All Who Go Do Not Return

Maya

Fri, May 15 2015, 2:10 pm

marina wrote:

Also, of course, it's an intellectual process as well as a psychological one. If my community is fixated on crazy minhagim or community rules and I decide that these are worthless, why shouldn't I decide that the rest of it is lies too? That's just a logical thought progression.

This is true is for those who become disillusioned with religion completely.

The argument made here is that people can't differentiate between chumrah and halacha, and I maintain that it makes no sense that someone wouldn't know the difference between eating, for example, OU-D and eating pork at McDonalds. Someone who doesn't know the difference between these two is stupid. Same as the 4-slice yarmulka vs. no yarmulka.

If one decides to drop religion completely, that's something else. But how many people decide that since I'm already eating OU-D, lemme get that cheeseburger from McDonalds because it's the same-level aveirah?

Perhaps, but if so, there must be a lot of morons out there.

My point is that it's not the chumrah vs. halacha that's making people go off. That's just the "excuse." The real reason is that they have become disillusioned with religion for whatever reason, and they want out. And that's fine. But it's not because they can't tell the difference between Hershey's chocolate and Peter Luger steakhouse.

Again, that's just my opinion.

amother

Violet

Fri, May 15 2015, 2:20 pm

marina wrote:

It's not a matter of stupid. It's that in many communities, halacha is taken for granted and focused on less, whereas the minhagim are emphasized WAY more. In chabad, for example, our order of the manishtana is different because the minhag goes before the midoraisa halacha specifically to emphasize this point- that minhag is more valuable than halacha.

So yes, if you grow up like that and your communty's scandals and drama revolve around which guy decided to wear jeans or which girl wore her hair down, it's entirely possible to conflate everything into one big mess. And moreover, many people who go OTD - especially younger ones - grow up with little respect for secular laws and when they throw Judaism off, they throw off secular rules too. Which ends up bad.

Then they have a problem with authority, whichever shape or form it takes, including religion.

Authority figures from childhood being your prototype for God and all that.

amother

Violet

Fri, May 15 2015, 2:28 pm

Maya wrote:

I agree. This black and white thinking is either stupidity, immaturity, or a disorder of some kind.

PinkFridge

Fri, May 15 2015, 3:11 pm

amother wrote:

Then they have a problem with authority, whichever shape or form it takes, including religion.

Authority figures from childhood being your prototype for God and all that.

I don't have time to go through the thread to see if you've already posted. But there was no need to go amother for this one IMO. I think that this is pivotal for a lot of people.

zaq

Fri, May 15 2015, 5:15 pm

Maya wrote:

This "excuse" of all sins being equal is very popular among people trying to explain why someone would go from extreme to OTD on one step, but I don't buy it.
I mean, how stupid do you have to be to think that eating a lesser hechsher is the same as eating at McDonalds?

If everyone around you reacts to your eating a lesser hechsher as if you had eaten at McDonald's, it makes perfect sense. His wife screamed at him for feeding their kids tref when he gave a hungry child machine-made matzah instead of hand made. He was called a shegetz for not wearing a gartel. A man had his tires slashed and his windows smashed for making his son's bris in his own father's shul rather than the rebbe's. Clearly, in this society, the word of the rebbe and of the neighbors supersedes the word of G-d. A person who deviates from the rigid norm by so much as a fraction of a hair is branded a complete heretic. If you're going to be vilified, ostracized and victimized for looking a little different or thinking a little differently, you may as well have a good time and be a heretic in a big way. What, after all, do you have to lose? G-d doesn't make the rules or mete out punishment; the rebbe and his henchmen do.

We have already seen from other threads that the all-or-nothing chassidish mindset leads to some outrageous behavior. For example, men who are taught that virtuous women act and dress one way and one way only --I.e. the way they do in their own communities--assume that women who dress and act differently are by definition not virtuous. You and I might call them forty different kinds of nasty perverts, and some of them are, but at least a portion of this must come from recognizing only one way and holding everyone else in contempt.

Whoops, did I say a "lesser" hechsher? Shame on me if I did. I meant a "different" hechsher, of course.

Last edited by zaq on Fri, May 15 2015, 5:24 pm; edited 1 time in total

zaq

Fri, May 15 2015, 5:22 pm

Maya wrote:

Same as the 4-slice yarmulka vs. no yarmulka.

.

You would be surprised how many Chassidim truly believe that a man who is not wearing a yarmulka or a woman wearing jeans and a sleeveless shirt cannot possibly be Jewish. In fact, they have their doubts about men wearing a kippah srugah. Yes, it's stupid, but I believe the real stupidity lies in their leadership, which encourages this kind of non-thinking.

Say, aren't you a lapsed Chassidiste yourself? Then why do you find this so hard to believe? Did no one in your former community think this way?

amother

Violet

Fri, May 15 2015, 5:27 pm

Zaq, I don't disagree with your thesis, but I'm saying that people who fall for that kind of thinking are not really thinking.

There comes a point in every person's life where they must find their own path to or away from Hashem. If they're blaming their society or family for their lack of faith, then they are simply stuck in their past traumas.

And if someone is only religious because everyone else around them is, that's not very real either, is it?

The fact that Maya is not agreeing with the all-or-nothing assessment sort of proves to me that her lifestyle choices are true choices, and not the act of rebellion she has sometimes been accused of.

Again, I agree that there are systemic problems in certain communities, but its members aren't doomed to a lifetime of infantile thinking just because of that. True, it's harder for them to rise above it, but using it as an excuse is laziness and denial.

zaq

Fri, May 15 2015, 5:28 pm

debsey wrote:

I had the same thought. Also, if all "sins" are equal, then a kid might feel toxic guilt for doing something minor, like looking at the "wrong" ad on the subway, and the logic might be "I'm already such a rasha, I can't be redeemed, so there's no hope for me, why try?" it is a very valuable lesson for parents - don't make them feel irredeemable. They might take you seriously.

Exactly. When you treat people like criminals, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The person thinks "I can't do anything right, so I may as well do everything wrong. That, at least, I'm good at."

Maya

Fri, May 15 2015, 5:48 pm

zaq wrote:

You misunderstood. What you're saying here is correct. I'm saying something completely different. In my opinion, no boy is saying, "since my rebbe says that 4-slice kappels are not allowed, I may as well take mine off completely." Unless, of course, he wants to drop religion entirely. Same analogy as Hershey's vs. Peter Luger.

Yes, I am a lapsed Chassidiste, and while people talk about the "phenomenon" of this happening, I never actually ever came across someone who said, I went OTD because I didn't understand the difference between Hershey's, which has a hechsher albeit one my parents don't hold by, and Peter Luger, which is treif.
Or, I'm going to drop everything because I want to wear jeans.
Or, I'm going to drive on Shabbos because I'm taking off my shtriemel.

Like I said, perhaps they exist, but if they do, they're idiots and need some growing up to do.

amother

Lawngreen

Fri, May 15 2015, 5:57 pm

amother wrote:

Then they have a problem with authority, whichever shape or form it takes, including religion.

Authority figures from childhood being your prototype for God and all that.

This. This. And this again.
I know a group of people, one of whom is very close to me, who are orthoprox, and I see they have always had a problem with authority, because growing up the people with authority in their world abused their authority, and now they have a problem with God because of that.
Amother, thanks for saying the above and making it so clear to me.
In addition, the people with authority made the tafel the ikkur and as this was abusively hammered into to them again and again, and they got controlled in this abusive way again and again, this slowly eroded their emunah because they saw the tafel to be sheker, and with time, even God was a question of sheker.

PinkFridge

Sun, May 17 2015, 11:02 am

Maya wrote:

The difference is that while you're a lapsed Chassidiste, you are not a lapsed Jew. You were able to make the distinction and find a place within authentic Judaism. Too many people, at least some of those who write books (I reserve judgment on SD till I get my book, the hold list is long apparently) and blogs can't, or don't try to. And evidently their environmental factors - community, education, etc. - aren't supportive in their searching, if they opt to search, either.

rainbow dash

Tue, Jun 09 2015, 2:52 pm

marina wrote:

An excerpt http://www.salon.com/2015/06/0.....sids/

While I was reading this I was slapping myself on my forehead. Sorry but how dumb can you be not knowing where the baby comes out of esp. when your already married? I understand the whole inyan about sheltered upbringing and all that but, really. What do they teach already in the chossen and kallah classes?

Ok ive pick up my jaw off the floor now.

gp2.0

Tue, Jun 09 2015, 5:10 pm

Wow. That is so well-written. Now I want to read the whole thing.

They do not teach anything about babies in chosson and kallah classes.

I knew how a baby is born through the book "The wonder of becoming you" that my mom gave me to read when I was 10 and got my first period. She probably also told me when I asked questions.

Tell me how they are supposed to know if no one ever told them and they didn't learn it in school and their friends didn't know and their parents didn't tell them?

myself

Wed, Jun 10 2015, 7:08 am

Maya wrote:

You're right, it's an excuse. It's not about halacha vs. chumra, but when the bridge is too narrow more people are going to fall of. More will get disillusioned. So yes, it's not the reason, but it does have a domino effect to some extent.

Balance is key.