the first time, read from the beginning:

Nehamia 8

Summary and Discussion:

Well, this post started with some heated debate, mostly prompted by my less than obsequious reference to the subject matter. It benefitted much more from S. , Jewish Atheist, and Chardal than from my input. There were other assorted commentators who really added to the discussion, so thank you. (And no, happy- you were not one of them).

So, here's how I would summarize:

1. S. rightly points out that Kuzari as a work is not refuted by this post. It seems to me to be an excellent disproof of Rabbi David Gottlieb's "proof" called the Kuzari Principle. His proof is disproven by this post in a simple fashion: we cannot rely on the testimony as "witnesses to Sinai" of our "bubbes and zaydes" if their bubbes and zaydes (Ezra and his contemporaries) had not observed Succos themselves for a very long time. S. and Chardal made the excellent point that the phrase "since the days of Joshua ben Nun" could have been idiomatic and therefore not an automatic admission that Succos had not been observed since Joshua. However, even they must admit to a broken chain, and thus my disproof of the "Kuzari Principle" still stands.

After all, if a zecher l'tzius mitrayim (a rememberance) was forgotten, then how much more so was the thing being remembered. Think of a string being tied to your finger to make sure you remember something. 40 years later, the string has long fallen off and someone asks you why you had that string on in a photograph. If you say "I have no idea" how likely is it that you'd remember the thing the string was to remind you of?

Even if this doesn't work for you, the Torah itself is a zecher of many things, but especially Sinai. If the scroll had been lost until the time of Josiah, again, the chain of transmission of the Sinai story/event/myth is clearly broken as well. Thus, it is clear that when the Jews prostrate themselves and mourn after hearing the torah read aloud, they are clearly mourning the loss for so many years of their cherished history. They clearly mourn the loss of all the mitzvahs they had not performed and had violated unwittingly. They are absolved of this and told just to be rejoice, but first things first- to observe Succos properly.

2. Nehamia perek 8 is also problematic for the oral law concept, in that the rabbis claimed to have an oral tradition that the esrog was "the fruit of a beautiful tree" mentioned in the Torah. The problem is that Ezra and the rest begin gathering several types of sticks and foliage, half of which are in common with rabbinic tradition, and also olive branches which clearly are not. They also make no mention of an esrog or even any kind of "fruit," whether from a beautiful tree or not! Now some angry commentators tried to snag me by saying Mordechai and Ezra and Nehamia clearly knew the real traditions, just not the people of Jerusalem. However, why then didn't Nehamia, Ezra, or Mordechai say "hey wait a second, folks- there's an oral tradition that goes with this- you don't use olive branches at all, and you need to use an esrog." They didn't say that, because they didn't know differently from what they had just read.

3. My tefillin comment was off the cuff (pun intended) and yet generated intense discussion, most of which was very interesting, and again most of the interesting discussion came not from myself. First, we can all agree that tefillinwere worn for a very long time. We agree that there were several versions (this is all in the gemara). However, I think that tefillin fit in in the following way: tefillin were not universally worn and were subject to a lot of doubt. I will post on this in the future, but see the last comments for my basic take.

The "King Solomon- The Wisest and Most Off the Derech of All Men" Series- Pt II

2006-01-13T16:11:00.000-05:00

I realized, after doing
The 1st King Solomon Post that King Solomon was fertile territory to mine. In fact, I believe that Shlomo HaMelech more or less undermines every aspect of how frummies think "real" judaism works.

From kashrus to ketubas, from theology to theodicy, from chinuch to chassidus- King Solomon's life explodes all myths. All you need to do is a close reading and you will soon see the following:

1. Halachos of marriage, intermarriage, and adultery were irrelevant to King Solomon;
2. Halachos of idolotry were irrelevant to him (previously covered);
3. So-called "Oral Law" was unknown to Shlomo, and came long after he died,despite all the nice talmudic tales about how his father King David studied torah, including oral law;
4. Halachos of conversion;
5. That it was just fine with HaShem for a man to have concubines (in Solomon's case hundreds of them). Concubine = woman sex slave. Exactly how moral is HaShem anyway? Apparently not very, even according to the rabbis who banned this practice. Of course, we know there are many chareidim who hold of prostitution, but Rav Elyashev is too busy with banned books claiming the universe is older than 6,000 years...

Today's Topic:
"King Solomon- The Wisest Jew, Who Married Hundreds of Goyim and Whose Children Were Goyim"

We know from 1 Kings 11 that King Solomon had sex with "many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites." The next phrase says sleeping with gentiles was banned in the torah. And we know you at least can't marry a Moabite deorisa. I'm surprised this guy didn't marry an Amalekite as well.

We also know that "he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines." Notably it then says only "his wives turned away his heart," not his concubines.

We also know that "when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods."

Now, let's see how many halachos those 3 sentences undermine, shall we ...

1. Adultery- King Solomon had sex during marriage with other women.
2. Intermarriage- He married goyim. Now, whenever I would ask a Rabbi in my early BT days, how it came to be that intermarriage was banned, given that so many biblical figures intermarried, most notably Moshe, I was given the apologetic answer "well, that's simple- the women converted!"

However, as we can see here- there was absolutely NO CONVERSION of these gentile wives. They actively participated in idol worship and in Solomon's golden years, persuaded him to worship idols and gods and goddesses and to build alters to all of the above.

It is noteworthy that the perek does not claim Solomon's children were therefore gentiles because of their non-jewish mothers. In fact, one of his sons became the next King!

And, let's not forget- one of the descendants of one of these non-convert intermarriages is supposed to be the messiah! A goy will be messiah? Hmmm. This makes all the hoops the talmudists jump through to explain Esther's intermarriage (she was really just a sex slave/concubine of a Persian king) since she too is an ancestor of the moschiach, supposedly.

Let's talk about all you hear about OJ marriage. You need a chuppah, a ketuba, tanaim, yichus, the whole shebang. Then sheva brachas.

Thus, if this stuff was really Oral Law and known in Solomon's time, one would expect him to have had:

1. 1,000 ketubas
2. 1,000 shona rishonas! (simultaneously?)
3. 7,000 sheva brachas (that's 19 years of sheva brachas, again unless he did them simultaneously!!!)
4. 1,000 weddings (assuming most of his "weddings" were just sexual encounters), that's still 2.7 YEARS of weddings. Did he marry on Shabbos? It wouldn't matter to the wives, since they weren't shomer shabbos anyway.
5. No brisim for his sons, since they were gentiles.
6. No need to do Jewish chinuch for his kids since they were gentiles. Therefore, no mitzva to follow the Shema "teach these words to your children," was there if they were goyim?

It's rather absurd, this religion. The next time you hear some frummie extolling the importance of this mitzva or that, ask yourself- "what would King Shlomo do?"

Today's Talmud Chacham Equals Yesterday's Am Ha'aretz

2006-01-08T05:38:00.000-05:00

Let me just get another of my Ba'al T'shuva pet peeves off my chest. When a skeptic raises questions to most Rabbis, he is typically dismissed with scorn as an "am ha'aretz (a talmudic term literally meaning "people of the earth" used to describe completely illiterate farmers and the like in Talmudic times).

But times have changed and so, I think the connotation must change as well. Nowadays, your average talmud chacham is a person so devoid of secular learning and so twisted in his conception of reality that he is really a backwards ignoramus. The talmud chacham who also knows something of the real world, must subordinate his secular learning at every step of the way in order to be a "true talmud chacham."

Thus, let's be honest. While the talmedei chachamim of yesteryear were the "ivy leaguers" the doctors, lawyers and mathematicians of their culture, such is no longer the case. Yes the T.C.'s today might have some smarts, but it is utterly irrelevant except in their narrow realm. They are not particularly able to do anything better as a result of their extensive and ultimately wasteful learning.

I hope orthodox jewry comes around and sees that 5% is the most of our people that should be spending all their time learning. In the meantime, all I see are a lot of destitute groveling people becoming much less in life because of their quest for mediocrity and studying the fables, illogic and outright lies of our talmudic ancestors.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

More Heresy: Cancer and Viruses- the Best Evidence of Intelligent Design!

2006-01-08T05:24:00.000-05:00

Cancer and Viruses have got to be the most amazing things! Think about it, even more amazing that reproduction. After all, modern science has been able to cure previously infertile couples with regularity, creat life in vitro, even freeze fertilized eggs (zygotes) for future use. Amazing.

Yet, cancer, what an even more amazing thing it is. How it starts is a mystery even to oncologists. How it spreads undetected until it's too late- quite something. HOw cancer hijacks cells in distant locations on the body in metastasis is essentially the kiss of death for most who experience it. Our best treatments- high tech radiation and patented chemotherapies are hardly a match for cancer- where success is measured in extra months a patient has rather than expecting a total cure. The cancer even evolves and adapts to the chemotherapy- forming a resistance.

Viruses are no less amazing. They also develop immunities to our vaccines, if we're able to form a vaccine at all. They also hijack cells, but in an even more amazing way. They hop aboard a cell and inject their own DNA into the cell, like a sinister combination of a dyslexic mosquito crossed with a computer hacker!

Yes, these things were just too random to form by chance. They needed a designer. A sinister designer. An evil designer. One that has no regard for the young children his invention strikes. Or the mothers, or hardworking fathers. Nope. This Intelligent Designer could care less.

Have the intelligent design loonies overlooked this point?

Here's another- our susceptibility to cancer and viruses are incontrovertible evidence of UN-intelligent design! If a cell phone company manufactured as many phones with terminal defects equivalent to cancer, heart disease, viruses, type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis, blindness, retardation, progeria, agromegaly, taysachs, spinal bifida, and on and on- that cell phone company would be regarded as incompetent and we'd expect it to become bankrupt! What happened to the intelligent designer crew here? Have they overlooked the obvious again?

If It's Good Enough for King Solomon- The Wisest of All Men, It's Good Enough For You and I

2006-01-06T14:34:00.000-05:00

Executive Summary:

King Solomon was called by himself and chazzal "the wisest of all men." King Solomon had very good yichus (pedigree), having been the favorite (and first born?) son of King David himself! You have to assume pretty good chinuch as well. Nevertheless, in tanach, I Kings 11, it is clear that King Shlomo engaged in idol worship. Not just subtle idol worship, mind you, but all-out idolatry with the imprimatur of the King himself. He offered sacrifices not just to one idol other than God, but he actually built ALTARS to the deities of several gods! Now, God knew about this, but didn't punish Solomon whatsoever. He allowed Solomon to reign for 40 years. He allowed Solomon's son to become the next king, albeit with a partial slap on the wrist punishment of diving the kingdom between the son and another king.

Commentary:
The point is- this extreme example poses myriad impossible to answer questions for fundamentalist Orthodox Jews and even the "rationalist" OJ's who claim halacha is binding and that God himself was fair in dispensing justice and executing his own laws.

The Source:

King Solomon worships other gods (and a goddess!)in
I Kings 11 and gets virtually no comeuppance.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=11&chapter=11&version=9

Here are just a few of the problems raised by this (and this explains why 99% of orthodox Jews have no idea of the above, and why tanach is not taught to yeshiva students even after they've been there for 20 years!).

Here we go:

1. There is a principle that God holds high level Jews to a very high standard of observance. Thus, the story goes, that's why Moshe was kept out of Israel over a minor infraction;

2. King Solomon, King David's own son, would clearly know all of the alleged Oral Law and all halacha, as the Temple was standing in his lifetime and none of the purported transmission would have been lost;

3. There are at least a dozen admonitions under pain of death, by God himself throughout the Torah and Tanach not to engage in idol worship and not to make alters or "graven images" to deities other than Adonai/yaweh/Hashem/God/Elokim/El/Shaddai (yes that's one god). Yet, the King himself made sacrifices and actually constructed idol worshiping alters! While God shows some displeasure, he nevertheless metes out NO PUNISHMENT to Solomon! This, from the God who tells Moshe to kill a man for carrying sticks on Shabbos when even Moshe didn't know it was death to do so, and ostensibly, the guy carrying didn't as well if the godol hador didn't!);

4. This directly undercuts the Rabbis nowadays who engage in apologetics and always claim Jews from "those days" were on a much higher madrega (spiritual level) than we today;

5. This makes the entire mesechta Avoda Zara look ridiculous, since the Rabbis of the talmud claim even the slightest things can be "idolatry," e.g., bending over in front of an idol (even to tie a shoe!). And then we had the modern day brouhaha where Rav Elyashiv banned wigs that might contain hair used in an hindu religious service. You got to wonder what Rav Elyashiv would say about King Solomon!

6. The blatant idol worship and alternate deity worship of King Solomon makes it clear why in Koheles (the tanach reading for Succos) he claims "all is futility under the sun' and why he never talks about heaven or the afterlife. Then , the last line of Koheles (probably written in by someone else) says, oh, by the way the only thing that matters is doing God's mitzvohs). Riiiight. And the god of the hittites, jebusites, and on and on;

7. This essentially proves that Solomon had no oral law and did not learn it, or believe it. In the alternative, it means he simply didn't believe in God or fear him whatsoever;

8. It shows that all the nicey-nice teachings (in the talmud and the modern day Artscroll mush) about "chinuch" (educating youth) are farcical. After all, with King David for a father, and having the aptitude of being the wisest man of all, King Solomon was basically a philosopher who sacrificed to any old god and didn't believe all the nonsense we have nowadays thanks to the rabbis. After reading the quotes and thinking about it, do you really believe Solomon wore tzitit and tefillin and a yarmulke? Or that he ate kosher? How about not eating blood? Or not marrying gentiles? (He apparently married HUNDREDS of gentiles). Thus, our second greatest King, son of the Greatest King, and King of the First Temple, and the great grandfather supposedly of out future Moschiach, was an idol-worshiper.

What say all of you?

1 Kings 11
1But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites:

2Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love.

3And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.

4For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.

5For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

6And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father.

7Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.

8And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.

9And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the LORD God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice,

10And had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods: but he kept not that which the LORD commanded.
11Wherefore the LORD said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant.

12Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it for David thy father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son.

13Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to thy son for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen.

Un-Inspired- A Response to Aish's Abuse of the Word "Truth."

2005-12-30T13:09:00.000-05:00

I don't think the rabbis at Aish ("Dangerous Fire") as Un-orthodox Jew calls it, got the memo about lying. That is, the memo in the Torah that admonishes: "Distance yourself from sheker [a false matter]" (Exodus 23:7).

I've made it abundantly clear just what some of the sheker is at places like Aish, Ohr Someyach and McClone Shlomo in this post from November.

So, it's pretty clear that BT yeshivas and especially the kiruv monolith Aish/ Discovery, have no problem with lying. Perhaps they've consulted a rav and it's mutter to lie?

Apparently so, since many sources in the gemara hold the halachas pertaining to lying in the torah really only pertain to a judicial context (such as the primitive judicial system of the biblical times was with male witnesses only, and no circumstantial evidence, and the tremendous weight given to sworn testimony).

Something tells me that the Rabbis at Aish are holding by the following gemara which I quote from the "LyingPermissible" post on the JLaw.com site:

"The following involves a deception over a remedy (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 28a) and deals with a considerably more complex ethical situation.

Rabbi Yochanan suffered from tzafdina [a dangerous disease of the gums or teeth] and went to a certain heathen lady who made a remedy for him to use on Thursday and Friday. He said to her: "What should I do tomorrow [the Sabbath]"? She replied: "You will not need the treatment." Rabbi Yochanan said: "But what if I do need it?" She replied: "Swear to me that you will not reveal the remedy to anyone." Rabbi Yochanan swore to her: "To the God of Israel I will not reveal it." She then disclosed the remedy to him and the next day he taught it in his public lecture.

"The Talmud asks: But did he not swear to her not to reveal it? The Talmud answers: He swore that he would not reveal it to the God of Israel, but to His people, Israel, he would reveal it. The Talmud asks: But is this not a profanation of the name of God? [when a Jew commits a misdeed, especially something as serious as swearing falsely, it causes people to denigrate Judaism and the Torah]. The Talmud answers: That from the beginning he revealed to her that his oath was not binding [and that he wanted to help the public]."

So, there you have it- when Aish Discovery lies about the existence of Bible Codes, makes fantastic claims about kabbala, presents Schroeder's lies that genesis works with the theory of relativity- all in the name of "kiruv"- it's fine! After all, they didn't take an oath that the claims were true and they're helping the public ("saving souls," except of course for the thousands they permanently innoculate against any jewish observance with their distastefully dishonest methods).

Note: This post was "inspired" by this post by an Aish Rabbi promoting Aish's latest movie, "In Spores" on the Beyond BT blog.

Ya'akov "Kenny" Menken: Making of a Blowhard

2005-12-27T02:48:00.000-05:00

Just take a look at Yakov Menken on his blog, or see Dovbear's blog lately, and you'll see how Menken has botched the intelligent design debate and completely misconstrues what science is and isn't. His father, a noted physician, should cut Menken's trust fund in half until he shapes up.

It goes without saying that Menken won't post my comments anymore, but he won't post anyone unless they're pretty deferential. Or, in DovBear's case, Menken just uses his typical cheap shot technique of misconstruing what the person says, and then claiming some ridiculous assertion of Menken's is "rather obvious." (Be on the lookout for that).

You know, it's kind of funny how Menken writes about science and philosophy so much these days. In his Everything Torah Bunk, he makes numerous questionable statements in that book. One that stood out was the bold graphic. Like in the "For Dummies" books, this book has asides called E-Facts as in ("ESSENTIAL FACT"). I think my favorite from this total waste of money book was the following gem:

"Although Tsfas was a great center for Kabbalistic studies, this does not mean that thee was no mysticism practiced elsewhere. A contemporary of the Ari, Rabbi Yehudah be Betzalel Lowew (called the Maharal) of Prague, was famed for using the hidden Kabbalah to create a golem, a man of clay, to protect the community from harm."

Everything Torah Bunk, pg. 147.

The next time Kenny acts too scholarly, use the Golem to bring him down to earth!

Ba'al T'shuva Issues Come to the Fore in the Olam HaBlog

2005-12-06T18:30:00.000-05:00

Hirhurim has a short post on his blog referring to a new BT blog called Beyond Teshuva. [I hope he'll address my shaila whether pehaps BT's should actually be discouraged from accepting the obligations of Torah, as potential converts are, or whether they should at least have the downsides of becoming a BT disclosed before entering this contract of the highest order.]*

I think the Beyond BT blog is an excellent idea, since a forum of its kind is needed. However, the blog has "rabbinic supervision" according to Gil, which means discourse will be stifled at some point. I don't think it should. Otherwise, the only issues discussed will be "do I go to my in laws' on Thanksgiving," and the like.

BT's first and foremost need to know there are questions and that they shouldn't confuse their ignorance and inability in talmud with being ill-equiped or unqualified to raise serious questions. My blog has a more cynical take on the topic because of how most (99%) of kiruv is conducted. However, that is not set in stone.

If the tobacco companies had to stop hooking kids on smoking, then surely these otherwise nice kiruv rabbis will wake up and take stock of the harm they are doing when they sidestep earnest questions with sophistry and psuedo-science.

Good luck "Beyond BT," and HaShem-speed.

* here are my comments to his blog today:

Gil, thanks for raising the issue in this forum."Yasher Koach on publicizing this vital counter balance to BTA and his ilk!"FKM, what you don't seem to get is that my ilk and I *are* the counterbalance! The diruv Rabbis don't disclose
much of the confusion contained in frumkeit that inevitably comes down the road
for many BT's.Let's analogize making the decision to "become frum" for a potential BT to entering into a very important contract, one that will have far more implications for one's future than say buying a home.Assuming you take it seriously, you will be encouraged to forego a lot of activities you do regularly. You will take on certain responsibilities. There will be costs as well as benefits. Among the costs will be alienating large portions of your family if they are secular.Among the benefits will be the potential to form a far stronger bond with your potential spouse and kids than you could reasonably expect in the secular world.And so on.The point is that the kiruv "professionals" tell you only one side of the story. They firmly believe that they are doing "God's will" by bringing you to "emes."It's not clear that God would consider you not righteous enough to go to olam habo had you never become a BT, although it would seem unfair to require that of a secularly raised person. It's been said before that the typical BT is not really doing "tshuva"
because he/she didn't even know what he was doing was wrong, certainly not in a
halachic sense.

OTD frummies who come back are the only true BT's. Now, a blog like mine is about all there is for someone nowadays who is being fed a steady stream of "Na'ashe V'nishma" and Artscroll and nice fuzzy Rabbis taking them on trips and BBQ's.Some places like Aish try to answer questions, but in my opinion their answers are dishonest, particularly if the answers are in the form of Schroeder proofs and Bible Codes. A lot of BT's get caught up with "kabbala" so Rabbis use that as a hook as well. Well, now we all know there are serious questions about whether being a "Torah Jew," as the kiruv rabbis use that phrase, requires emunah pshutah or not, as the gedolei hador say. In fact, both sides are not being presented to BT's.Now, in my opinion, not confronting the major issues, or at least disclosing them, is nothing short of fraud or at least misrepresentation.These rabbis should disclose the many divorced and unhappy BT's, the ones who bailed after a year or so, and the ones who continue to struggle as I do with wanting to keep the traditions alive and the benefits, while not being convinced of the unerlying theology. It's not like they don't know about us!(Although many pretend to not know what you're talking about when
you raise serious questions about the mesorah).So, that's my 2 shekels, and that's why I started my blog (not for a parnassa or fame). I'm a wealthy man emotionally and otherwise. Ba'al T'shuvas Anonymous Homepage 12.06.05 - 5:21 pm #

Got cut off. I just want to add, that I'm very concerned about the kiruv business out there and they people they are pressuring to go to Israel and yeshiva and to get "hooked."I was openly discouraged by kiruv people and rabbis not to marry my wife, but rather to just go to yeshiva instead! There are people doing a lot of evil in the name of kiruv and you FFB's are lucky not to know the half of it.Ba'al T'shuvas Anonymous Homepage 12.06.05 - 5:32 pm #

"they often forget that, frankly, some BTs ARE really, really, REALLY bizarre." Absolutely. And gerim. No one can tell me they feel convinced that a ger or a BT knows what they're getting into, we all just hope it sits well with the person.Perhaps rabbis should have to discourage potential BT's just as they do gerim, since it would probably be worse to accept the obligations and then "throw off the yolk" rather than to simply live in ignorance of the mitzvahs.Sounds like a halachic question for Rav Gil.
Ba'al T'shuvas Anonymous Homepage 12.06.05 - 5:35 pm #

Please Submit Your 5 Most Geschmack Sugyas in the Talmud

2005-11-29T16:39:00.000-05:00

Ok, here's a twist. Lately, I've been inspired by a few of the jblogs out there, especially OnTheMainLine, Chardal and yes Happy , as well as some of Mis-nagid's and B Spinoza's comments (and, yes, even Gil, but not DovBear) to go back to some kind of regular learning.

I think all the blogging awakened that dialectic Jewish gene in me. I have also been exposed to how interesting some learning came be, in terms of the philosophical debates that ensue when you're "learning" with the right person. At the same time, I get tired of debating "theory" or "theology."

I also had a very interesting session of learning with a non-kiruv (as far as I know) Rabbi who is amazingly well-versed and yet at ease with a skeptical yet beginner level learner such as I.

We've gone through some great discussions about sugyas in Brachos. I want to take advantage of all of you in the Jblogosphere to point me in the direction of 5 of the most Geschmack Sugyas you can think of that you've learned and learned again.

I know, the purists will say, unlike Steinsaltz, there's no such thing as the "essential Talmud" it's ALL essential, and therefore, citing "favorites" misses the point. However, please indulge me. I expect that a compilation of great sugyas will inspire me to keep at it and will build a foundation in classic talmudic debates as well.

So, here goes format-wise:

1. Just list 1,2,3,4,5 with cites.
2. if you have more time, then please tell me why you like it so much.
3. I'm not looking for legal fundamentals, but rather the more philosophically relevant sugyas if that makes sense. It doesn't have to be aggada, naturally. The point is, don't assume that I'm unfamiliar with classic halachic passages and need to get "the basics" first. Rather, just tell me what you enjoy most and if it's halachic and basic, that's just fine.
4. If you believe in shar, then you will get a lot, as I intend, b'lie neder, to learn all of the sugyas submitted to me "inside." No promise of tosofos, akiva eiger, R Yonah, etc, but you can certainly take me through how commentaries play a role in what you like.

I actually asked Godol Hador to tell us BT's why learning was indispensable for him (he had said so in his "parting post" (there've been so many since then). But alas, he never got back to me.

Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Hirsch's Nineteen Letters- A Model of Honest Kiruv - Pt II

2005-11-26T22:00:00.000-05:00

Now, back for Part II of this short series. I got several comments to part one. Notably, most were just re-discovering that Rav Hirsch was quite a personality, not just another deceased rabbi quoted every 43 pages in the Artscroll chumash.

Most of you seem curious what Rav Hirsch's response will be to this hard-hitting letter. For that, I will probably just refer you to the book. That's because the "answers" are not really answers. They come more in the form of bible quotes with explanations of how the quotes demonstrate we as Jews really have such a lofty role to play as a nation of priests and so on. I think this was sort of more focused on establishing Jewish pride in the times of true Jewish self-hate being focused on the practice of Judaism. Again, I leave it to you to be impressed or not. It didn't have a real effect on me, since it sidestepped all the foundational questions of why listen to this text to begin with, since I didn't believe it to be divine.

So, here's the rest of the skeptic's first letter, entitled "Complaint":

And what effect does this Law have on our emotional life? The broad principles of universal morality are narrowed into anxious scruples about insignificant trifles. [How can anyone respond to this indictment in particular? How many mind-numbing, hair-splitting dialogues about halacha do we have to hirhurim, er I mean do we have to hear before it goes the way of the dodo? There was a guy in my BT yeshiva who told me how his grandmother's recollection of Shabbos in the old days was everyone sitting around debating "can we do this or that?" You know, can you eat the fish from the bones or dunk the tea bag or wipe up a stain, or some other melacha-related topic. All this hair-splitting is responsible for Jews losing site of their mission in life, not the arguments of atheists].
Nothing in life is taught except to fear God. Every petty detail of life is referred directly to the Creator of the Universe. Life becomes a continuous round of monastic service, nothing but prayers and ceremonies. Study the book which is put into our hands as the Path of Life [Orach Chaim]. What else does it teach except praying and fasting and the keeping of holidays? Where is there one word about the busy, active life around us? Why, it is absolutely impossible to observe these laws, for they were intended for an entirely different time. What limitation in travel, what embarrassment in our associations with gentiles, what difficulties in business!

I recently saw a young rabbi who, whenever he travels, in simple-minded piety, contents himself with bread and water. When one visits him at home, one may still find him poring over the folios of the Talmud. He is even seriously concerned about some of the members of his congregation who are so far advanced in their enlightened views that they do not close their places of business on the Sabbath.

What shall become of us, dear Naphtali? I am about to marry, but when I think of the duties of fatherhood that might possibly devolve upon me, I tremble.

Excuse me for having spoken so freely and unreservedly, although I know that you revere all this very much. I suppose you must, as a Rabbi; your position demands it. Still, I am confident that you have so much affection left for me from former days that you will, in your answer, forget your office. Farewell."

The "duties of fatherhood" line above probably is the most compelling thing for me. Were I single, I wouldn't worry so much. But the last thing I want to do is throw the "baby out with the bathwater." I know Judaism's traditions and to some extent its structure, have much to offer, but I just can't go through the motions davening, talking to a god that doesn't talk back, that I don't believe exists at all. And haven't for a long while. The hair-splitting is also too much to take. It would be nice to hear Jews focused on purpose in the world, rather than just kiruv as an end in itself, or nitpicking halachos.

Thoughts?

Hirsch's Nineteen Letters- A Model of Honest Kiruv that the Clowns Should Live By- Pt I

2005-11-24T00:22:00.000-05:00

In my post the The 20th Letter, I made reference to Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch's famous work, The Nineteen Letters.

The book was written in the 19th century to address the so-called enlightened Jews of Germany who had left the fold of orthodoxy. Thus, this book is perhaps the first "kiruv" book! (Correct me if I'm wrong, Mississippi Fred.

However, while much of this blog has been devoted to pointing out kiruv clowns and their dastardly ways, I think it only fair to point out a heartfelt and straight from the heart kiruv approach from an established torah giant.

This book should be held out as a bright, shining torch to all the clowns in the kiruv world. Perhaps they will listen to a Rav from over 100 years ago, if they won't take Suggestions from the blogs of disgruntled BT's. If so, they could get rid of the "clown" part of their title.

Now, just because a kiruv book doesn't succeed in "converting" all its target audience does not mean it's a failure by any means. If the book or essay or blog or approach is honest and does not use bible codes and schroeder, specious arguments such as Gosse theory, or censorship disguised as "moderating", it's off to a great start. Ironically, all of these clowns pay homage to Rav Hirsch's ideas. Why don't they take his straightforward approach to kiruv as well, I wonder?

Next, if the book, essay, blog, or approach actually acknowledges the perspective of one who is either skeptical, or who became skeptical, and can even articulate that person's viewpoint, well- then you have a real Rabbi, who shouldn't even have "kiruv" as part of his appellation.

Rav Hirsch's Nineteen Letters, framed as a dialogue between a Rabbi and an off the derech former congregant/talmid, is actually written by Hirsch himself. In fact, he wrote it pseudonymously, which we bloggers can certainly appreciate!

When I read this book the first time, I wasn't ready to appreciate it. You see, I was a newly-minted B.T., and the first letter written by the OTD former talmid actually hurt to read. I felt an inner voice crying out, "hey this guy is right, not the Rabbi!" Well, I was in denial mode. Now, many years later, I can be more circumspect about the issues involved, and yet see the true merit of the author.

That letter really rings true to me now as a skeptic. And it also makes me wonder- how could Rav Hirsch write these things if he didn't feel them himself? Was he just parroting the pronouncements of the various and sundry enlightened reformers frequenting the local churches on sunday? I'm actually not sure; what do you think?

Well, without further adieu, I am going to go through the first letter, with my comments on why it hits home for me personally and perhaps a lot of you. [The book, which I recommend you get to make up your own mind as to Rav Hirsch's responses, is published by Feldheim and others.]

"My Dear Naftali [he's address Rav Hirsch]:

When, recently we met again after many years of separation you did not imagine what interest the subject of our conversation had for me. You found me so changed in my religious views and practices that, despite your usual tolerance, you could not help askin "Since when:" and "Why?" I answered you with a whole series of accusations against Judaism, based upon my reading and contact with the world since I had left home and my parents."

You listened quietly and then you said, "Do You really think you understand the subject which you are attacking? Have you tried by honest and earnest investigation, to acquire a real understanding of the most sacred and important aspect of our lives?" You pointed to the only sources of my own knowledge; the mechanical practice of parental customs, a few fragments of the Bile and Talmud taught me in an old-fashioned cheder, the writings of certain Christian authors and reformers, and, in general, a view of life based oupon a suppression of the inner voice of conscience in facor of the demands of superficial pleasure and comfort. [Now, I really don't like when kiruv Rabbis immediately comment that your problems with OJ are due to "your ignorance and that you therefore need a year or two of BT yeshiva to straighten you out", but be patient, there's more...]

I was forced to admit the gaps in my knowledge. I asked you for instruction. Then, the coachman called and you had only time to call out to me "I will write." ["I will post in my blog," that is...]
My dear Naphtali, while you have thus made me distrustful of my own views, you have neither refuted them nor given me better ones in their stead.

Every religion, I believe, should bring man nearer to his ultimate goal. What else can this goal be than the attainment of happiness and perfection? But to what happiness does Judaism bring its adherents? From time immemorial misery and slavery have been their lot. They were always either misunderstood or despised by the other nations. While the rest of mankind climbed to the summit of culture, prosperity and wealth, the Jewish people remained poor in everything that makes human beings great and noble, and that beautifies and dignifies our lives.
[It's interesting to have over 100 years of perspective on this complaint. It seems, religious or not, we remain "misunderstood and despised by the other nations," no matter how well some hide it. Clearly, reform didn't help much in this department, witness the Holocaust and world double standards towards Israel.

Yet, with the abandonment of orthodoxy, many Jews have attained the "summits of culture prosperity and wealth." It's kind of ironic when certain kiruv Rabbis point out our many Nobel Prizes, wonderful classical musicians, doctors and lawyers (ok, perhaps not the lawyers, but the Judges) as proof of "chosenness" they seem to miss the point in a profound way- none of this would likely have been accomplished were any of those folks frum. See the previous post on Rosh Yeshiva Einstein for that debate.]

The Law [halacha] prohibits all enjoyment. It is a constant hindrance to the enjoyment of life. For two thousand years we have been tossed about, driven from the paths of happiness. And as for perfection- what culture, what conquests have Jews wrought compared to those of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Italians, French, English or Germans? [I cringe at the "Germans" part, but of course they have contributed quite a lot to the world other than genocide].

Robbed of all the characteristics of nationhood, we are, nevertheless, deemed a nation, and every one of us, by his very birth, is doomed to form a link in this endless chain of misery. It is the Law that is chiefly responsible for all this. It enforces our isolation and thereby arouses suspicion and hostility on the part of others. It invites contempt by its stress on humble submissiveness. It discourages the pursuit of the formative arts. Its dogmas bar the way to free thought. Through this enforced isolation, the Law removes every incentive to achievement in the sciences and arts. And what about our own Jewish lore? It perverts the mind by cramming it with petty subtleties until it becomes incapable of producing simple and straight thoughts and opinions. Thus, I have always wondered how you, who have sampled the beauty of the works of Virgil, Tasso, Shakespeare, and penetrated the ideas of Leibnitz and Kant, can find pleasure in the crude and tasteless writings of the Torah, or in the illogical arguments of the Talmud.

That last question is pretty interesting, but take the last paragraph as a whole. Things sure have changed, haven't they? I mean we are able to live in the modern world, even being "shomer mitzvohs" but on the modern side, one influential commentator notes he spends "98%" of his time in non-Jewish pursuits and environments.

That's the the first half of this letter. In many ways, once you read the whole first letter, you will see it could either be a template for all that's wrong in Judaism or for all that you think is wrong, but it really isn't that bad or that way nowadays. In any event, the letter could certainly be a template of questions a skeptical BT ought to have answered early on. The times may have changed enough so some of the questions are already answered, but we shall see...

I hope you find this endeavor fruitful.

Would the World be a better Place if Einstein had been a Rosh Yeshiva Instead?

2005-11-19T22:31:00.000-05:00

This post flows from a discussion I had with a much frummer guy than I over Shabbos. The topic was learning- how much I don't like it, but how we both acknowledge that it is a fundamental element of those who "stay Jewish" and whose descendents do as well.

I said to him, "Ok, I can see how important learning is to keeping traditions alive, but it sure seems like a waste of brainpower to have all these smart folks learning talmud all day when they could be finding the cure for cancer."

To that he said, "We should leave all the secular learning to the goyim. Our job is to learn Torah. Einstein could have been a Rosh Yeshiva and a non-Jew would have come along with relativity eventually. Why is it so important for him to do it, to show the world how smart Jews are?!"

I flatly responded that it would have been a tremendous waste for Einstein to have been a Rosh Yeshiva. I asked him, "what's so great about the Chazon Ish or Moshe Feinstein, any 'giant' rabbi of modern times? Of course they were very accomplished and raised frum families of note [Feinstein, not Chazon who apparently had a miserable marriage and no kids]. Their halachic opinions aren't binding per se, and if learning is what keeps Jews "Jewish," there's plenty to study rather than Igros Moshe or Igros Chazon Ish."

So, I put it to you in the olam ha blog- while it clearly depends on your perspective; what's your opinion? And don't use the cop out that studying science, etc is "all Torah."

Would it really be better if all the Jews in universities studying Science, Math, Medicine and the like were instead studying in yeshivas?

Ya'akov Menken The Making of a Kiruv Comrade

2005-11-16T06:23:00.000-05:00

{Revised} 12/8/2005- I may have to take down this post if R. Menken keeps it up. It appears that he is actually beginning to allow dissenting viewpoints on cross-currents! And in the context of the Documentary Hypothesis, no less! And, when he replies, he is not snotty at all, but rather treats the commenters with respect! I will continue to monitor this situation, but for the time being, kudos to R. Menken for doing tshuva and changing his tone and approach while staying true to his mission. Could I have had anything to do with it? Doubt I'll ever know...

I am now going to turn to the writings of a major Kiruv Comrade. A Kiruv Comrade is a mutation of a Kiruv Clown, in that he doesn't just put forth "fast food answers to gourmet questions," he also tries to suppress dialogue while pretending to be open to all viewpoints before selecting the correct one.

Thus, this isn't just a personal attack on Menken, but rather against all Kiruv Comrades of his ilk. He is just a template. However, he wrote the book on Kiruv Doublespeak as will be made manifestly clear.You'll soon see that Menken's book, the "Everything Torah Book," is better titled "Everything Torah Bunk."

Menken liberally employs his post-modern kiruv approach throughout the book. He makes it look like he isn't afraid to tackle any subject and thus there should be no doubts that his orthodoxy is closed-minded or fundamentalist. However, beneath the veneer of reasonableness, you have a fundamentalist who is so intellectually dishonest and so misleading about true science, that he must corrected in public, since he won't allow honest debate on his blog, Cross-currents.

First, as a case study, let's take a Menken post called "Go After the Majority." I suppose this is an amusing reference to the majority rule in halacha. However, it's scary to see a grownup reason the way Menken does. A link to the post is:

http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2005/10/24/go-after-the-majority

My response to the post and Menken's comments goes like this:

"Rabbi Menken, you state in the comments above:

"One cannot dismiss or ignore evidence because it leads in uncomfortable directions." When I recorded that the generation of life is “simply too complex to be the result of happenstance,” that wasn’t some sort of vague feeling. Gerald Schroeder’s work with the numbers is one example of an extremely rigorous analysis, and he concludes that it would take a bunch of random monkeys 100 billion years to type a simple sentence by coincidence—far less complex than the most basic of life forms.” Your statement of the generation of life, while perhaps not the result of a vague feeling, most certainly was NOT the result of a scientific inquiry, which after all is the theme of Intelligent design. Schroeder’s work is far from “rigorous.”

I and many others are tired of Rabbis trotting out Schroeder’s books and statements and peddling them as scientific justification for your religious stances. Schroeder may have a PhD at the end of his name, but his quasi-religious arguments bear no relation to what he did as a geologist. Has anything he’s written with respect to “intelligent design” been peer-reviewed by scientists (as opposed to Rabbi peer-review)? Has he published on these topics in any respected scientific journal or even magazine? Of course not. This is because his work has been totally discredited as unscientific bunk.

With all due respect, your assessment of Schroeder’s work (which has been regurgitated in countless iterations by Aish, Kelemen, and Slifkin, et al.) as “rigorous” is off the mark and irrelevant. Let’s hear about Schroeder when he gets published after peer review by scientists."

Now, in full kiruv distortion mode he responds to the above as follows:

"What is curious is the number of prominent secular scientists who have, after achieving the pinnacle of their profession, adopted belief in G-d besides Gerald Schroeder, another notable example is Arno Penzias, who shared the Nobel Prize for discovery of the Big Bang. "

Let's first note the fallacy here, that of appeal to authority. Because these 2 scientists believe something (undefinably vague statement of belief in "God") we should not even evaluate the question, but should just stipulate they are correct. Of course, he omits the obvious; that 90% of eminent scientists don't believe in God. Should we just defer to them and call it a day,
R. Menken?

Now, addressing this point, which itself is misdirection, Schroeder is certainly NOT at the pinnacle of his profession, which incidentally is not even astrophysics. He's a geologist. He was never a Professor at MIT, as some like to claim. So he got back to his roots, moved to Israel, and wrote a few pop books for parnassa- that's the "pinnacle?" The books are considered bunk by any scientist and incidentally I'm sure by Rabbi Adlerstein as well.

As for Penzias, he truly is a top scientist and physicist. He won the Nobel prize in physics not (as Menken incorrectly states) for "discovery of the Big Bang," but rather for locating a radiofrequency artifact constituting evidence of the Big Bang, known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). (Hubble discovered the Big Bang.)

More to the point is that, in his Torah for Dummies book, Mencken claims:
"Dr. Arno Penzias... adopted observance of the Torah after making his discovery! So, does the age of the universe contradict the Torah? Few are better qualified to answer than Professor Arno Penzias and his answer is somewhat obvious."

Well, news flash, Rabbi Mencken- why not be responsible when making such specious assertions about a person's faith and check your facts? Didn't you get the memo?: Penzias is NOT orthodox and is not shomer shabbos. Dr. Penzias received an honorary doctorate from the Reform bastion, the Hebrew Union College. http://www.huc.edu/news/grad.html His daughter is a reform Rabbi ordained by HUC. http://www.shirhadash.org/sermons/show.cgi?id=040828-immigrants http://www.tdhs-nw.org/about_us/index.php3 I guess the answer isn't "somewhat obvious," after all.

Menken goes on to take some cheap shots and to demonstrate his profound ignorance about science and the very process of peer review:

"[BTA] has not merely confused my book with that of some other author, but has apparently also confused the chemistry and math departments (or two different offices in the physics department). Peer review is done when one conducts an experiment which produces data, leading to results and conclusions. Others must replicate the experiment and emerge with similar data in order to confirm the results. No one has suggested a structured peer review of 1+1=2, or even a far more complex series of mathematical equationsÂsince any knowledgeable individual can do it at home." [wrong! See the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Mathematical Society http://www.ams.org/journals/tran/]

First of all, he's intentionally evading my point (that Schroeder gets his credibility supposedly from being a scientist, yet his ideas are NOT SCIENTIFIC!) Perhaps Rabbi Mencken didn't have his coffee that day. However, it's pretty clear he was being deliberately obtuse.

Second: His definition of peer review is all wrong, based on pure ignorance. But not knowing something shouldn't stop us from making condescending statements about it, eh R. Mencken? Peer review is done for theoretical scientific research, not just experiments. See the table of contents of one of the oldest and most respected peer-reviewed journals, Nature: http://www.nature.com/nphys/index.html The majority of the articles discuss theory. And here's a definition for peer review for next time, Rabbi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_journal

What Schroeder posits is a theory, thus making it subject to peer review. He didn't get it published, as it was not worthy of publishing. End of discussion. Now, wasn't that easy?

Third, Schroeder's theory is deeply flawed. There is no such thing as a universal "sphere" or "time;" such ideas are completely meaningless in General Relativity. Why not cite Ptolemy for truly mathematically "cute" cosmology instead of a former MIT Teaching Assistant-geologist?

My comments continue:
"Also you are guilty of "picking and choosing" when it comes to Schroeder. To my understanding he is only addressing the likelihood of initial amino acids in the early earth's soupy atmosphere evolving into the complex life forms we see today with his Million Monkey examples. (Or as Dennis Prager says "bacteria to Bach"). However, Schroeder accepts evolution in principle, he just seems to think something "extra" is necessary. "

As far as I'm aware, Schroeder has no problem with humans evolving from apes, for example; he just claims that there must have been a push along the way to accelerate progress. Of course, his model is based on incomplete evidence, as this field is constantly progressing. In the most recent Scientific American, November issue, for example, new evidence is discussed for Earth cooling hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years earlier than previously thought.
Thus, with a cooler earth earlier, amino acids could have coalesced even sooner into primitive life forms. And- you guessed it- with all that extra time, the calculations become a lot more appealing in terms of the probability that life evolved in the time frame given. I think you said it best: "One cannot dismiss or ignore evidence because it leads in uncomfortable directions."

R. Menken disregards the reference to recent research about a cooler early earth, because of its uncomfortable implications, no doubt. However, in response to the "bacteria to Bach" topic he says with an apparent straight face:

And what is most important is that no one in the field challenges the accuracy of his conclusion they realize it is almost inconceivable that it happened by chance, but fall back on this anyway, since there is no other "natural" explanation of how we got here.

Oh really? See Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker." Therein, he shows how his home computer reproduces whole sentences in microseconds! http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/writings/blindwatchmaker.shtml

It should be noted that Mencken devotes 4 sentences to the theory of evolution in his Everything Torah Bunk book. Despite having just spent 5 pages on the documentary hypothesis and 3 pages on the Big Bang, Rabbi Mencken states anemically:

"The topic of this book is Torah, not evolutionary theory- we needn't enter the debate about the evidence pro or con. For our purposes [meaning "Kiruv Comrades"] it is enough to understand that physical evidence for evolution can be reconciled in simiilar ways as the Age of the Universe." ETB, pg. 201.

Methinks R. Mencken knew he could not even address Dawkins' proofs. Perhaps instead of poking around for a Jewish scientist or two to validate his belief system, he should just stick to discussing the beliefs themselves.

Let's just sum up here. Kiruv Comrade Mencken (KCM) has been shown for what he is. His his obfuscation are no match for the power of the internet and the power of the blog.

We can now see why KCM would have such a vested interest in running his "blog" Cross- currents like the Stalinists run Pravda. I think he should just acknowledge that the scientific conflict-related questions are unanswerable, if he really wants to be true to the Torah.

Potential BT's: Please have this type of nonsense in mind the next time a Kiruv Clown Rabbi (not all kiruv rabbis are clowns) subtly transorms into a Kiruv Comrade when you ask tough questions. The bullet point outline of their tricks and tactics:

Employ misdirection, especially appeal to authority, e.g. "Rashi didn't have a problem with it and you're a snail in comparison..." or "Drs. Penzias and Schroeder observe the Torah, so the "Torah" must be as I say it is;
They distort your question to begin with and answer a different question, e.g. "this book is about Torah, not evolution..."
They are deliberately vague when it suits their purposes, e.g. saying "The 'Torah' is true." or (from above) Dr. Penzias adopted observance of 'the Torah' or "Does the age of the universe contradict 'the Torah?'" In these examples, what does "observe" mean? Can it be reform as well? What does "the Torah" mean? Does it mean being orthodox written and oral torah? What does he mean when he says "contradict the Torah?" Of course he means does it contradict the first few days of creation, not all the other stuff in the Torah! It's notable that he says "few are better qualified to answer than Dr. Penzias! I agree that Nobel Prize winning astrophysicists have far more credibility than hack geologists, but don't rabbis have a say in whether there's a contradiction, Rabbi Mencken? Hareidi Judge/Dayan Rav Moshe Sternbuch seems to have an opinion, and that opinion is that 7 days = 7 days and all that Schroeder stuff is bunk! http://www.zootorah.com/controversy/RavSternbuchEnglish.pdf So it looks like R. Mencken is in between a rock and a hard place: both scientists and Rabbis of much higher stature than he say all that Schroeder stuff is bunk- Everything Torah Bunk, that is.
The Big One: They act dimissive of the question you have as if it is of little of no consequence, e.g. "the answer is somewhat obvious..."

Well, there you have it. I hope all the critics can now see why it important to call out an overexposed Kiruv Comrade. He is doing more harm than good, but he thinks the end (getting Jews to say they're frum) justifies the means (employing dirty tricks and possibly totally misconstruing the true essence of frumkeit- emunah pshutah).

P.S.- There's a lot more to Menken than I ever dreamed. Check out this account of how he defamed a guy named Rosenblatt while defending sexual predator rabbis. http://jewishwhistleblower.blogspot.com/2004/12/rabbi-yaakov-menken-commits-mozi-shem.html

Isn't is interesting the writing style Menken uses to bash a good samaritan- just like his snide comments on cross-currents.

Cross-Currents aka: "From Russia with Kiruv"

2005-11-14T00:26:00.000-05:00

We live in trying times. There are a lot of mixed messages out there. Sometimes, as Marshall McLuhan famously said, "The medium is the message." We orthodox (style) jews have a history of strongly-worded, passionate debates laid out in tapestry format in the talmud.

The talmud famously left no stone unturned in analyzing theological and halachic questions. You could say that that is both the talmud's great strength and great weakness. That is, the talmud gave more time to halachic minutiae than the big theological picture. [Yes, there are aggadata's and purportedly "deep" passages. But just try and read Aaron Feldman's The Juggler and the King and tell me it's deep at all. Then read Feldman's letter throwing Slifkin under the bus and tell me HE's deep at all! http://www.zootorah.com/controversy/SLIFKINARTICLE.doc ]

However, while one knows what one is reading when he is reading the talmud, in terms of its medium and its message, blogs of orthodox rabbis are an entirely different matter.

The best known Orthodox Rabbi blog is Cross-Currents. http://www.cross-currents.com/
They have Rabbis Yitzchok Adlerstein and Rabbi Yaakov Mencken, a BT turned Rabbi whose second religion is obscurantism, and who "maintains" the blog.

"Maintains" means he gets posts and then either censors them entirely or posts them with comments he thinks are incisive but which in reality demonstrate why little knowledge is so often dangerous. A jack of all trades, Mencken is not regarded as a real torah scholar of any repute, and he has little in the way of secular credentials. Mencken likes to troll in the shallow end of the kiruv pond, where his lack of honesty won't be as readily detected. Nevertheless, this doesn't stop him from frequently spouting off on science and torah subjects, among other things, using his bully pulpit.

Cross-currents also has Rabbi Reinman, whose book debating a Reform Rabbi was banned by gedolim and he lamentably but understandably, gave in to their simple-minded views and Stalinist thuggery. It is arguable that the gedolim were emboldened by this and then went after Slifkin. It's too bad they didn't learn that censorship doesn't work. Just ask Rabbi Berel Wein:
http://godolhador.blogspot.com/2005/03/and-further-reconsiderations-by-berel.html

of Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: http://www.cardozoschool.org/show_article.asp?article_id=485&cat_id=2&cat_name=Contemporary+Issues&parent_id=2&subcat_id=47&subcat_name=Other

This all has been written about ad nauseum, so what about Mencken?

I'm just irritated by the doublespeak name "Cross-Currents," which seems to imply a cross-pollenation of ideas, when in fact only safe criticisms make it through. The blog is nothing short of a P.R. kiruv effort, as the clear intent of creating a "blog" rather than a website, is to give the impression that Orthodox Rabbis are reasonable people who will address tough questions from all vantagepoints (contrary to the true-life example of Reinman's bowing out of his controversy).
More annoying is that Mencken censors the posts, allowing only those that accept certain first principles that he establishes. The result is that the post being commented on seems more reasonable and worthy of acceptance since the only comments are benign for the most part. "Dumbed down," might be more accurate.

Banning thoughtful, profanity-free comments ought to be banned by an international blog treaty! Seriously, Cross-currents is intentionally misleading readers by posting benign at worst criticisms. Also, if you want to respond to Maureen Dowd's religious alter-ego R. Mencken, you have to put up with his half-wit comebacks. If you want to come back again, you have to see if he'll let it come through. Again, you can be sure he'll take a cheap shot or two.

Thus, Cross-Currents is a Pravda-dox Jewish blog. (While Rav Adlerstein surely has his merits, I'd like to see him for once come out blasting Schroeder like he does the Bible Codes, or at least not having his posts censored.)

Yet, his colleague Mencken uses the Schroeder bunk in his new book which is called
"The Everything Torah Book," but which is really more aptly titled "IwrotethisbookfasterthanIdavenmincha," because of its slapped-together style, fallacy-filled folios, and specious shortcuts.

Really, the book should have been called "Torah for Dummies," as it is styled after the poular series, and because only that demographic would fall for the kiruv clown flights of fancy contained therein. Mencken has really hit the top of his game- kiruv clown juggling - from blogs to books, that is.

But that will be covered in more depth on the next post, where I will expose just how low Kiruv Comrade Mencken will go to m'kariv some fresh meat.

Who here is sick and tired of Cross-Currents and their Pravda-dox Jewish blog? Then STOP commenting there! At a minimum, they should be universally derided as a blog. If they want another website like aish, etc, fine. But don't pretend you allow for informed debate unless you do. That's simple isn't it?

Guest Post from King Rebbe Godol Hador, shlita [a parody]

2005-11-11T01:41:00.000-05:00

7th of Cheshvan, 5766

B.T.A.- I have chosen your site to do a guest blog on because there have been previous Rebbe's who made the mistake of failing to appoint successors. I will not make the same mistake as I go to the olam ha emes (or at least while I'm bucking for a promotion at work or watching The O.C. with the Rebbetzin).

But, I'm not appointing you my successor either, you wacked-out BT! Alas, my successor will be decided by a democratic process, my son- through votes in your comments.

You have learned well from your peers, aka, the 12 jbloggers. I will give them my brachos and leave six unnamed jbloggers for the commenters to suggest.

The First Six
Hirhurim- May you learn that he who refrains from deleting one post- it is as though he has saved the entire blogosphere. May it be your bracha that you bring life into learning for those who find it lifeless. Better have hatzolah on speed-dial just in case it doesn't work out.

DovBear- Do not be a taleBear-er among your bloggers. Make peace between Jbloggers and do not descend into political drivel. If you are dogmatically democrat or republican, you are surely wrong on a frequent basis. May it be your blessing that you unite and do not divide.

Serandez- Do not let the fact that your identity is known hide the real Jew (you).

FailedMessiah- While brevity may be the soul of wit, get a blog already and write more than 2 sentences, and stop kvetching about the Ethiopians!

Mis-nagid- Your keyboard is against every blog and every blog is against your keyboard. Your mark is the sardonic bombshell. Share your insights, which are many, by sharing your views constructively, rather than just taking potshots at the blogs of the "true believers." Put yourself on the line with suggestions and we will all benefit. And start a blog again, dangit!

RespondingtoJBlogs- Seek resolution above all else and help others along the way by sharing what you find.

That's the first 6. Any suggestions for some better brachos? I know they got kind of lame.

Btw- Ok, so I just added this site meter to my blog, and what better way to up my ratings than to fake a blog by Godol Hador? No one would believe Elvis blogged here, so this is the next best thing! ;)

BT's skeptical Family Members- Chizuk Like the Old-Time Anti-semites?

2005-11-09T02:57:00.000-05:00

It's been said that anti-semitism has kept the Jews together through the ages. There's the famous story of the Rabbis debating whether to root/pray for Napoleon to be victorious in Russia during his campaign there. A famous Russian rabbi (an early Chabad rebbe?) said he would pray for the czar ( a wicked anti-semite).

Napoleon would certainly have seemed a refreshing change, having promised to unite the european continent and pave the way for a new, enlightened empire. A key proposal of his vis-a-vis the Jews, was Napoleon's stated aim to "emancipate" the Jews. It seems plausible he would have opened the doors for Jews to new professions, land ownership, and the like.

Well, you guessed it, the Rabbi chose to pray for that anti-semitic bastard Czar. Why? Because, with emancipation would come assimilation. At least the Jews stuck together in Russia. (Being the skeptic I am, when I heard this story, retelling of all these Rabbis meeting with sudden urgency about who to pray for, it's an amusingly self-important stance. Rabbis of today haven't lost their sense of presumed gravitas of their prayers either. However, one has to wonder, why didn't they use their powerful prayers for some other outcome, even a Jewish one, like er...uh, moshiach for example? It almost seems like they weren't mekabbel the mitzvah to expect moshiach at any moment per Rambam's 13 ikkarim of Judaism, but I digress...) For more on anti-semitism, and how it is part of a divine plan to keep Jews together, see here: http://www.russianjews.org/philosophy/q13.asp

But, alas, I digress... I really digress.

I was inspired to write a post about this based on a dialogue with a BT on RespondingtoJBlogs' site:

BT said: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/respondingtojblogs/113112852348935544/#49502

I said: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/respondingtojblogs/113112852348935544/#49689

(And if the links change, don't worry, you'll get the drift here).

In short, it seemed the Anonymous BT (our demographic niche market) was being chastised by his family for his frumness. We've ALL experienced that. In fact, that's one of the advantages for BT's- when we go off the derech, our families cheer! Not so for FFB's; their lot is to take the derech less traveled, and it must be a lonely one at that.

Could it be that anti-frumkeit families are actually keeping their BT relatives more frum, just like all those anti-semitic bastards over the years?

Of course! And it makes perfect sense. BT's essentially reject their upbringings. Their families are typically ignorant of basic judaism. And- their families are clearly just defensive since they are being made aware of just how lock-step and non-spiritual their lives actually are!

So, I guess my thesis here is that BT's are lulled into a false sense of security in some ways by their intransigent families, that they are on the right path. They become more isolated from their families and cling even more to their Rabbeim. Of course, the Rebbeim are not "brainwashing" per se, since they practice what they preach. Nevertheless, this phenomenon gives the Rabbeim all they need to solidify their hold on BT's with family problems. In Freudian/Lacanian analysis, transference takes place rather readily.

Mis-nagid can fill in the blanks of how BT's are more susceptible to being roped into this cultish cycle of events.

Thoughts yea or nea?

Can one tell a lie to non-religious Jews to get them to keep Shabbos?

2005-11-07T02:58:00.000-05:00

So begins a website authored by Caltech Prof. Barry Simon, a mathematician of the highest attainment. http://wopr.com/biblecodes/TheCase.htm Dr. Simon, a ba'al tshuva orthodox Jew, wrote the above line in a website devoted to debunking the so-called Bible Codes. (For all of you who haven't heard of the Codes, you are either being makarived after spending the last 10 years in cave with Bin Laden, or you might actually have kiruv rabbis that aren't using parlor tricks on you (as yet). If you haven't heard of the Codes, they are purportedly codes contained in the Torah which give rise to interesting unintended outcomes http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/Jesus/ but are alleged to prove divine authorship of the Torah and thus inspire belief. Aish is a big proponent of the Codes in their Discovery seminars, despite the Codes having been debunked and discredited by numerous well-known mathematicians, including Dr. Simon.

Now, here's my question. This post incidentally is inspired by a debate going on at Godol Hador's site: http://godolhador.blogspot.com/2005/11/accepting-truth.html

What keeps more open-minded Rabbis, such as Rabbi Yitchok Adlerstein frum? Isn't it interesting that when there's a popular "misconception" about Judaism afoot, Rabbi Adlerstein isn't too far from the fray to give a pithy quote or two? To put a fine point on my question- why would Rabbi Adlerstein spend so much effort debunking the Kabbalah Centre (he's been interviewed in print several times and appeared in a 20/20 special) or the Torah codes (he's written about the codes several times and appeared in a Discovery channel tv show about the codes), when Kabbala and Torah themselves are perhaps even easier to debunk?

Rabbi Adlerstein likes to taunt reform "rabbis" (note, I think they are frauds for calling themselves rabbis, but that's besides the point) by saying "at least my grandkids will be jewish." Kelemen seems to put a lot of emphasis on how reform and conservative kids intemarry a lot. Fine, but if that is their best argument, it would seem them should skip the scholarly realm.

Perhaps the question should the question be "Can one tell a lie to non-religious Jews to get them to become frum and have frum grandchildren?"

The fact is, the Zohar (kabbala's key document) has been debunked as a fraud even in orthodox circles. http://godolhador.blogspot.com/2005/07/zohar-is-fake-document.html

Why doesn't Rabbi Adlerstein therefore take the simple route in debunking Madonna et al. and simply say, "hey lady, you're an ignoramus- don't you know the zohar was written in Spain and is a fraud?" Did Hashem habla espanol? Why then is the Zohar replete with Spanish phrases?

Then, we have the Documentary Hypothesis. This was popularized by Prof. Richard Friedman's book "Who wrote the bible?" Now, why doesn't R. Adlerstein (or Dr. Simon) simply say, "hey aish and other bible coders, you can't have a divine code, if the book was written by prehistoric tibesmen!" There are also reasons based on orthodox scholarship combined with textual analysis that would prove the torah we have today is not the same one purportedly given to Moshe, which would cast doubt on codes as well. See Menachem Cohen's article (HT-Mis-nagid): http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/CohenArt/

I think you get the drift. There are a bunch of kiruv rabbis out there who garb themselves in psuedo-intellectualism. In a way, perhaps they are more dangerous than the Avigdor Miller types with their emunah pshutah. At least Rav Miller was talking straight. (irony intended).

Or perhaps, they can just come out and say they're conservadox. That they like the quiet time of shabbos or feeling like dutiful good boys for keeping the traditions. But, no psuedo-science or psuedo-scholarship, please! Otherwise, lay off Madonna and the Bible Codes- they're no less valid than the Zohar or the claim of the Torah's divine authorship (not to mention the Oral law). In the 20/20 show, R. Adlerstein crowed that Madonna and Britney Spears could have no idea what "real kabbala" is. Oh puh-leeze! R. Adlerstein knows the Zohar's a fraud, but just can't resist that "intellectually honest" farce. Is this "real kabbala Rabbi Adlerstein?": http://rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=131257&D=2005-10-03&HC=4

If so, why aren't you making aliyah? If not, why aren't you decrying it as utter nonsense?

Of course, the above questions are rhetorical. We know what R. Adlerstein's and Dr. Simon's answer is to the question posed by the title of this post: "Of course you can lie!"

If Rabbi Adlerstein or Dr. Simon wish to explain how teaching the authenticity of the Zohar is not a lie, or how teaching the Torah is divinely written is not a lie, I'd love to hear how so. They can post here or...

Just email me at: baaltshuvaanon@aol.com

Potential Ba'al Tshuva's Required Reading List

2005-11-07T02:53:00.000-05:00

One thing that happens quite often with BT's is they know they have questions and yet want the benefits of OJ enough to overlook the questions for now. Kiruv clowns know this and, as discussed below, tell them the na'seh v'nishma story to inspire them to put aside their doubts for now.

Some kiruv organizations, Aish in particular, try to actively engage the BT in a discourse. They use certain arguments and literature to spin the BT's head around enough to distract him and make him feel that answers are out there.

Well, I think it's time for a compendium of references to counter-arguments to the classic aish-style arguments. At least then, you can judge for yourselves. Also, if you are not a scientist, you may feel overwhelmed by scientific debate. You may feel that you have no basis to judge.

Well, this is important. It is not tangential as your kiruv rabbi is telling you. Take a day and print out the articles from the web that I am about to show you. Read them thoroughly if you have been swayed by Kelemen's Permission series or Gerald Schroeder's stuff or Rabbi David Gottlieb's unpublished works which are posted on the web (he can't seem to even get a publisher).

Once you've read through the articles I've taken the time to sort out for you, and you feel reasonably confident, take them to the kiruv rabbi who's "working on you." Ask him to answer. He may say "oh I don't know about that, but it's not important enough to me, since I'm thoroughly convinced of the truth of "torah" (whatever that means) through my extensive yeshiva learning."

When you get that line, ask these questions if you like:
1. Why didn't you learn anything about the answers to the standard questions about orthodox judaism in yeshiva? Is this just a leap of faith after all?
2. Why didn't you learn about it before meeting with people like me for a living?
3. Are you a fundamentalist? That is, do you believe the earth really is under 6,000 years old? Did Noah really build an ark and bring two of every animal on his boat? Were adam and eve the first people? Ask whether the Sun goes around the Earth. (Chabad rabbis still believe this, by the way). http://www.torahscience.org/torahsci/rebbeletter.html http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article.asp?AID=73253

Don't be ashamed that your questions come from someone who has articulated them better than you in the internet articles which I will show you. Don't let the rabbi dodge answering your questions. If he does, then he's just a used car salesmen.

And trust me, you'll be saving yourself a lot of internal conflict later on. "Look before you leap," as the saying goes. There are many benefits to becoming religious, it's true. But ask yourself how you can possibly attain most of those benefits without living a lie.

Now, here goes:

1. Bible Codes:
http://wopr.com/biblecodes/TheCase.htm

http://skepdic.com/bibcode.html

2. Kelemen's books Permission to Believe and Permission to Receive (should be titled Permission to Deceive)
http://www.nctimes.net/~mark/bibl_science/kellemen.htm#KELEMEN%20DISCUSSES%20SCIENTIFIC%20EVIDENCE

http://www.talkreason.org/articles/kelemen1.cfm

3. Schroeder's "Genesis and the Big Bang"
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/schroeder.cfm

Note: Schroeder's credibility comes in part because he has a PhD from MIT. However, his backgound is vastly exaggerated by his desperate followers. In fact, he is not a physicist, but rather a geologist and he was never a "professor" at MIT. That's a lie. He was at most a teacher's assistant while pursuing his PhD. In other words, he has no credentials in physics as a theoretician or an "expert" in Einstein's theory of relativity. He just knows enough to be dangerous or is an outright fraud. "Charlatan" fits the bill even better.

4. David Gottlieb's Living up to the "truth":
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/gottlieb.cfm

Gottlieb is another ba'al tshuva Rabbi, but with a twist. He has a PhD in philosophy. He claims to have been a professor of mathematical logic. However, I sincerely doubt this. I don't think he was ever a full professor at Johns Hopkins. He is didactic and pedantic. He uses logical terminology to seem logical. However, back him into a corner, and he resorts to the same tired "proofs" of orthodox judaism. He'll argue the world is under 6,000 years old and that god either made it look old to fool us, or that the Flood changed nature, thus negating Carbon-14 dating! Yes, real old-time Avigdor Miller stuff (that they incidentally got from Christians fundamentalists in the first place).

This should give you a good place to start. By far, the most difficult kiruv rabbis to deal with are the nice, gushy ones who don't argue whatsoever. They'll make you feel more guilty than your jewish momma! Fortunately, the kiruv business is such a tough, competitive one these days, that more and more kiruv rabbis are out for blood and numbers count. Better to be armed with some discerning questions than to ship off to baal tshuva obedience school, er... yeshiva unarmed.

Of course, don't forget to visit godol hador's blog, too.

Why Can't Kiruv Rabbis M'kariv Their Own Parents?

2005-11-04T17:34:00.000-05:00

It's axiomatic in the BT world- you can't m'kariv your parents. None of them seem to be able to.
Sensible enough; there are too many thorny issues, e.g. respecting them, and certainly not chastising them. But perhaps the real reason is that you just are too ignorant to be able to answer the hardest question of all- "Why?"

However, kiruv rabbi's shouldn't have such a problem. After all, they have the tools of torah. They are trained (or at least should be) to address sceptical questions along the path to "truth." Or at a minimum, they could get their parents to meet with another kiruv rabbi that isn't the child. But that still counts as "m'kariving" in my book.

I think the reason kiruv workers are unsuccessful in this department, is that they use clowny techniques that their parents would simply scoff at. And they use subtle intimidation sometimes. On the other hand, perhaps they think their parents are "damaged goods" and don't have much to be hopeful at this later stage in their lives. Perhaps.

Kiruv is something in between counseling and making sure your son has a bris.

There are aspects of it where you are helping someone on their way, and there are coercive aspects as well. You are hurting the potential BT, but to a kiruv rabbi, it's for their own good. Taking the analogy one step further, as is my wont, the bris is a commandment and a sign of a covenant with god.

The belief that you are hurting someone for their own good would seem to require 100% conviction in the truth of the torah. How many kiruv workers really have that and how many just do it for a living because they don't want to learn in kollel or get a real job? I'm asking.

I'm also curious- how many kiruv rabbi's go OTD? Probably almost none. Perhaps they find doing the kiruv part far more interesting than learning. It probably is.

A nutty FFB wannabe from my community (can't stop with those cheap rhymes) told me how his son (who's learned forever in israel since high school and has kids is in kollel at the Mir and is a total zero when you meet him) was told by a rabbi not to get involved with BT's. The reason: "when you reach into the mud, there's always some that gets stuck on your hand."

I think mud in this analogy would be rational scientific thinking! Oh well, the Dark Ages never ended for some in our stiff-necked nomadic tribe.

Guest Post from RespondingToJBlogs

2005-11-04T03:16:00.000-05:00

This is a guest post from RespondingtoJBlogs (see link to his site on the right.) I guess for now, you can call him by his alias "GuestPostingonJBlogs." Unlike Holy Hyrax and myself, R2B is an OTD FFB. However, you should note he seems to be shomer shabbos and kashrus. Thus, we'll have to come to a definition of OTD vs OTF (on the fence). I'm pretty sure R2B is much like me (yes it rhymes- easy as a,b,c). He keeps up observance but internally has no "yiras shmayim."

OTB FFB's like R2B have a lot of credibility (yes, another rhyme). Because, unlike BT's, they have actually learned in yeshiva for more than a year or two. Plus, they come from the inside. I especially value R2B's input on this blog in that he gives me insight into how to approach raising my kids, something, I've devoted considerable handwringing to on this blog. I guess I knew this already, but they sure won't go where the science curriculum is so lacking.

I liked R2B's comments on an earlier post so much, that with his permission, I pasted some of those comments into this post so as to flesh out the story and the issues. Thank you, R2B for your post. It means a lot; pashtus is in short supply in the public forum in OJ. I'll take straight talk wherever I can find it.

Education and Re-education:
My name is Anonym and I am an OTD FFB. I think I was always a good kid. I got good grades through out elementary and high school. I competed in an interschool halakha competition (don't worry it wasn't on a useful topic). My science education was quintessential Yeshiva Orthodox. In junior high, the professor gave me our science exams to grade. We skipped several chapters in high school bio. Trigonometry was a joke (the only thing for which I don't forgive my high school).

My point is that I was not a "troubled teen." Me and my group of friends would discuss science and halakha. We discovered Challenge and got very into it. Of course we would never believe that man came from monkeys, that's ridiculous. I mean look at us, we're Yeshiva students toiling in God's word, how could we come from monkeys?Our rabbis honestly told us that fossil evidence is entirely manufactured. Dinosaurs are a myth. Why Orthodoxy chose to pick on dinosaurs is beyone me...

It was very clear that we were in the right and anyone who opposed us was either sadly mistaken or an evil genius- to be avoided like the plague for his potential for misleading us.

Paradigm Shift Without A Clutch
Then I got into the world, which I won't discuss (I assure you I was still a good kid, I just don't want to reveal identifying details).This summer I had time off and got to thinking. I had just read an excellent book on evolutionary psychology and was thinking about the arguments the author made. It wasn't an overly technical book, but suddenly my world changed. I understood that evolution as discussed in Yeshiva was an awful distortion of the actual theory and that the evolutionary mechanism is a simple description of physical law (whether or not it fully explains mankind is a matter up for debate, but there can be no question that the mechanism is there). And that was my tipping point. My worldview rotated on axis and I realized that all the garbage I digested, all the apologetics, all the ridiculous "proofs," and all the trappings of Orthodoxy, were flatly wrong.

It was a pretty awful feeling, so I called one my Yeshiva buddies, who I will call Mike. He left Yeshiva a little after me and is in a scientific profession. "Mike, I got a serious problem. I finally see the religion for what it is. It's nonsense. They have no concept of science, they don't understand evolution and none of it holds up to rational scrutiny." Mike asked, "Is this a joke?" "No, why?""Because you called me about this three years ago, and your exact words were 'Mike, I'm not sure about this religion, something doesn't seem right, they can't explain science.'"

The difference between this crisis and whatever heart-to-heart I had with Mike three years ago is incalculable. It is one thing to question your faith and then fall back on one of the standard pat answers tossed about by the "cool" rabbis bold enough to discuss science-inspired doubts (Hint: God must be Swiss 'cause He makes watches). That kind of thing wasn't going to help this time around. The watchmaker explanations only left me more wound up. [Ed.: sorry, couldn't resist]

The switch in my perspective is so fundamental that the only people who seem to know what I am talking about are those who experienced it themselves. But you know something, I still can't leave my religion. There is a great pizza place around the block from me. Since my crisis kicked into high gear, I cannot articulate what is keeping me from walking in there, but I can't.

The socialization you get from an FFB upbringing is similar to the pressure a BT feels to maintain your adopted lifestyle. I think we face a very similar dilemma as to where you go from here. Orthodox Judaism is not something you can easily walk away from if you are a cool-headed, stable person.

The "Other"
One more point that addresses the difference between a FFB and a BT going off the derech, and I guess you can tell me if this happened to you. The absolutely worse part about losing your faith is that you suddenly assume the identity of the "other." Like throughout my Yeshiva years, we would hear about the "other." You know; the secular scientist hellbent on disproving religion, the rebellious teenager who falls into drugs and promiscuous sex, and the middle-aged man who suddenly divorced his wife, left his kids and the derech. And upon hearing each horror story, you pat yourself on the back, smile at your buddies and think, "Gee, thank God I am not like them. I'll never be so evil. Suns may rise and also set, but at least I will never do that."

And after the turning point in the crisis of faith (when you realize that using religion to search for the answer is of no use, since the answer is right in front of you, but you don't want to accept it) you realize that you came to the same conclusions "they" did, and while some may have had problems, and perhaps they used faulty reasoning to get where they did, ultimately you and "they" are now in the same boat, or in what I like to dramatically refer to as the Wasteland.

I am not unhappy with it, in the sense that I have some emotional beef with it. I don't think all rabbis are hapless fools. I am not angry with God (although I think He might have a few choice words about me). Insofar as it has gotten me into my current jam, I don't regret the day I was born into this tiny faith. I hate change. I keep the same hairstyle, own one watch, and mourn the running shoes I retire.

Although I cannot intellectually justify any of my current observance, you don't just walk away from 20 years of chinukh.And so I started all the usual "truth seeking." Reading religious philosophy, talking to a few Rabbis and then it hit me that I wasn't seeking the truth, but trying to hide from it. A religion that requires you to spend your whole life trying to justify it is probably not going to be provable. There is not silver bullet that will remove all your doubts. No one has the answer. It's just impossible for people on the other side to realize how fundamental the paradigm shift is.

Why is this meandering post on an OTD BT blog, while I am an OTD FFB? I venture to guess that many BTs were attracted to Judaism for the wonderful picture of harmony and warmth it provides. Shabbos IS enjoyable if spent with friends and family. Shul can be fun when the Rabbi is brilliant, the singing tonal, and the kiddush scene sociable. I don't think that many BT's experience this shift and that's what brings them into the fold. Many people feel something is missing in their lives because life in this galaxy can be cold and lonely. Judaism looks good and it even works pretty well, provided you don't "look behind the curtain." Therefore, I think I am in the same position as many OTD BTs who find themselves on the other side of the shift.I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.Incidentally, if anyone reads this and thinks I haven't done due diligence, by all means contact me and prove that Orthodoxy is rational. I can be reached by sending an email to respondingtojblogs on the gmail email service.

Guest Post from Holy Hyrax

2005-11-03T21:10:00.000-05:00

This post is from Holy Hyrax. Love the moniker. I encourage all of you to post as well. As you will soon see from reading this fascinating post, there are a lot of interesting stories to tell.

THE BUBBLE BURTS
This post is dedicated to those that through dishonesty, cowardice and blackmail, would try to shut other people down for their opinions in their search of truth, instead of meeting them head-on in discussion.

This is my first time posting, so please have mercy.

Now you shall all hear the story of the forging of the ring of power. Oooops wrong tale. It’s my turn in telling everyone my little B.T. adventure. I have been a Bal Tshuva for about 4 years now. As far back as I can remember, I was interested in Judaism’s rich history, culture and I was extremely proud to be one of the “chosen people.” I eventually went to lectures and then to the seminars. After that, I was hooked, and by what, by Bible-Codes. I start keeping Shabbat, taking more classes all the while jumping up and down with joy knowing my Torah is from God because of my amazing bible-codes, but my doubts would eventually start to come around after reading some pretty hokey, apologetic stuff in the Chumash. When I would confront the rabbis about it, they would give me an even worse answer. I eventually turned to other books, the first one being “Who wrote the Bible.” The way I look at it is that to be fair I should look at both sides, just like what a judge would do in front of two lawyers. I started to read other materials and books. Three years ago, I went to an Israeli Yeshiva in Jerusalem to get some questions taken care of.

HA! I look back at it and realize what a huge waste of time it was for me. How many of these people actually heard of opposing arguments? All they seem to know over there, is the great proofs presented by Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak (now available on DVD folks). Only the few college trained Rabbis new anything of the Documentary Hypothesis and their arguments were more in the line of: “Well who are these critics to interpret OUR scriptures.”. I’m sure if any of these yeshiva boys knew of any of the opposing arguments they would have packed their bags and left. But they DON’T know about it. They CAN’T know about it because like what an OU Rabbi once told me, “The majority of Jews in school just don’t know how to handle topics of this magnitude.” Two years ago, I left. I stopped keeping kosher, stopped Shabbat. I stopped everything to do with Judaism.

So here I am today. I have an orthodox wife and I’m still grappling with my life. I love my wife dearly with all my heart and I realize how hard all this is on her. (There honey, are you happy? I mentioned you  ) How do you go back once that bubble has burst. It’s like living your whole life, only to be told you were adopted. You feel like your entire life has been a lie. The truth is I believe in God. I always have. But for the rest I just don’t know what to do. I get depressed; I cry and even wondered if life is worth living if you’re constantly perched up on the fence. Unlike B.T.A., I have this desire to come back. I don’t want to throw in the towel. I don’t think I am ready to come up with a game plan for my families’ life with me being an OTD BT as B.T.A suggested. But there is something inside me that tells me Jews are unique. There is something “different” about our history. Can it truly be Torah?

My brain eventually kicks in and has to remind me of all the contradictions and all those lovely apologetic answers that I so do love to hear. Here comes my favorite part. When I open up to others (which I don’t do anymore) I always get: “It’s only your ‘Yetzer Hara’ taking hold of you. My “yetzer hara”? MY “YETZER HARA”? Is anyone else sick of hearing this? I don’t even know where to begin with that. Is it my “yetzer hara” that wants me to search for some sort of truth? I don’t get it. These religious people that I approach used to be secular. They know what it’s like to try to find truth in an objective matter. What happened to them? Oh ya… I forgot… the seminars. Our how about this one: “Why don’t you just stop reading those crazy books.” AARGGH. I cringe in agony when I’m close to religious people, both because of my anger and my jealousy. I hold back words such as: “You guys are all a bunch of morons.

Do you honestly believe all this? You really believe all these rabbis have Ruach HaKodesh and know everything?” But my heart also aches and I think how much I wish I was part of them. So now I’m stuck. One thing for sure is that I have decided to stay away from over the top UO people, even if that means curbing time with family. I’m afraid that my anger, even hatred sometimes towards them takes over all other emotions. I guess the person I have most anger towards and even hatred toward is God. More than one occasion I have cursed at him wondering what curse he has put on me. How can he just leave me in the gutter like this? A rabbi that I like and even one that I consider a friend once told me that it does not matter what I do, I will always have doubts. That is how I am wired. That is my doom.

Perhaps this is all really some sort of blessing in disguise (a very, very big disguise). Another facet of my life is what will happen with my children in the future. But that is a discussion for another post, if B.T.A. ….uh, I mean his great lordship B.T.A. would allow me that honor. I know this is a long post, but tough. B.T.A is paying me by the word count and I have rent due. So far he owes me $1,024.

The 20th Letter

2005-11-03T19:58:00.000-05:00

Hat tip to Mis-nagid for suggesting turning my long-winded comment in response to a Rabbi's concerns about frumkeit into an actual post. I won't edit it much for the time being:

Here is Inni?'s post:

Inni? said...
BTA,Thank you very much for setting this forum up.I have only just discovered the wonderful world of blogs. (and what a bittul z'man they are!)I myself became BT at school I never actually attended a BT yeshiva. I did, however, spend many years in a well known MO Yeshiva.I'm not sure if this is wise, but I am going to admit that I also took semicha. But after all this time i find myself in a very difficult place. I'm not sure I believe any of it any more. So here it is - I'm a Rav who thinks the whole thing, potentially, is a very clever, man made,intellectual edifice designed to chain us to a guilt ridden, patriarchal boys club!I'm married with kids and to be honest I feel quite trapped. Any suggestions?
9:56 AM

BTA said...
Inni, Welcome, and I commend you for being open.

Before I reply, I will say this disclaimer: my opinion is just that, an opinion. I have no training or experience helping others in our situation, I only know that once I opened the door to doubt, the whole process took a certain trajectory.As I said in the first post, it can be pretty disconcerting to doubt OJ, because it is just so all-consuming. And, sure, it's easy to find tons of information and writings to support sceptical views, but where do you go from there?

Nevertheless, the more honest I became with myself, the better I felt, because at least I knew what challenges I had to deal with. Also, you absolutely did the right thing by telling the details you did. However, that being said, you are new to blogs and must follow a few guidelines. Don't disclose where you live or hint at it. Don't name anything in terms of yeshivas, etc. Right now, you could live in NY, London, Baltimore, Israel, who knows? So that's number one. Don't say how long you've been married, how old your kids are, how many you have, how old the oldest is, etc. And you'll be fine.

Now, with that huge blog piece of advice out of the way, here is my take, and I really hope others out there will think through their responses and respond as well. It's easy to say "go for it, go off, since it's all bull anyway!" or "just find another Rav/daven for emunah" etc. Guys, please take what has been given factually and speak from there.

Ok. First, you are not the first Rav to feel as you do. Have you ever read the 19 Letters by Rav Hirsch? If you read the student's first letter, which is a critique of OJ from the perspective of a thoroughly enlightened German Jew in Rav Hirsch's time, it will strike you as amazing. It says it just about all on the money.And it was written by Rav Hirsch! He wrote both the Naftali side and the Ben Uziel side. He could perfectly enunciate why one wouldn't want to be frum. It is so thorough and devastating. Some kiruv rabbi gave me that book to read and it had the opposite effect on me- because the first letter was so much stronger than any of the responses in the rest of the book.

Take your initial comments. They are expressed the following way by Hirsch: "The religion turns all of life into a continuous monastic service, where even the minutest details are referred directly to God." The hundreds of daily brachas such as asher yotzer come to mind. I remember asking a rabbi, where does it say that god commands us to do nitilas yadayim? Isn't that a false statement? Same for hallel. The same reply always follows: in the mitzvah of "listening to the rabbis." Well, the miztvah is actually to listen to the sanhedrin! They lose all credibility with answers like those.

There are also some interesting things I read in Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo's books, Judaism on Trial and Thoughts to Ponder. Of course he is an OJ rabbi, but also a Phd from Oxford in philosophy. So, it was interesting that in one of the books (I could look it up for you) he says he was surprised by a very established chareidi Rav in Israel asking him "how can you believe all of this with all your training? It's all I know and I'm finding I believe it less and less." I'm paraphrasing.

Something tells me, Inni, that you aren't the first Rav to have doubts! One more note. It is historical fact that the super-choshuv Lithuanian yeshivas prior to the holocaust were filled with atheists. The reason given was that this was the only place they could go to train their minds, since college was not an option for them at the time. But, it goes to show that you are not "a sign of the times" or an anomoly.

Even in the gemara, there is the famous story of the sage who went off the derech when he saw a boy die falling out of a tree. The boy was fetching eggs at his father's behest and was first shooing the mother bird away. Both kevod av and shooing the mother were associated with long life. The gemara says he was a fool for going OTD for various uncompelling reasons, but again, we are talking about someone from the holiest generations walking away.Now, all that is just to let you know you are not crazy and there is a ton of information out there. I do think that there are a lot of very sceptical Rabbeim out there who have learned to stay with it and their questions because of the other beneficial aspects of yiddishkeit. Look at Rebel Jew's post from the other day. It sums up the "stick with it" mindset of a sceptic who stays on the derech.

But you are a BT, a truth seeker. You may lose all interest, if you are black and white like a lot of us, if you lose the illusion of it all being true. In fact, you may become quite embarassed for believing it at all. I did at first. I really beat myself up, "how could I have fallen for this, it's so obviously full of holes?!"

I liken it to the Wizard of Oz. Once you see it's just some feeble old guy behind the curtain, you realize how much so-called emunah was really just superstition, with its concommitant hopes for good fortune in life as a reward for being a good boy.

Now, that aside, you have a lot at stake here. You are married with kids and unlike me, you are a talmud chacham. You didn't specify if this is your career or not. But you are quite invested in this. I think the time has come to ask some difficult questions as well. How much of your questioning is due to or triggered by unhappiness in you marriage or with other aspects of your life?I know my doubts were not triggered by the desire for lobster, but rather for simply hating davening from day one and not finding it getting any easier. Having davened in english for the first few years, I know what these prayer are supposed to be saying. I would look around the minyan during Kedusha and say, "look at these guys," going up on their tippy toes and supposedly quoted angels- this is insane! And the fact that it is standard to daven at lightning speed, that also was bizarre. Doesn't it matter to know what you are saying? I realized most folks turn off their minds and just press on, after all that's what a mensch does, right? Be a team player.Of course, the 39 melachas are pretty hard to swallow as well.

Learning is emphasized because when you learn, you read in between the lines as well as the lines themselves. You get all kinds of subliminal messages from the gemara or the commentators about just how important it is to get it right. The Wizard,er...Hashem is watching, and he'll be verrrrry angry with you. Or worse, whatever your doing won't "count" and you'll lose out on "points." Just look at the chofetz chaim's halachic writings for example. Written in the last century, they are nevertheless imbued with fire and brimstone fear of god's wrath. That's pretty hard to have these days.

I'm here to say there has been no wrath, and if you want to talk about divine retribution somewhere in the afterlife, fine, but that isn't what the torah says in the shema for example or in any of the curses in dvarim. I, like many non-believers like me, am "blessed" financially and with a happy life. In fact, I look at my circumstance and realize that, the more constrained I would have been, the more I would not have had the luxury of doubting. There are a lot of rich Jews who do kiruv and show off their fancy houses to potential converts. These prospects think "hmm, maybe god will bless me, too." Yes, it is quite common I assure you.

Now all I've said may have set you back to your Rav training "these are all klutz kashas, I know the answers for this stuff." So my question is, why aren't the answers working any more? It is to do with a midlife crisis (desiring new women or experiences) or is it to do with the religion itself?Have you spoken to rabbeim who specialize not in halacha alone, but also in all the questions of judaism? Of course don't say which ones.

I know I spoke with some very smart and also respected rabbeim in israel. They would be perhaps one tier below american gedolim and thus one or two tiers below the gedolei torah in israel. But they spoke english and they knew secular subjects. And they weren't kiruv clowns.And, the interesting thing is- unlike the kiruv clowns who knew so little, these rabbeim validated all of my doubts! They didn't threaten how hashem would give my whole family cancer and the like. They understood. They are nevertheless passionate about learning and frumkeit. I think they find it incredibly stimulating, and being scholarly, that does it for them. They feel you can come to believe it is true through learning, but they acknowledge you can also come to the conclusion it is not true through learning.

In other words, they are circumspect and don't lay claims to proof like the lightweight Akiva Tatz's and Kelemen's of the world who thrive on sophistry.I think given your situation, you owe it to yourself to try to find a way to have it work, perhaps less frum. You can't just shake up everyone's lives overnight. And, if you have already made that effort, then let's talk further. But it sounds like you've only recently begun to have serious doubts.Your relationship with your wife is the guiding factor here. If you feel the relationship is going nowhere, it could just be the religious doubting and frustration. If you can work it out at all, you should, for your kids sake and hers. Divorce is a devastating thing, but sometimes it is the right thing. Anyway, I hope I did your post some justice with this reply. I hope others will chime in.

And no- this is not bittul z'man- this is life. You can get back to learning for learning's sake when this is a little more clear.
4:18 PM

Are You In a BT Yeshiva?

2005-11-02T16:04:00.000-05:00

Mis-nagid suggested I link to this post http://serandez.blogspot.com/2005/11/creating-monster.html#c113092202931161650 .

I want to respond to your sincere concern as to whether this blog will do any good, or better- more good than harm.My plan is to make something that saves a lot of potential BT's a lot of strife. To make it personal, I am glad I became a BT. It opened me to new sensitivities I am certain I would never have. It got me sooo much closer to my whole family, nuclear and others. On the other hand, the true harm came in my being cajoled and pushed into levels of observance. Why the rush? Why indeed. There are only so many kiruv rabbi's out there and a lot of prospects and not too much money. I think they want to push and get on to the next one.BT yeshivas provide the perfect solution- the rabbi's just give you cholent and kugel for a while,learn a shtickle torah with you while mainly playing psychological games on you. Then, they pass you off to yeshiva. I went to machon shlomo. It's a
well known BT yeshiva with a reputation for smart guys. I won't tell if I went 1, 2 or more years for identity reasons. I will say that they have a 2 week summer program where the head rabbis come to the US and do a little road show, complete with BBQ's and science and torah lectures mixed in.

The atmosphere is very laid back and the kiruv part gets ratcheted up by the end. You get tefillin and learn about tzitis, etc. You get Kelemen style lectures that are supposed to put aside your doubts. The rabbis are nice and smart and credible. You figure, it can't be all that bad.The yeshiva focuses on getting as many doctors, lawyers, scientists, mba's as possible to the yeshiva. The strategy is: get these guys whipped into shape in 2 years (they get you to agree to 1 year, then make you feel like a loser if you don't keep going) then married and off into the world. However, a lot of the guys there in recent years seem to be learning more and more after the 2 year period is up. The guys are in demand from single girls because of the rep for nice, smart well off educated guys. Not bad catches at all.I think they
like to graduate these guys for another big reason: if someone sees a frum
doctor or PhD or lawyer, it's great advertising for machon shlomo and yiddishkeit in general. People think, "if they got over their questions and became orthodox, hey then I can too!"However, questions are NOT part of the machon shlomo curriculum. In fact, guys are hand picked for their competitiveness and non-questioning nature. The rabbis know that the guys will hit the ground running and compete with each other to learn.

They really hold the shidduch thing over their heads as well. Guys go there for 1 year thinking they'll get married. By the end of that year, they're socialized into another year. "Then," they are told- "you can be truly great!"There are divorces and unhappy marriages behind the scenes. There are unhappy guys. The place should tell potential BT's everything up front. Otherwise, it's a major stumbling block.Since machon shlomo and other places like it (aish and ohr someyach) aren't straight with potential talmidim- just schmoozing them up to get them in- then my blog will do a lot of good by making sure there is something on the net for them to consider first. When I went, there was nothing on the net about OJ. The net was still young, and there certainly were no blogs!

I started thinking- any guys in Machon Shlomo, Aish, Ohr Somayach, Shapell's, etc. that are reading this (as of now 24 hour old or so) blog? One day you may hit on this blog just researching the above institutions.

Since I say a lot derogatory about Machon Shlomo, I should point out, the guys that go there are smart, and most are pretty well adjusted. I have met Ohr guys from the Center program and they are similar, perhaps more laid back. I also want to state a lot/most of these folks are very happy they went to MaClone Shlomo, whoops, Machon, but one has to admit it is a cookie-cutter institution with a very set hashgafa. Shapells seems to have a diverse body of rabbeim from different streams.

So, any of you BT yeshiva guys, if you think I'm way off, or if you have some nagging issues that are not going away, please consider this the forum for your thoughts. You should consider a guest post, since that's how I hope this blog evolves- collectively.

I think each yeshiva has its own way of dealing with "questions." My biggest complaint about machon shlomo and R. David Gottleib on his ohr someyach website isn't much better- is that they pretend to have an answer for EVERY question!

Now, there are 2 kinds of answers- those that put the issue to rest and those that create new questions. I'm curious how the rabbeim are addressing your questions. They OWE it to you to try! In my opinion, they owe you disclosure before you go. I mean, once you've invested so much time and money, perhaps quit a job or dropped out of grad school/medical school (they always get a few of those) you are over a barrel. Then, they hang the shidduch thing over your head.

Come to think of it, these places are rather cult-like aren't they? Well, let's hope not all of them. And, I was at machon shlomo a long time ago, so maybe they've changed since then, though I doubt it. Let's hear from you soon. Don't be timid- it's anonymous!

Calling All Guest Bloggers!

2005-11-02T14:21:00.000-05:00

Now that the site is up and running (and my soul brother Hanan has yet to come through with the goods) I am opening the board to guest posts that fit with what has gone so far. Please read what's up there and submit a guest post to me at baaltshuvaanon@aol.com

As long as you are in keeping with the issues raised by the board, you are welcome to post. And yes, if you are a kiruv professional, this is your chance to explain your side of the story.

All guest posters can remain completely anonymous. Let's see how it goes. As I said, this is not a job for me, but rather, I want a forum for BT's and potential BT's and likeminded FFB's who have seriously questioned their faith.

What's Your Dream Version of Shabbos?

2005-11-02T06:46:00.000-05:00

The few times I go to shul, I usually spend thinking "this could be so much better." Of course, my version would cause mass panic and gnashing of teeth, so clearly I mean that in a subjective sense.

Godol Hador has commented extensively on potato kugel as an almost mystical aspect of the enjoyment of Shabbos. I just don't like potatoes so much. I do like cholent, and feel there is much argument to be made for cholent as the quintessence of OJ enjoyment.

Anyway, in a comment to the first blog, I joked that I'd love a shul with a 1 hour minyan and a 2 hour kiddush. But, it's true. I like to socialize with the guys at shul. It's funny just how interesting they become on Shabbos. The rest of the week or year, I could care less if I see most of them! So, in response to the OU ban on kiddush clubs, perhaps my shul would be kiddush-centric with davening clubs! :)

I truly would be happy to have a stripped down version of davening, perhaps with some different prayers. Mussaf would be the first to go. The prayers would be meditative and you could sit, stand, whatever you wanted. It would be silent- no moving whispering lips to prove to the tzibur you're really davening. Then, the parsha reading, and someone knowledgeable would give a drash. Now, you might be thinking- just go to a reform/conservative temple. But they lack the no driving on shabbos rule. I think that's a must. You need people to live nearby the shuls in order to have a community.

I also happen to like the deprivation of tv's microphones and lesbian rabbis, so those other movements are out for me.

What's your dream shabbos? It might be helpful to think of a place you went away to for a "shabbaton" and no one in your community would find out. Hint: it may help you decide what you really want out of yiddiskeit, since recall how important it is to have a positive game plan in life.

And if you just hate shabbos, the "god-idea", and jews, then... nevermind. I probably wouldn't want to come to your house for Shabbos anyway if that's the case!

OTD- What, Now What, So What?

2005-11-02T06:26:00.000-05:00

I once had a mentor tell me a no-nonsense self-help approach to gaining a fresh perspective on a problem that is bugging you. He called it "What, Now What, So What?"

Let's take being an off the derech BT/FFB (or an on the fence about being off the derech (hereinafter, "OTD"). Now, you're an OTD BT or OTD FFB or and OTFABOTD BT or FFB, you savvy?

Irrespective of our label, we are confused- how do we deal with this? We had our lives all mapped out at one point and now they aren't so clearly mapped out.

Step 1: The approach is to say "What"- in this case the issue is my future. You have to DECIDE at this point and cannot delay deciding without delaying having any clarity whatsoever.

Step 2: So, let's say you decide to go off completely, you ask yourself "Now what?" This too is critical, especially for married guys. And especially, especially for married guys with kids (like me- too bad step one isn't quite effectuated just yet). Now here's why. I have heard from enough guys that their wives aren't taking too well to this OTD thing. In fact, the wives really don't like limbo. They know they like yiddishkeit for the reasons I postulated in the comments to the first post. The are uncertain about the future. You have to have a plan that is reassuring, yet true to yourself.

Ask yourself, are there compromises you are willing to make that you are sure you can live with? No sense repressing your intellect or true nature and imploding after a month. (See Freud on this one). But for me, I know my wife would be happy with shabbos done "properly." I have no problem with that. She'd like to keep strictly kosher in and out of the home. I'd like some flexibility out of the home, but not mcdonalds. I can work with that. She'd like the kids to go to an OJ school in the community. Hmmmmm, I guess I would in theory, but what happens when they bring the midrashic parsha sheet? Do I go ballistic? Do I shrug? Do I reinforce the lessons, perhaps with gold stars even? But I digress. I'm just keeping with the AA format of self-disclosure... The point is, you have to set these boundries, but you also have to be considerate of your spouse- give him/her a game plan that is positive about the future. You should not just be throwing in the towel. There must have been *some* things you liked about OJ?

Step 3: Now What? At the moment you resolved step 2, you take a look back. Even though it was just seconds ago, think about it- you have resolved a major source of conflict in your life. You feel relieved at the clarity. You feel inspired to carry out your new life's game plan.

Too many of us are on the fence OTF for too long. Life is too short (particularly so for the atheists among us) to wring our hands about what "could have been" or the "good old days."

Ba'al T'shuvas Anonymous

2005-11-01T19:55:00.000-05:00

What made you become ba'al tshuvas? What made you want to pack it in? Well, I'm up first, as it is my blog after all.

My name is BTA. I've been a BT for several years now. I've gone from an atheistic background to frum to right back where I started. Can a leopard change its spots?

I was drawn to observance because of my first Shabbos experiences. I liked the family closeness. I liked the absence of electronic stuff ringing and beeping and transfixing me for a whole day.

Then came the kiruv rabbis. They hastened me into observance and used what I later came to realize were old saws e.g. "naaseh vinishma." (This refers to Mount Sinai where the Jews were given the torah and said "we will do and we will hear.") This is a centerpiece in kiruv, because it is twisted to mean "do mitzvahs now, and later you will see how it all fits together perfectly." Of course, the factual distinctions should be enough for any mild sceptic to see. We're sitting in a kollel office or at a shabbaton, not mount sinai, and I'm reading an Artscroll chumash, not listening to God, so why should I say "naaseh vinishma," exactly?!

Well, I did "hear" some good. I had gone from totally secular Jew to a Jew connected with his heritage and people. It helped me toward a healthy family life. But the theology- oy! It seemed to me what Thoreau had in mind when he said: "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes." Orthodoxy puts a premium on new clothes, including new hats. Perhaps that's why kiruv professionals, or as the Godol Hador coined them "kiruv clowns" prefer to focus on young "professionals." You know, they have the clothes already. Just need a black hat and they're set!

Anyway, this is a test balloon of a blog. I want to hear from those of you out there who came to OJ and hear what you think of it so far. I hope that others will acknowledge that going from secular to "frum" requires a drastic life change, one that might in some circles be deemed neurotic. However, I think BT's are simply daring. They aren't afraid of bucking the secular social norms in pursuit of "truth." Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of questionable social norms on this side of the street, too.

Moreover, deciding to switch back, or to stop calling yourself "frum," while it could be viewed as a pathology to some as well, might just be the best way to stay sane for some.

Anyway, no decrees, rulings, or fences here. Just associate away- it's anonymous after all.