The Taivos Canard, Installment Two: Questioning Orthodoxy

              It is often said that Judaism encourages questions. The Talmud, the foundational text of Rabbinic Judaism, is composed of questions and answers. The commentaries are structured the same way. When learning Rashi, the medieval commentator on Tanach and the Talmud, children are taught to ask, "What's bothering Rashi?" In other words, "What is Rashi's question?" Questioning is such a fundamental part of Judaism that it's a stereotype that Jewish people answer questions with another question.[1]

            It's true that it's a Jewish trait to ask questions, but the Talmud only asks certain types of questions. Concepts are refined through a series of questions and answers, but the questions serve only to clarify the point under discussion. The questions never examine the assumptions that underlay the discussion. Jacob Neusner writes in The Talmud, "In Talmudic dialogues, people registered dissent in accord with the rules governing the iron consensus of the whole."[2] The same is true in the frum world today. Questions are encouraged, but, just like in the gemara, questions are only encouraged within certain parameters, with the understanding that everyone accepts without question the framework within which the discussion is taking place. One may only ask questions within the system, questions that don't challenge the fundamentals of frumkeit. Woe to he or she who asks questions about the system, who questions the framework.

            It's okay to ask for clarification. To ask for instructions on how to properly perform a mitzvah. Or to ask how what it says in the pasuk over here can be reconciled with what it says in the pasuk over there. Or to ask how to understand something in the Torah that "seems" to contradict what we know to be true about the world. It's never okay to question the underlying assumptions that it is worthwhile to perform mitzvos or that everything can be reconciled.

            It's okay to ask an isolated question, like, "How could the plants have been created before the sun, when plants need sunlight to live?" as long as you ask it of someone, like a kiruv worker, who is trained to answer such questions, and as long as you accept the answer without too much resistance. (As a Facebook friend once said, "Judaism loves questions. It hates follow-up questions.") It is not okay to systematically question everything you're taught, to look for counterarguments against which to measure the arguments for Yiddishkeit. It's not okay to scrutinize the answers you get from the approved sources, and to try to see if they have any holes. Asking for clarification is okay, even praiseworthy. Examining the underlying assumptions, and worse, risking not coming to the approved conclusions, is forbidden.

            In an online conversation I once had on this subject, one person declared, "Questions are allowed. Answers that are considered apikorsis are not." In his mind, one may ask any question he wants. It's only the answers that are circumscribed. But as soon as you declare an answer apikorsis, you are not allowing real questions. You're only allowing rhetorical questions that act as props to the accepted dogmas.

            There was a philosophy professor named H. D. Lewis who told a story about a woman who asked him what philosophy is. He answered her, and she said, "Oh, I see, theology." She was right that philosophy and theology often address the same subjects, but unlike the theological "questions" acceptable in the frum world, in philosophy one is supposed to come to whichever conclusion the arguments lead him to find most likely.[3]

In yeshiva, boys quickly learn that one isn't allowed to say, "this doesn't make sense," only, "I don't understand."[4] It's unlikely that when a kid says a mishna or gemara doesn't make sense that he's challenging its validity. He's more likely expressing his frustration with it. Yet even this is not allowed. One must always phrase his questions so that it's obvious that the proper obsequiousness in being paid to the Talmud. Nothing else in the world is treated this way. If a kid expresses a similar sentiment about, say, his math class, the teacher might show him why it's a foolish statement, or (more likely) might tell him that now isn’t the time to prove everything from the bottom up, but he wouldn't demand a priori acceptance of the material.

            Yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs are not places where one may examine the underpinnings of frumkeit. There are no classes on theology in yeshiva. Hashkafa classes, which claim to occupy that slot, are shallow talking points and inspirational stories, not any kind of rigorous philosophical exploration of the tenets of Judaism. Even those who do study classical works of Jewish philosophy are not likely to really understand them. The average yeshiva bochur or Bais Yaakov girl who might have a seder in a sefer like Chovos Halevavos doesn’t have the background to recognize – and aren’t taught about – the neoplatonic model that is the basis for the book’s entire approach to Judaism. They may or may not know who Plato was, and almost certainly have never heard of Plotinus, the man who invented the ideas on which Chovos Halevavos is premised.

            Those students who might be interested in theology have nowhere to turn. If they take their questions to their teachers, at best, they get shallow answers which they are expected to accept. At worst, they get labeled as troublemakers. Rabbeim are concerned with teaching the minutia of the sugya, not with exploring why they should bother learning gemara in the first place. If a student does have questions, and persists in asking them, they might be sent to talk to a kiruv professional.  Questions about frumkeit have no place within the frum community. They are outsourced to those who deal with people outside the community.

            Teachers attack questions and questioners for challenging Orthodoxy's truth. There is an assumption that good frum kids from frum homes shouldn't be asking such questions. This is not just my experience, but the experience of the majority of people who have gone through the frum education system and had the audacity to question the party line.[5] It’s not one or two rabbeim in over their heads. It’s endemic to the system. Rabbeim and Roshei Yeshiva are Talmudists, not theologians, and beyond some basic hashkafa sound bites, most have no idea what to tell a kid that questions their world’s assumptions.

Faranak Margolese, the author of Off the Derech, writes that while in seminary she had decided to participate in the advanced class, but found to her dismay that her philosophical questions were not welcomed there as they had been in the beginners' class. Like my high school principal had done, the head of the program took her aside and told her that she had to stop asking such questions in class. Another woman reported that when she asked about-the-system questions in class, her teachers told her, "You're such a nice girl, such a sweet girl. Why are you going crazy asking all these questions?"[6] The message is clear. Such questions could be tolerated from new baalei teshuva who don't know any better. Someone who is Frum From Birth or an established baal teshuva is not supposed to ask such things.

             This is partly the logical consequence of the beliefs that the Torah is perfect and Judaism is obviously true. A parable is told of a man who stood with a crowd of people before a painting. The other people marveled at how beautiful the painting was, but the man insisted that it was covered with ugly splotches. Then he realized that his glasses were dirty. When he had cleaned them, he too saw that the painting was beautiful. The nimshal, the moral, is that just as the painting was beautiful, and it was a problem with the observer that kept him from seeing its beauty, so too, the Torah is beautiful and contains matchless wisdom and truths. If one can't see that, the problem is with the person, not with the Torah.[7]

            I've experienced this attitude firsthand, when relatives or teachers expressed surprise and dismay that a boy who had been brought up frum would ask the unacceptable sort of questions. "Why would you ask that?" they wondered. People who question the foundational beliefs of frumkeit are not seen in the frum world as intellectual searchers. They're seen as broken. There's something wrong with a person who would ask such questions. Doubts, even sincere doubt from someone who is committed to being frum and is looking for solutions to his dilemmas, is perceived in the frum community as rebellious,[8] and teenagers who are questioners are lumped in with delinquents under the label, "Kids At Risk."

            Awareness in the frum community of the phenomenon of what would come to called "Kids At Risk" began with the November 1999 issue of the Jewish Observer, the monthly magazine formerly published by Agudas Yisroel of America. Titled "Children on the Fringe… and Beyond," the entire November issue focused on troubled teens. These were kids who were on drugs or engaged in other illegal and communally unacceptable activities and who were going "Off the derech (OTD)," leaving the frum community in which they had grown up. The issue sold out, and there was a second printing, as well as another issue on the same subject. By focusing on teenagers with delinquent behaviors, the magazine ignored adults and kids who left for other reasons, including intellectual reasons. It perpetuated the stereotype that going OTD is one more maladaptive behavior among the many exhibited by the delinquent teens. Experts quoted in the magazine claimed that by becoming frum again, the teens could overcome their drug use and other problem behaviors. The impression left on readers was that to be frum was to be normal and healthy, while to go OTD was to be delinquent, to be broken.[9]

 

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[1] Winston-Macauley, M. (2011, March 5). Jews Love Questions. Retrieved from http://www.aish.com/j/fs/Jews_Love_Questions.html

[2] Nuesner, J. (2006). The Talmud. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. page 124-125

[3] Robinson, R. Religion and Reason; in Angeles, P. (1976). Critiques of God. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. P. 118

[4] Margolese, F. (2005). Off the Derech. Jerusalem, Israel: Devora Publishing Company. p. 236

[5] Of the respondents to the web survey conducted as research for Off the Derech, 51% felt they couldn't ask questions in class, and 64% felt that when they did ask questions, the answers were not satisfactory. Margolese, F.(2005). Off the Derech. Jerusalem, Israel: Devora Publishing Company. p. 234

[6] Davidman, L.  and Greil, A.L. (2007) Characters in Search of a Script: The Exit Narratives of Formerly Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 46(2), 201-216.

[7] Katz, M. (2000). Understanding Judaism: A Basic Guide to Jewish Faith, History, and Practice. Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications. p. 70-71

[8] Margolese, F. (2005). Off the Derech. Jerusalem, Israel: Devora Publishing Company. p. 136

[9] Finkelman, Y. (2011). Strictly Kosher Reading. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press. P. 173-174