Dear Anonymous

To my anonymous readers,

I respect your privacy and don't want to change the settings so that a blogger account is required. But it would be great if you could give yourselves nicknames so that I (and others) can tell you apart.

Thanks,

BJ

TFSG under fire again

It must suddenly be in fashion to join TFSG, try and convert us, and the be rude when we're resistant. Here's my reply to the latest:

I'm really not sure what you hope to gain by insulting us as a group.

I have found very intelligent and knowledgable people here who know
Tanach, Talmud, and other general Jewish sources well, as well as
Biblical archeology, DH, etc. I've learned a lot from being here.

When I first started having skeptical thoughts I honestly thought that
there were answers to all my questions. My husband and I wrote a list
of questions and went to our Rav (who I still respect very much). We
asked our questions 100% innocently. He was impressed with my
knowledge of Mishna (he is pretty much UO and doesn't often come
across women who have learned the "hard stuff".) His answers didn't
satisfy us -- they were apologetics. Before we left, he told us to
learn more. Since then I've heard that answer to heretical questions
often.

My questions come from my learning. If I hadn't learned, I wouldn't
have them. You say I need to learn more. When is it enough? How many
hours should we be putting in before you're satisfied that I've
learned enough to be a proper kofer? I've learned Tanach with
mefarshim, multiple siyums in mishna and Gemara, learned lots of
Rambam and Ramchal, and still enjoy reading Rabbi Slifkin, Rav
Soloveitchik and Rav Lichteinstein. I've searched and searched. And
the best answer that I can find is that our tradition, while beautiful
in some areas, is barbaric in others, wildly inconsistent and
therefore likely written by people. Or at best (or perhaps worst)
corrupted by people. Now, if you have a magic book that can prove that
conclusion wrong, let's hear it. But I don't think it exists.
Ultimately you believe what you believe out of blind faith, and I've
lost mine. I don't think it can be retained.

I and most others here are not skeptical because we're lazy. Many of
us are still strictly orthoprax. Just no longer Orthodox. It's not
easy. It involves keeping secrets. It involved restricting yourself in
ways that have no meaning to you. It involves uncomfortable thoughts
about what might happen when you die. For some, it means years of
loneliness, without a friend or relative with whom you can be honest.
It's not a hedonistic, fun lifestyle. It's hard work being a secret
skeptic and it's not something I'd wish on anyone.

So don't sneer at us, even if it does make you feel secure in your
pseudointellectual ideas. It's uncalled for.

Related (from June 06)

Another Unchosen review

I finally read Unchosen. I found it an enjoyable read, it was well written. I got through it on one Friday night -- if anything it was too short. I liked how she wove the storylines together. There wasn't enough of the author in the book though; I felt unable to judge it accurately because she didn't really state her "conflicts of interest" the way anthropolgists do in ethnographies. (Not really conflicts of interest, they just talk about themselves so that you get to know the prism through which a society is being viewed.) You do get some sense of her and certainly see that she's very sympathetic to the Chasidic rebels and obviously quite involved with them, given how involved she gets with Yossi towards the end. But not enough for me. I just wanted more overall I guess.

A few points it raised for me:
1. Thank GOD I'm not Satmar.

2. In spite of growing up worlds away from Satmar, I identified a lot with Dini. Mainly about not wanting Rabbis to have control over my body. That is for me, and me alone. (OK, if I have to I might trust a doctor.) And wanting to feel normal and attractive, as a feeling quite apart from wanting to actually pick up guys who aren't my husband.

3. I also liked how Leah decided to bring up her daughter. In a sense it has given me the answer to how I want to bring up my daughter: with knowledge of her heritage, and the tools to be religious if she wants to be, but without fear or coercion, and of course with ample skills to make her own way in the world. How that translates in practical terms will be difficult. It will probably mean I'll have be much less lax myself, so that I can teach by example. But I somehow feel more confident that I can play by ear, and always answer her questions honestly.

4. We haven't hidden the book away but have left it out for people to see. The reactions have been interesting. One friend said it's just like reading lashon hara. Another said it highlights the problems in Jewish education across the board. Which is a fair point, considering the rising levels of drug abuse and unprotected sex that seems to be going on. Sure, it's lower than the rest of the population but that gap is becoming narrower, or at least appears to be.

5. Guilt is powerful, but not all-powerful. It's something that's holding me back in many ways, but eventually I know I'll be able to keep the positive and lose the negative aspects of being part of this amorphous thing called Judaism.

"And you shall teach them to your children"

From Thoracic Outlet

Its wonderful to see my baby growing up. Seeing her learn to do new things and develop into a happy and excitable infant has been tremendously satisfying. At the back of my mind, I know that one day i'll have to make a decision that is slowly creeping up.
Years ago, a consideration for us was the standard of religious education our children would be able to recieve. Were there any schools which fitted our philosophy? If there weren't, what would we be willing to compromise on? Would we move somewhere to give them a better Jewish education? Now our question is : "exactly how do we want to raise our children?". We have ideas of the values and lifestyle that we want her to have. We think its important for her to play sport and we will encourage her to do so. I would like her to gain an appreciation for the music of Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd (who I started her on at the age of 2 weeks). A lot of what we want her to become is independant of Judaism per se. (We certainly dont want to raise her to be a housewife and have 15 children...unless she wants to. We just dont want her self worth to hinge on that.) Im not going to force her into anything, but I would like to show her that some things are fun and worthwhile.
Early on in my skepticisation process, I felt a certain guilty shame. I hoped that my skepticism would be a generational abberation, that would begin and end with me before my progeny continued on the path. But what would I tell my daughter? When she asked me questions Could I lie to her? Would she understand if she started to question things later in her life? Would she understand that I let her develop one way and left her to find the same things I did on her own?
Ideally I would like my children to make up their own minds about religion. But practically this is really difficult. Religions seem to rely heavily on the teaching of certain basic concepts in early childhood in the crucial period of neural development from 0-4. I certainly want her to get a good Jewish education. Its an important part of her culture and history, though I worry a lot about sending mixed messages to a child. It seems that Jewish education is rarely confined to history and culture but is usually bound up with practice and belief. Is it harmless to let her believe what she is taught then teach her something else later on? Im thinking about dinosuars, evolution, bible stories and aspects of Jewish practice. When she asks me why god didnt answer her prayers. When she asks how Noah really managed to collect so many specimens. If I was entirely honest with her ,how would her teachers respond? Are there Jewish educators that are open minded to cope with it? Probably not. But then I dont want to be furtive about anything either. Since she wont be going to a Jewish school, we have more freedom to teach her the things we want to and not have to undermine what shes learning elsewhere. I think we will have to make sure we guide her to think and challenge things(hopefully not things like how unfair it is she has to go to bed when we say so)until she is old enough to make her own decisions. We will love her regardless.

Skepticism at work

I'm currently at a loss as to how to approach skepticism at work. Do I tell them, or keep it secret?

At the moment, my work life and Jewish social life are completely separate. I can keep it that way as we don't have such a social culture at work. Occasionally we go out together but no one expects to be invited to your birthday party.

I've always been vocal about my Judaism. I don't go on about it unless people ask questions, but I've never lied about why I can't go out on Saturday night or eat out with non-Jewish friends (unless they care to come to one of the few, fairly poor, kosher establishments that are available here). So everyone at work knows that I keep Shabbat and kosher. There are only two other Jewish people in the company, neither of whom are frum.

On the one hand, it would be nice to have a few friends at work who know where I stand. Many of them are atheist and it would be nice to be able to have some good discussions along those lines.

On the other hand, there are a few reasons not to tell. I still have a lot of respect for Modern Orthodoxy (or Open Orthodoxy, I think I fit better there) and I don't want to present it in a bad light. I guess I feel like it would be a chilul Hashem, a disgrace of God's name. And of course I don't want to seem fickle. Especially to the Christians at work. I wonder how they'd react. (I do occasionally mention my dissatisfaction with the politicization of Judaism, especially kashrut. But that's about all.)

But here's another reason. One of the other Jewish people in the company works in my department. He's very culturally Jewish, but completely atheist and eats ham on pizza (he says that the god that he doesn't believe in lets). And then there's me, who outwardly (and until recently, inwardly) was completely frum. I cover my hair and only eat kosher. And we're good friends, and I liked presenting that to the others. Just showing the range there can be.

So for now, at least, I suppose I'll retain my orthopraxis at work, and in various other environments where there wouldn't be repurcussions in the Jewish community as well. But I do feel a little cowardly about it.