Rosh Hashana

Wow, two days without blogging. Fortunately, lots of other bloggers I read have also had two days off, so there's not too much to catch up on.

Some highlights, and lowlights, of my Rosh Hashana (you can work out which is which):

• I got locked out of the relatives' house where we were eating dinner one night. I'm glad I don't believe in simanim because if I did, "kol dodi dofek" is not really what I had in mind.
  
• We found out who staged the Orthodox gay wedding. No, I'm not telling, but it's a friend of a friend. Good one, guys.
  
• I read some of Slifkin's The Science of Torah. So far, not too bad.
  
• I also read a chapter of Rav Yehuda Amital's Jewish Values In A Changing World about how to relate to one who has lost faith in Judaism. Very interesting and worthy of its own post.
  
• I got to shule for both days and heard the shofar on the second day. The davening was great where I went, lots of singing (but didn't finish too late) and very little talking. I found I could still appreciate the davening despite my skeptic thoughts. Probably because I still believe in God. Just not sure if God wrote a book, that's all.
  
• Also on the topic of simanim, I discovered some notes in my machzor. In the "shofarot" section of musaf, I had some notes about "Torah min Shamayim". That really jumped out at me.
  
• I thought about talking to my favorite rabbi from my yeshiva about my issues. I figure he might have some answers that the UO don't have. Still thinking about this.
  

So, overall, I rate it a positive experience. I was dreading it but actually I got a lot out of it. Not answers, but I know I might never get answers. But some measure of peace of mind.

Racism

Here's one thing that's always bothered me about many Jews that I've met, Orthodox or not. They claim to be open-minded, but amongst themselves, the sneering, condescending hatred of "goyim" comes out. Perfectly polite to non-Jews of course, but inside they really see themselves as the chosen people. Not just in the sense of an Am Kehuna (priestly nation), but in the sense that if you're not Jewish, you're not worth talking to (unless some money can be made from it, I suppose).

I won't go into the details, but I have many non-Jewish family members. I've grown up with them: played with the ones my age, been looked after by the older ones, and our relationships are still good. I can't imagine thinking any less of them for not being born into the same cultural-religious group as me.

Before I went to college I was open in attitude, but apart from my family (all caucasian) I had limited exposure to non-Jews. At university, I was embarrassed when I couldn't understand people I met with strong Asian accents and made an effort to get used to it. I joined student organizations (a short dabble in socialism and a dismal attempt at martial arts). I went out socially with people I met in college. I made friends who I'm still in touch with.

By my final year of my bachelor degree, my friends included many caucasians, several Asians, a few Greeks, a Sudanese Muslim, a Syrian Christian, and my best friend, a country girl of Kenyan and South American descent. I loved it. I felt like I was living a multicultural dream. We all respected each other, were fascinated by each others backgrounds without any pressure to find Jesus or Allah -- or sex, drugs, or anything else that I wasn't interested in. Now that I'm working, I enjoy actually being friends with my colleagues. I'm still in touch with my co-workers from my last job.

I think that Jews who will only hang out with Jews are missing out and shunning the people who have made it possible for them to live the lives they're living. (Dov Bear had a post on that topic a while back.) But it's more than that. Their ingrained racism, against mainstream culture and minority groups, is disgusting and makes my blood boil.

Is it justified, or even explained, by the Holocaust? By outdated halachot designed to keep us apart from them? Personally I think there's no excuse for it. The laws that exist are backward; no longer needed since there aren't exactly hundreds of Christians trying to insidiously convert us (jihad is a bit of a different story); and as it is we pick and choose which ones are still "relevant". But even if one wanted to be strict and keep them all, a recognition that their original purpose is no longer valid is needed. The whole world isn't out to get us. Average people really don't care if you're Jewish. Get over it and get rid of your prejudices.

Bilbulatsia

BHB wants to know, why Bilbulatsia?

Good question. Unfortunately the answer isn't that exciting, but I figured the question might be asked again, so it may as well be in a post rather than a comment.

Basically, I knew I wanted something derived from bilbul, which is confusion in Hebrew, because I'm confused about lots of stuff, obviously. I couldn't find it when I searched again but when I originally Googled bilbul, something similar to the second hit on the list showed up. The page itself was not relevant and didn't even contain the word. But I liked the Google preview for it.

To me it sounded like a Hebraicized(?) English word, like democratzia, only funny because bilbul is already a Hebrew word. I decided pretty spontaneously. I was on my laptop at my parents' house, and Godol Hador had just closed. I think another skeptic blog had just closed too. I rattled off an introductory post and uploaded it.

Then I realized that I was angling the screen so that no one could see. And it hit me that maybe, if I wanted to keep my issues secret from my family, putting them on the internet for all to see wasn't the smartest move ever. Especially not at their house.

But I didn't delete the blog. And one day when I was talking to my friend who'd shown me Daat Emet. We talk a lot on IM and there's never enough time to finish a conversation. So I asked some pertinent questions to my dad (he's a tech head)
Q: can you tell a blogger's IP address from their blog? A friend wants to know.
A: with great difficulty.
Q: By the way, what blogs do you read?
A: Mentalblog. And my own.

My dad is pretty smart and I think if he stumbled across my blog he might be able to work it out. But I don't think it's likely. And anyway, I mainly don't want my mom to find out. So, I'm being young and a little reckless on this one.

My friend had another comment about the name: it almost sounds like an ideology. That really fit. Because I feel like I'm in limbo, but I might be there for a loooong time, so it pretty much is an intellectual state of being, which is practically an ideology.

A test of faith

Warning: very bad language ahead!

... and another thing

Two things, actually, to add to the pot of "why I became a skeptic".

One was the Brick Testament. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's a quite clever illustration of parts of the Bible (OT and NT) with lego bricks. Some of it is hysterically funny, which was why a friend showed it to me. But some of it was quite confronting, particularly parts of Nach that are rarely studied or brushed over. Samson is a particular highlight.

This is what God looks like according to the BT, which I think says it all:



It's funny to think that some lego men can have an effect on one's faith. But the juxtaposition of children's toys and some of the most gruesome parts of Tanach is clever. It highlights exactly how gruesome, how sexist, and how racist parts of our holy book are. This is a book that's meant to give us truth, meant to guide us through life, regardless of the generation. Of course there are many wonderful parts of Tanach as well, but huge chunks of it are pretty much a guide of what not to do if you want to win friends and influence people.

The other thing was the deaths of several of our close family members in close succession. The first was tragic, the end of a wonderful life in its prime. The next two were older, fuller lives lived, but were further kicks in the gut while we were down. And the last was another relatively young person.

I won't dwell too much on the emotional side of things only because it's not immediately relevant, not because it's not there. But on a philosophical level, it really makes you think. What does it all mean? Is premature death a punishment? If so, is it a punishment for the person who died, or those left behind? How does God balance the books when dealing with a whole family, not just an individual?

As you can probably tell I don't want to go into too many details here. But the first death, almost three years ago, caused irreparable damage to our family. After the fallout I found myself trying to work it out. What had we done to deserve this? In a family noted for being baalei tzedakah, for involvement in the community, for kindness within and outside of the family. Good, simple Jews, not learned for the most part through various circumstances, but really, just great people.

And that's when the whole idea of reward and punishment started to unravel for me. And life after death. I just started seeing everything as far more random. Sure, there are some crazy coincidences out there. But I can no longer see them as any more than just that.

Where it all began II

Continued from this post. Start there!

Throughout the whole of last year, we've had growing tension with one of my husband's cousins. His family are mainly MO (more or less), but she married a man who wanted to be UO. She went along with it, they did the kollel shtick for a while. Before my wedding she tried to convince me to read a book on marriage whose starting message was: "Show your love to your husband by cleaning the house, cooking a gourmet dinner, and changing out of your housecoat and putting on make-up before he gets home." Despite this I did get on well with her for a while. But gradually it began to unravel, at least on our end. It just became more and more apparent to us how much their world view is at odds with ours.

It started with more general things: we don't like their parenting style; they're very permissive and their oldest child is bratty and bullies the younger ones, but they don't discipline her. We were neighbors and she would always want to borrow things, ask us to mind the kids, and so on. We'd complain about her to each other and gradually it became more and more about religion. We realized that we both didn't like how she tried to impose her views on everyone -- almost as if that would convince her of them, because I don't believe she is convinced. She really looks down on the more open upbringing that most of the extended family is giving their children, and she makes it clear to everyone. She tries to teach middot to some of the younger cousins, stops them watching TV, things like that.

So, who cares if we have a fundy cousin? It's annoying, but so what?

Well, one thing leads to another. Here's an analogy. (Funny, I hate hearing analogies but like giving them.) When you crochet a kippah (or anything) you need to double back the last few stitches to secure it. Otherwise, the whole thing can unravel. In conversation, that's what happened to my husband and I. We picked on his cousin. We picked on her lifestyle, ultra-orthodoxy in general, some of her chumras. We started on halacha and realised how bogus and random some things are. And so it all fell apart. Maybe that's why lashon hara is an aveira.

In short, I think that a combination of factors got us talking about these issues. Some of it was Daat Emet, some of it was various occurences in our lives, and some of it was just us getting talking. We talk about everything and we're pretty honest with each other. So it never occurred to me hide my doubts. When I started this blog and told him where I'm at, I think I heard a sigh of relief -- relief that we're on the same page. Because it would be so much worse if we weren't. We've just started a family. We have everything in front of us. So, if nothing else, we're in it together.

Where it all began I

Here, Baal Habos said he was curious about my story. While I touched on it in this post, I thought I'd zoom in on where I began to be a skeptic.*

Of course, the beginning for me really is the relatively open upbringing I had. My family is Lubavitch but from a BT background. The sort of BT that maintains contact with the outside world. My parents never stopped listening to the Beatles and Jim Croce. We were allowed to watch movies and sometimes even had a TV in the house. We could read whatever we wanted. We could be friends with whoever we wanted. And we were encouraged to think, and most importantly, think for ourselves. So in that sense, the groundwork was already laid.

But the real deal is much more recent than that. It started, maybe, with a lack of inspiration. After I got home from my year of yeshiva in Israel, the opportunities to learn where I live, which started off OK, lessened. We go to shule at the highest bidder -- my husband has a paid position in our shule and we're young and poor. It's not a particularly frum shule; very traditional, but not frum. So for several years now I haven't been "growing" Jewishly.

Last year I attended a lecture series on women in Judaism, which was actually very good and overall a positive experience for me. There were two other regulars who I got to know. (One was a woman who had been Orthodox but was now Conservative because of the way women are treated in Orthodox Judaism. She was consumed with hatred for OJ because of it. She is important to the overall plot, but I won't go into it in this post.)

The other was a guy (I was so impressed that a man came!). He was not religious but very knowledgeable about all things Jewish, including textual criticism. We had some great discussions which were quite eye-opening. He put me on to Daat Emet. I read a lengthy article on it, which I can no longer find on the site, which detailed the main "proofs" against the divine origin of the Torah and the halachic process. It was long and vitriolic, written (I felt) in deep hatred. I googled Daat Emet and found GH's post on him. (That was what introduced me to the jblogosphere, actually. From GH I learned about the Slifkin affair and discovered Hirhurim.) My first explanation to myself was: "This Daat Emet guy hates Judaism so much, I can't take him seriously." But some of the points he made seemed valid to me.

My husband read the article too. His initial reaction was: "I knew there were some holes in the plot, but I didn't realise how serious they were."

Very soon after that we visited some friends in another city. Their community was in uproar because of a speaker who had come to town. His basic point was that, while the evidence suggests that the Torah was not written by God, orthopraxis is still important, for cultural reasons and so on. My husband seemed very interested in this idea. I wasn't particularly impressed by it; I still believed 100%.

I was pregnant with my daughter at that time. I had an extremely difficult pregnancy. While I was attending the lecture series I often had to run out to throw up (quite awkward as no one knew yet). I stopped davening because it just felt weird stopping in the middle to vomit.** And I was exhausted all the time. It was hot and I stopped covering my hair while I was around my husband's family. I was in and out of hospital under observation and I had to travel on Shabbat and Yom Tov, take the elevator, sign documents. I found myself breaking Shabbat even if I could have got out of it. It just didn't seem to matter. (Since then I have resumed complete orthopraxis.)

There is more, but this post is getting really long. To be continued.

---

* Disclaimer: The human memory is a tricky and fallible thing. These events are quite possibly not in order and not quite accurate. However they are as I remember them.
** TMI, I know. Sorry.

The first commandment

Just because Moses was given the Ten Commandments doesn't mean he understood them.

Why?

Sometimes I wonder why I even care whether I believe or not. If I don't, then so what? I should just drop everything, particularly the things that really rankle (kosher, niddah, covering my hair).

What is it that's keeping me in this antiquated world?

Part of it is family. I don't want to disappoint them. I'm in a great space with my parents right now and it's taken me a long time to get there. I think I've already pushed the boundaries of heresy with them. It's great that I can joke around with my mother about the Rebbe being Mashiach. And that she's accepted that I wear pants and short sleeves. I don't know how she'd take my current mindset.

Part of it is an underlying commitment to Modern Orthodoxy, even if I don't believe in it. I think that the underlying principle of Torah im Derech Eretz is a good one. (I'm just less and less sure about the Torah part.) And I've spent so long defending MO, I don't want to let it down. It's almost as though it would be a triumph of UO. They could say, "You see what happens when you go to university and study science and mix with the goyim? Better to stay in the shtetl." Regardless of where I end up, I'll never agree with that. Besides, I don't think that it's science that's made me start doubting.

I also feel like it would be a chilul Hashem, somehow, to suddenly stop practicing Judaism. I can't imagine how I'd explain that to my work colleagues. It's hard enough for them to get their heads around the difference between me and another guy at work, who's Jewish and very culturally affiliated, but atheist.

But there's still the part of me that isn't sure that this religion is wrong. I know it's not perfect and I know it's changed over time a lot, in spite of the fact that it's not meant to. But I still don't buy the Documentary Hypothesis any more than I buy the Revelation at Sinai. I need to do more research. My journey is far from over. I have a strong emotional connection to much of my religion, but I just hope I can approach it with intellectual honesty. After all, I can keep doing whatever I like, even if I don't believe. The jblogosphere has taught me that much at least: if I continue with orthopraxis solely, I won't be alone.