On losing faith in Judaism
Every day for the past 15 years or so, I feel like there's always someone or something that's actively trying to push me away from Judaism.
Whether it's what one rabbi or another says, or if it's just someone trying to be helpful reminding me that what I'm doing is against halacha, or being unable to bring myself to put on tefillin and pray even once a week, whatever it is that day, I feel like I'm losing more and more faith in Judaism.
Note that this doesn't affect my faith in God, but rather the religion that I feel best represents God. And despite the ongoing barrage of insults and assaults on my religion by those that claim to represent it, my faith in God is unwavering - ironically enough, largely based on my own forays into science and probability, something that religion in general, even Judaism on occasion, has taken the utmost care to denigrate, deny, and destroy.
I can't even really pinpoint where I started to lose my faith in Judaism. I know that the biggest initial hit was the entire Baruch Lanner fiasco. A "rabbi" that effectively led the NCSY movement turns out to be a serial sexual abuser, and the Orthodox Union had only been covering it up for over 20 years. The amazing level of ineptitude, stupidity, and outright criminal negligence on behalf of The Organization that is the voice of Orthodox Judaism in North America. The few times that I got to meet with Lanner, I looked up to him. What's not to respect about a physicist that's also a Rabbi, that regularly used to bring examples from physics into his sermons?
And yet, even after that, I continued to be extremely active in NCSY. And even as that continued, I felt constantly threatened by the Rabbi in charge of our region. Or, more accurately, he felt threatened by my openness regarding my psychiatric issues that were oh-so-prominent at that time in my life. On more than one occasion, he took away my job on the regional board and gave it to someone else without asking me or even informing me.
As for being raised in the Toronto Jewish community in general... I don't want to even get started on the amount of lashon harah, gossip, jealousy, one-upping, and outright nastiness that exists there to this day. I said it once, and I'll say it again - you can't spell corrupt without COR. Needless to say, the recent shitstorm that Rabbi Taub was the victim of has alienated me even more from the community to the point that I beg all of you to beat me to a bloody pulp before I ever consider to subject my family to that kind of environment.
Judaism in North America revolted me. So I moved to Israel. And I'm beginning to think that it's only gotten worse since I moved here, despite the increased spiritual bond I feel to God and Judaism. This isn't necessarily because of things that are specific to Israel (charedim not working, not going to the army, not paying taxes, and thieving from the average Jew in this country; maniacally fanatic extreme right-wing settler "rabbis"; nonstop infighting even within the dati leumi community; a complete lack of condemnation of when a "rabbi" says something that is an outright chilul hashem; etc. etc. ad nauseum). I think it just has a lot to do with trends within Judaism within the past five years. The gedolim of previous generations have died, and in their place are new "gedolim" that are too fucking senile to see past their nose.
Gone are the R' Soloveichiks, R' Feinstiens, and R' Kooks of old. Instead, we have Ovadya Yosef, Yosef Elyashiv, Dov Lior, and other fanatic shitwits that exercise the absolute power that has been given to them by my co-religionists.
My biggest problem with Orthodox Judaism nowadays is the godlike status that so many Jews attribute to mere mortal rabbis. If my rebbe said it, then it is truth and just as holy as Torah MiSinai, for my rebbe is holy and talks directly to (and for) God. This directly creates a complete lack of accountability amongst the so-called leaders of our community. These rabbis could literally drop their pants and shit on a sefer Torah and their followers would be doing the same in no time.
Orthodox Judaism nowadays is so far removed from Sinai both chronologically and theologically. Again, it could just be because I'm opening my eyes to it for the first time. But even in our most basic grades, we teach our children more Torah SheBe'al Peh than we do Torah MiSinai. We teach our children to read a massive manifesto that the Rabbis wrote over two thousand years ago and tell them that it's absolute truth and an inseperable and unquestionable part of the religion. We put the Mishna, Talmud, and Shulchan Aruch on the same level as God's Torah to the point that even the commentary done on them is done in the same manner as with the Torah - we ask first what the rabbis meant, as if they had absolute knowledge of their respective subjects, and we don't even bother asking if it's relevant in our current understanding of the world.
I'm not advocating for Reform Judaism where they literally throw out all of halacha. Likewise, I'm not advocating for Karaitism where they literally throw out all of what the Rabbis said. I am advocating for a modern Orthodox Judaism that is willing to ask the hard questions, and say that Rabbis are mere human beings, no different than the rest of us, and they make mistakes. Why should we not be able to argue points of halacha with the Rabbis? Why should we continue to give them the final say on everything? Why do we persist on being complete and total sheep when this religion is our collective heritage, and not just that of the Rabbis?
God tells us in the Torah to follow the Rabbis of the current times. Well, what if the Rabbis of the current times are almost all incompetent boobs with no concept of reality outside of the yeshiva? No, I'm not say that all Rabbis are incompetent boobs nowadays, but I do feel that the grand majority of them are. I very strongly feel that in order for a us to follow a Rabbi, that Rabbi needs to earn our respect and maintain it. I very strongly feel that regardless of what that Rabbi says, and regardless of how much respect we retain for him, we reserve the right to disagree and do otherwise, so long as we're not directly condraticting halacha.
Our sages wisely taught us in Pirkei Avot that we should make for ourselves a "rav" - find someone that we're comfortable with, that we can talk to, ask questions, and involve in our spiritual life. I guess the biggest problem I have is that ever since Rabbi Chaim Flom, zichrono tzaddik livracha, passed away, I feel I have nobody to turn to. Friends have offered me their rabbi of choice, but there's always some reason that prevents me from attatching to said rabbi. I have a number of rabbis that I respect - R' Riskin of Efrat and R' Lau of Jerusalem's Rambam synagogue to name two - but none that I would be able to call up and ask things when I have a question, discuss issues within Judaism, and have as a spiritual/religious sounding board.
Instead, the state of my Judaism continues to take hit after hit through the dangerous and reckless stupidity of my co-religionists.
Whether it's what one rabbi or another says, or if it's just someone trying to be helpful reminding me that what I'm doing is against halacha, or being unable to bring myself to put on tefillin and pray even once a week, whatever it is that day, I feel like I'm losing more and more faith in Judaism.
Note that this doesn't affect my faith in God, but rather the religion that I feel best represents God. And despite the ongoing barrage of insults and assaults on my religion by those that claim to represent it, my faith in God is unwavering - ironically enough, largely based on my own forays into science and probability, something that religion in general, even Judaism on occasion, has taken the utmost care to denigrate, deny, and destroy.
I can't even really pinpoint where I started to lose my faith in Judaism. I know that the biggest initial hit was the entire Baruch Lanner fiasco. A "rabbi" that effectively led the NCSY movement turns out to be a serial sexual abuser, and the Orthodox Union had only been covering it up for over 20 years. The amazing level of ineptitude, stupidity, and outright criminal negligence on behalf of The Organization that is the voice of Orthodox Judaism in North America. The few times that I got to meet with Lanner, I looked up to him. What's not to respect about a physicist that's also a Rabbi, that regularly used to bring examples from physics into his sermons?
And yet, even after that, I continued to be extremely active in NCSY. And even as that continued, I felt constantly threatened by the Rabbi in charge of our region. Or, more accurately, he felt threatened by my openness regarding my psychiatric issues that were oh-so-prominent at that time in my life. On more than one occasion, he took away my job on the regional board and gave it to someone else without asking me or even informing me.
As for being raised in the Toronto Jewish community in general... I don't want to even get started on the amount of lashon harah, gossip, jealousy, one-upping, and outright nastiness that exists there to this day. I said it once, and I'll say it again - you can't spell corrupt without COR. Needless to say, the recent shitstorm that Rabbi Taub was the victim of has alienated me even more from the community to the point that I beg all of you to beat me to a bloody pulp before I ever consider to subject my family to that kind of environment.
Judaism in North America revolted me. So I moved to Israel. And I'm beginning to think that it's only gotten worse since I moved here, despite the increased spiritual bond I feel to God and Judaism. This isn't necessarily because of things that are specific to Israel (charedim not working, not going to the army, not paying taxes, and thieving from the average Jew in this country; maniacally fanatic extreme right-wing settler "rabbis"; nonstop infighting even within the dati leumi community; a complete lack of condemnation of when a "rabbi" says something that is an outright chilul hashem; etc. etc. ad nauseum). I think it just has a lot to do with trends within Judaism within the past five years. The gedolim of previous generations have died, and in their place are new "gedolim" that are too fucking senile to see past their nose.
Gone are the R' Soloveichiks, R' Feinstiens, and R' Kooks of old. Instead, we have Ovadya Yosef, Yosef Elyashiv, Dov Lior, and other fanatic shitwits that exercise the absolute power that has been given to them by my co-religionists.
My biggest problem with Orthodox Judaism nowadays is the godlike status that so many Jews attribute to mere mortal rabbis. If my rebbe said it, then it is truth and just as holy as Torah MiSinai, for my rebbe is holy and talks directly to (and for) God. This directly creates a complete lack of accountability amongst the so-called leaders of our community. These rabbis could literally drop their pants and shit on a sefer Torah and their followers would be doing the same in no time.
Orthodox Judaism nowadays is so far removed from Sinai both chronologically and theologically. Again, it could just be because I'm opening my eyes to it for the first time. But even in our most basic grades, we teach our children more Torah SheBe'al Peh than we do Torah MiSinai. We teach our children to read a massive manifesto that the Rabbis wrote over two thousand years ago and tell them that it's absolute truth and an inseperable and unquestionable part of the religion. We put the Mishna, Talmud, and Shulchan Aruch on the same level as God's Torah to the point that even the commentary done on them is done in the same manner as with the Torah - we ask first what the rabbis meant, as if they had absolute knowledge of their respective subjects, and we don't even bother asking if it's relevant in our current understanding of the world.
I'm not advocating for Reform Judaism where they literally throw out all of halacha. Likewise, I'm not advocating for Karaitism where they literally throw out all of what the Rabbis said. I am advocating for a modern Orthodox Judaism that is willing to ask the hard questions, and say that Rabbis are mere human beings, no different than the rest of us, and they make mistakes. Why should we not be able to argue points of halacha with the Rabbis? Why should we continue to give them the final say on everything? Why do we persist on being complete and total sheep when this religion is our collective heritage, and not just that of the Rabbis?
God tells us in the Torah to follow the Rabbis of the current times. Well, what if the Rabbis of the current times are almost all incompetent boobs with no concept of reality outside of the yeshiva? No, I'm not say that all Rabbis are incompetent boobs nowadays, but I do feel that the grand majority of them are. I very strongly feel that in order for a us to follow a Rabbi, that Rabbi needs to earn our respect and maintain it. I very strongly feel that regardless of what that Rabbi says, and regardless of how much respect we retain for him, we reserve the right to disagree and do otherwise, so long as we're not directly condraticting halacha.
Our sages wisely taught us in Pirkei Avot that we should make for ourselves a "rav" - find someone that we're comfortable with, that we can talk to, ask questions, and involve in our spiritual life. I guess the biggest problem I have is that ever since Rabbi Chaim Flom, zichrono tzaddik livracha, passed away, I feel I have nobody to turn to. Friends have offered me their rabbi of choice, but there's always some reason that prevents me from attatching to said rabbi. I have a number of rabbis that I respect - R' Riskin of Efrat and R' Lau of Jerusalem's Rambam synagogue to name two - but none that I would be able to call up and ask things when I have a question, discuss issues within Judaism, and have as a spiritual/religious sounding board.
Instead, the state of my Judaism continues to take hit after hit through the dangerous and reckless stupidity of my co-religionists.