Don't judge Judaism by Jews, or Islam by muslims

amother

Magenta

Mon, Jun 25 2018, 10:51 pm

Neither Judaism nor Islam is monolithic. You can say that a certain segment of the religion practices in a way you don't like, or find dangerous enough to fight.

There are tens of millions of Muslims in Indonesia who aren't violent. They are as much a part of Islam as ISIS. Now you can complain that they don't stand up to violence that's being committed in their name, but they'll probably say that they do it internally and that they actually are in more danger than non-Muslims are.

To use a trivial example from this week's news. Some charedi men delayed an El Al flight for over an hour because they wouldn't sit next to women. I'm sure they really thought the religion required them to act this way. I'm sure that many imamothers disagree. How many stand up to this kind of creeping extremism? Now, obviously, disrupting a flight isn't violent, but it's wrong.

"Don't judge Judaism by the Jews" is a silly phrase. Some sins exist around the world because they are based on universal human flaws. Lust and greed are found everywhere. The question is whether religion is used as justification or cover-up.

shoshanim999

Mon, Jun 25 2018, 11:14 pm

tichellady wrote:

Please explain how I’m wrong in both paragraphs.

There are Muslims who say the same thing about extremists who advocate territorism, they say they are not true Muslims. This is the same argument you are giving.you are saying “ if I don’t agree with his teachings, he is not a Rav.”

There is no law that a woman needs to pay for a get but I have heard from women in this situation that they were told that they can’t force their husbands to divorce them according to the Torah and the beit din told them that the only halakhically acceptable advice they could offer was to pay the husband off. This is appalling to me.

I think you know that I’m not talking about peaceful demonstrations.

But there's a gigantic difference between for example the Jews who throw rocks in the name of religion and muslims who believe that suicide bombings are justified. I don't know if there are any actual poll numbers but I think it's safe to say that the percentage of Jews who condone throwing rocks at woman who they believe aren't dressed modestly is a minuscule, tiny fraction. On the other hand if you look at polls of Muslim majority countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and others, they show that over 15% have extreme radical beliefs such as condoning suicide bombings, honor killings, and killing non believers. The numbers make all the difference. Yes, religions are judged by the group that follows the faith. I'm not going to judge Judaism based on the extreme minority of bad apples. Since within Islam the radicals and extremists is not a small percentage, we can reasonably judge the the religion as a whole by the vast amounts of extremists.

singleagain

Mon, Jun 25 2018, 11:18 pm

amother wrote:

Love your post, but that last sentence says it all!

tichellady

Mon, Jun 25 2018, 11:32 pm

shoshanim999 wrote:

That’s an interesting argument. I’m not sure that I agree but I understand what you are saying. I think I would agree more if it was a majority position, which it’s not. I guess I’m not sure I’m comfortable judging a religion based on a minority percentage of people who hold a belief at a certain point in time. But I understand why one would do that. For the record, radical Islam terrifies and disturbs me, but I don’t see why that should make me hate or mistrust the friendly Muslim woman who let me cut in line in front of her today at the grocery store.

Part of what makes this all complicated is that radical Islam was not born in a vacuum, but is the result of colonialism, dictatorships, disastrous Foreign interventions etc. a lot of it is political more than spiritual. And political power is tied to religious power, especially in countries like Saudia Arabia. I’m not an expert on this.

Fox

Tue, Jun 26 2018, 12:56 am

The key word here, I think, is "teen." Teenagers are particularly sensitive to hypocrisy, and in general, that's a good thing. It can be a catalyst to make them evaluate their own beliefs and behavior.

But "don't judge Judaism by Jews" is a bit too blithe and dismissive, too.

I heard a better answer from a friend of mine who is simultaneously the shallowest and deepest person I know. We were discussing a particular rav in the community, and she sighed, saying, "It's too bad people can't be all good or all bad. Then we could love them or hate them and everything would be easy."

The same person who will take money out of his pocket at the grocery store to help someone whose credit card was declined might turn around and shter a neighbor's shidduch by repeating baseless loshen hora.

The same person who organizes meals for post-partum mothers may berate store clerks horribly.

The same person who makes enormous anonymous donations to local schools may treat his family badly.

Teenagers (and a lot of us non-teenagers) have difficulty reconciling the fact that people can aspire religiously yet constantly fall so obviously short -- and be so self-deceptive about their failings. The reality is that people, whatever their religion, are messy and complex, and rarely live up to their ideals. But that's a hard pill to swallow in your teens.

LovesHashem

Tue, Jun 26 2018, 1:57 am

amother wrote:

My deep thinking (struggling teen) is trying to come to terms with this concept. He's often turned off by the actions of the ultra frum (which we are lol), and is constantly being told by mechanchim not to judge Judaism the religion by the Jewish practitioners.
So he's wondering why the same "curtesy" shouldn't be extended to the muslims.
How does this all make sense???

It should be to a degree. There are millions of muslims, some are nice. But the majority are violent and would kill you. You take the risk about how close you want to get to one.

I agree about the not judging Judiasm by Jews. Although I dislike that particular phrase. It feels like it's dismissing all Jews as representative of Judaism, which we should be, but realistically not happening.

People constantly ask me: Why did x religous Jew do x bad thing? Like just because someone wears black and white I need to be responsible for their actions?! Just because he calls himself a chareidi Jew and I do too that means we have the same veiws and ideas?

Any Joe Shmoe can walk around calling himself anything he'd like. In the secular world you can be any gender, religion, age, or race you want to be. Just because there's a 50 year old man who believes he's a 4 year old girl does not mean you should now go and base all your perceptions of most 50 year old men and most 4 year old girls off of him. He doesn't represent the world.

amother

Magenta

Tue, Jun 26 2018, 2:21 am

LovesHashem wrote:

People constantly ask me: Why did x religous Jew do x bad thing? Like just because someone wears black and white I need to be responsible for their actions?! Just because he calls himself a chareidi Jew and I do too that means we have the same veiws and ideas?

Just because someone wears the uniform doesn't mean you are responsible for his behavior. But then you have to ask yourself why someone is only considered frum if he wears the uniform. Either the uniform equals frumkeit or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, why insist upon it?

That, I think, is the sticking point.

amother

Maroon

Tue, Jun 26 2018, 3:39 am

[quote="Miri7"]OP, I think that this is a very interesting line of inquiry and study for your DS. Looking at what each religion is - the history, the foundational texts for the religion, the interpretation given those texts by different groups over time, and the practice of different groups.

I advise STRONGLY AGAINST doing this.
It can be very dangerous spiritually - while studying the fundementals e.t.c of each religion, one can chas v'Shalom become attracted/brainwashed to that particular religion.
And especially a tender Jewish teenage boy.

The Yetzer Hora is VERY wily, unfortunately.

LovesHashem

Tue, Jun 26 2018, 3:44 am

amother wrote:

I never said someone not wearing black and white is considered frum. I'm sorry if it came across that way. I get questions from people who are frum but don't call themselves chareidi, asking me about other chareidim's behavior.

EDIT: I get questions from other frum Jews, other chareidi people, and from non religous Jews such as most of my relatives.

I don't think you should insist upon it, but the system is the system, and I understand that if I want this system this is what I must do. If you want to talk more about that point open a spinoff.

moonstone

Tue, Jun 26 2018, 5:12 am

amother wrote:

Of course you judge the religion by he people who practice it. A religion has n value if it not making people better people. That's why I am Modern Orthodox because in my way of judging, they are the nicest people. That's who I want as a model for hope to emulate God. That's exactly why I am not ultra religious. But ymmv.

I'm about as Modern as they come, but your post bothered me- and confused me. The nicest people? Really? I think each sect of Judaism probably has the same percentages of nice and not-nice people. In fact, the same is probably true for all of mankind. I'm Modern because I think it's the right path for me. It's the principles, not how nice the people are.

amother

Amethyst

Tue, Jun 26 2018, 4:31 pm

The issue your son has (if I'm understanding correctly) and which bothers me too, is that it's getting very hard to have positive feelings towards Judaism if it's members (of course not all) are acting completely counter to what the Torah says, even counter to basic human decency standards. Yes, of course we should separate Judaism and Torah and just try to do our best and not look at what others are doing. BUT Jewish life is very community oriented (especially Haredi circles) and it's very hard to look past transgressions if "we" or "that group" should most certainly be on a higher standard.

Yes, there are black sheep everywhere and in all religions, but aren't we supposed to be a "light to the nations".

Your son is plagued by the lows he has seen his community fall to (or at least some people of it) and is trying to reconcile how supposedly frum, Torah observant Jews can do such things. This is happening everywhere in frum communities sadly.

ora_43

Wed, Jun 27 2018, 2:53 am

LovesHashem wrote:

It should be to a degree. There are millions of muslims, some are nice. But the majority are violent and would kill you. You take the risk about how close you want to get to one.

Not true.

I won't deny there are Muslim countries with dangerously high levels of anti-Semitism. But that's a nationalism thing, not an Islam thing. Some leaders promote or allow anti-Semitism because it helps them achieve their own interests. But in places where national/religious leaders aren't actively encouraging anti-Semitism, Muslims are no more violent or likely to kill you than anyone else.

So like, don't go to rural Pakistan and start waving an Israeli flag, but if you meet a Muslim person in America or Europe or Israel, etc, that's a totally different story.

I live near enough Muslims that if most wanted to kill me, I'd be super, super dead by this point LOL

LovesHashem

Wed, Jun 27 2018, 2:56 am

ora_43 wrote:

1/3 of the world are muslims now I believe, and most live in violent 3rd world countries.
I said the majority, which means over 50 percent. Even if it was 2 percent that weren't violent that 2 percent is still millions of people. More than there are Jews.

ora_43

Wed, Jun 27 2018, 4:10 am

Like previous posters said, people's beliefs should be judged by their actions when their actions reflect their beliefs.

When it comes to Jews, and when it comes to Muslims. When it comes to anyone.

So like - don't judge Judaism by the actions of a Jewish person who steals, even though they admit that stealing is against halacha. That's just humans being human. But if, say, a Jewish man fails to help a heavily pregnant woman who's struggling to carrying something, and justifies that by saying Torah says he can't look at a woman - feel free to judge the type of Judaism he practices based on his actions.

Go ahead and judge Wahhabi Islam based on Saudi practices (public beheadings, punishing rape victims, etc). But don't judge all Islam based on what Saudi Arabia does.

But that's only part of the problem. Where it gets complicated is the question of community norms. What if nobody says halacha allows corrupt business practices, but in a certain community, corruption in business is so widespread it's become the norm? What if all sects of Judaism agree, equally, that the Torah says all of mankind was created in Hashem's image - but racism is far more common in some sects than others?

On the one hand, why judge a philosophy based on behavior it explicitly prohibits?

But on the other hand - if we can't judge a philosophy based on it's real-world results, how can we use our judgment at all? Most philosophies sound good in theory. And to an extent, halacha is based on real-world results. How much of what we do as frum Jews involves laws created by rabbis to get a certain result - to make people remember an event, or avoid an aveira?

Ultimately, I think the ideal Jewish response is to ignore the philosophical dilemma and focus on making change. Look at great Jews in history - the Ba'al Shem Tov, Chazal, Sarah Scheirer, the Chafetz Chaim, pretty much anyone you can think of... What they have in common is that they saw the Jewish world going wrong in certain ways. And instead of justifying what they saw, or judging Judaism based on what they saw, they did what they could to fix it.

ora_43

Wed, Jun 27 2018, 4:14 am

All the above is just my philosophical ramblings Wink

.

When it comes to your teen... Teens tend to see the world in black and white. That's one of the beauties of youth, and one of it's major downsides, too.

Just encourage him to keep being a deep thinker. He doesn't need adults to give him pat answers, he needs to hear that you trust him to think for himself, and that there's nothing wrong or un-Jewish in seeing problems in the Jewish community. But he also might need a reality check once in a while from someone with more life experience (it's easy to fix humanity's problems in theory; a lot harder in practice).

And when he's right, he's right. It really is wrong to judge Judaism by one set of standards, and Islam by another.

ora_43

Wed, Jun 27 2018, 4:22 am

LovesHashem wrote:

Living in a violent country is not the same as being violent.

Having skewed beliefs about Jews based on state propaganda is not the same as being ready and willing to kill the first Jew they see.

I realize you said "the majority," but when you say "you take the risk..." it implies you're talking about Muslims who a Jewish person today might actually meet being a risk. What Jewish person today is regularly traveling to Yemen or Saudi Arabia? We're meeting Muslims in New York, or Yafo, or Vienna.

Maybe I misunderstood. In which case, I still think "majority" is too harsh, and that the idea of not judging Islam based on Muslims still applies in full (hatred due to Nazi-style propaganda is not hatred due to Islam). But I agree that Jews should be cautious about traveling to certain parts of the world, or befriending extremists.