What secular values/ideas have crept into our minds?

JRKmommy

Fri, Nov 24 2006, 7:06 am

Re tobacco:

Not only can it be considered a "secular" habit - but it may potentially be connected to avoda zara! Tobacco use spread when Europeans came to the New World and discovered that it was cultivated by the Natives, who considered it to be a sacred herb and used it in their rituals. [See http://www.geocities.com/redro......html for more information - but be warned that it is written from the perspective of Native spirituality].

Ruchel

Fri, Nov 24 2006, 7:29 am

JRKmommy wrote:

Not to mention that putting your health at risk voluntarily isn't allowed... I'm so sad when I see rebbeim smoking, they're such a BAD example for young people... Crying

carrot

Fri, Nov 24 2006, 10:02 am

OK Motek. I get what you're saying. You're not simply what secular values have crept into us (which assumes that all secular values are bad,) but

Motek wrote:

which secular values that are antithetical to Torah or take a form that is antithetical Torah, have crept into our minds.

Fair enough.

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Also will you please answer the rest of my post?

Which part?

Thanks, you sort of answered it. I was mainly referring to my question: Do you believe that Judaism develops in a vacuum?

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"turn it and turn it for everything is in it" - everything comes from Torah

carrot wrote:

I don't understand what you mean with that quote?

That if you see something in Torah or Torah life that is seemingly taken from the non jews, if it is something truly positive, it is derived from Torah and the non jews derived it from us.

Ah... so then we are left with a useless equation: good = Torah, bad = non jewish in which case the original question becomes meaningless because if we decide that a certain secular value is good, then m'maila it is from Torah and if it is bad, then it is truly secular. So what are we asking again? And do we decide that something is a Torah value because it has a clear Torah source, or because it seems like a good idea? And do we decide something is a "secular value" because the Torah is explicitly against it, or because it looks like a bad idea?

mumoo

Fri, Nov 24 2006, 12:13 pm

cant everything be made Torahdik?

women working to support learning husbands
being trim, physically fit taking care of guf that holds neshama
having fancy china, silver, lechter lchvod Shabbos
jewelry be attractive to our husbands
ditto even blowup push up bras

maybe the secular have taken all the ideas that we hold as kadosh and stripped that part away
in midrash when Hashem showed Moshe rabbanu the half shekel it had fire on it
like fire, money (or any gashmius) can be destructive, but used properly we can't really be without them

Motek

Sat, Nov 25 2006, 4:09 pm

healthymama wrote:

The Rebbeim smoked. Didn't they ?

Do you think that Chassidic Rebbes and Litvishe rosh yeshivos who smoked did so to be cool and s-xy?

JRKmommy wrote:

Re tobacco:

Not only can it be considered a "secular" habit - but it may potentially be connected to avoda zara!

Oooh, like Indian hair sheitels ... maybe!

Marion wrote:

But the Torah doesn't give us 2 days off every week!

Good point. Rabbi Avigdor Miller a'h said that our treating Sunday as a day different than other weekdays is a bit of avoda zara.

Motek

Sat, Nov 25 2006, 4:17 pm

mumoo wrote:

maybe the secular have taken all the ideas that we hold as kadosh and stripped that part away

Sometimes that's the case. Other times, it's just bad.

In kabbalistic terminology it would be: some things are just plain kelipa (no good) while other things are kelipas noga which are neutral until used for either good or bad.

carrot wrote:

then we are left with a useless equation: good = Torah, bad = non jewish in which case the original question becomes meaningless because if we decide that a certain secular value is good, then m'maila it is from Torah and if it is bad, then it is truly secular. So what are we asking again?

I am asking, what secular values/ideas have crept into our minds! Like Sunday being different than Monday etc. That's a non-Jewish idea that has crept into our mindset. In the list of things people have offered in this thread, some things are easily seen as secular ideas while others are good in certain situations and bad in certain forms it takes (like women working).

Quote:

And do we decide that something is a Torah value because it has a clear Torah source, or because it seems like a good idea? And do we decide something is a "secular value" because the Torah is explicitly against it, or because it looks like a bad idea?

You know ... Wink

Imaonwheels

Sun, Nov 26 2006, 12:23 am

healthymama wrote:

Let's be specific. An older man marrying a very young adolescent girl is unacceptable in today's society. Is this a secular value that has crept in because acc. to the Torah it would be fine ?

Yep. My dear friend, a"h, was married off at 18 to an 80 yr old man in Russia. She told me as an older woman that it was her most happy marriage. Westerners are extremely ethnocentric.

TzenaRena

Sun, Nov 26 2006, 12:35 am

chavamom wrote:

As someone who lived in Israel for many years and has asked many hard shailos, I can tell you 'it ain't necessarily so'. As much as I would love to be back 'home', so far every rav and gadol we've asked has told us to stay put here.

Implying that people who are in the US are there for their personal comfort only feels like a giant 'poke in the eye'. Unfortunately, there are many reasons that many of us still reside in chu'l. We are still in galus.

Chavamom, so true.

There was a Rav who lived in South Africa, who kept asking the Lubavitcher Rebbe for permission to move to EY. He was consumed with yearning to live there, and spend his time learning. The Rebbe told him to stay put. By moving to EY, he would be benefitting one person: himself. In the city that he was, he was affecting thousands of Jews, keeping them connected to Yiddishkeit.

gryp

Sun, Nov 26 2006, 6:52 am

shalhevet wrote:

GR wrote:

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Nationalism - Jewish people davenned for two thousand years to have the zechus to even die in Eretz Yisroel. Now people say - we know we could go, but it's very nice here thanks and the US/Europe/whatever is just a great place to live.

I think that's called Galus.

I don't think so at all.
I think it's called forgetting we're in galus.

living in Israel is just as much as living in Galus as anywhere else.

Quote:

Implying that people who are in the US are there for their personal comfort only feels like a giant 'poke in the eye'.

the same can be said the other way around. those living in Israel are more comfortable there, that's why they live there.

the (Lubavitcher) Rebbe always told us: "Mach duh Eretz Yisroel!" ("Make Eretz Yisroel over HERE!")

shalhevet

Sun, Nov 26 2006, 7:13 am

GR wrote:

shalhevet wrote:

GR wrote:

Quote:

I think that's called Galus.

I don't think so at all.
I think it's called forgetting we're in galus.

living in Israel is just as much as living in Galus as anywhere else.

I didn't imply anything else. But if you read my original point I said that when people say they prefer a more comfortable gashmius existence in chutz la'aretz than a more ruchniyus existence in EY, which of course, still has its kedusha. Particularly today when we have the zechus that again "ein Torah k'Toras Eretz Yisroel" and it is the center of Torah. And we still have many mitzvos which can still only be carried out in EY. May we soon be zoche to be mechuyav in all the mitzvos hateluyos ba'aretz.

The Brisker Rov said it is better to be in Galus amongst Jews than in Galus amongst non jews.

And don't you think Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, the Ba'al Shem Tov and the Gra, to name but a few, knew that EY is still galus today, but it is very different to live here?

Again, to clarify, this thread is about secular values and my point was that it's a secular value to prefer gashmius over ruchniyus. I am not talking about people who are in chutz la'aretz because of Jewish values.

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Implying that people who are in the US are there for their personal comfort only feels like a giant 'poke in the eye'.

the same can be said the other way around. those living in Israel are more comfortable there, that's why they live there.

The vast majority of frum people who are more comfortable here are so because we prefer a higher "ruchni" standard of living. So I don't think it's the same at all.

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the (Lubavitcher) Rebbe always told us: "Mach duh Eretz Yisroel!" ("Make Eretz Yisroel over HERE!")

How do you do that? Anyway, not everyone on this board is Lubavitch.

gryp

Sun, Nov 26 2006, 7:20 am

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May we soon be zoche to be mechuyav in all the mitzvos hateluyos ba'aretz.

Amein!

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Again, to clarify, this thread is about secular values and my point was that it's a secular value to prefer gashmius over ruchniyus. I am not talking about people who are in chutz la'aretz because of Jewish values.

I completely agree with that, but I think we may have a difference of opinion of what "Jewish values" might be.

Quote:

Quote:
the (Lubavitcher) Rebbe always told us: "Mach duh Eretz Yisroel!" ("Make Eretz Yisroel over HERE!")

How do you do that?

I'm not sure I can answer that in a one-liner. Maybe SaraYehudis can. Wink

Quote:

Anyway, not everyone on this board is Lubavitch.

I dont know where that came in.

Motek

Sun, Nov 26 2006, 3:16 pm

the latest secular value that has become practically an avoda zara is the worship of the concept called "self-esteem." Nowadays it is considered vital to one's mental health to esteem oneself. I know, I know, Dr. Twerski attempts to explain how esteeming oneself does not contradict the trait of anivus (humility) though he doesn't get into "meod meod hevai shfal ruach (be exceedingly lowly of spirit). This is not the thread to delve into this issue.

another secular value that we sometimes succumb to is: "I deserve" "I'm entitled". When you read Chovos Ha'Levavos for example, which describes how we are entitled to nothing and owe everything, every breath we take to G-d, this secular value is glaring in its G-dlessness.

Motek

Thu, Dec 14 2006, 5:04 pm

I've come across some more in my reading:

independence l'sheim independence (we should be feeling utterly dependent on G-d)

This line about Michael Deaver and President Reagan struck me: "Deaver's genius was in knowing how to emphasize the president's strengths and how to build an image for him by creating situations that highlighted those strengths." This secular value of chitzoniyus, packaging being All Important.

questioning the sanctity of life - for example the Terri Schaivo tragedy, buying into the "quality of life" idea over the sanctity of life

that Feelings are sacred. If I feel something, then who are you to tell me I'm wrong for feeling that way? That feelings supersede logic when it's supposed to be "mo'ach shalit al ha'lev" - the mind ruling the heart

"it's none of my business" "live and let live", tolerance of wrong things - when we are supposed to protest and passionately defend Torah with love