Growing up in the Yeshivish world, it seemed that Europe, the alte heim remembered warmly in stories, the land where the pious Judaism of our forefathers once flourished, was an area that extended from Russia in the East to Lithuania in the North, Hungary in the South, and Poland to the West. (Not that I had a great grasp of geography as kid. Far from it.) The stories that were told, from those about the great tzadikim we were to emulate to those about the simple folk we were to identify with, all took place in small patch of Central and Eastern Europe. The names of the towns, the Yiddish the characters spoke, the social structure, all had their roots in the shtetl.
I identified with none of it. I heard no stories at home about Poland or Russia. No family tales of the poretz, the czar, the bitter winters and rapacious peasants. Nor was there any reason I should. My family was from farther west, from a place that, when it came up at all, was the source of the smart-aleky Maskil in older stories and of unspeakable horror in those from the mid-20th century.
All four of my grandparents grew up in Germany, in places like Berlin and Frankfurt-am-Main. I have photographs of my great-grandfathers in their uniforms, circa 1914. I know very little about their service, and it’s likely they were drafted rather than volunteers, but they fought for Germany. More than one of my great-great-uncles died in France in the Kaiser’s service, fighting for a country he thought of as his own. One, a doctor living in California, voluntarily returned to Germany to serve his country.
When WWI ended and Germany was forced to cede its eastern lands to the newly reconstituted Poland, one of my great grandfathers, who had been living just across the new Polish border, moved west to Berlin rather than trade his German citizenship for a Polish one. Unlike the oppressed Jews of Eastern Europe (and Poland, Hungary, etc. which I’ll throw in with Eastern countries for simplicities sake), German Jews saw themselves as full members of the German nation.
The Jews of Eastern Europe were, for the most part, poor, oppressed, and not very patriotic – often because they weren’t allowed the privileges of citizens. Western Europe was a very different place.
These differences expressed themselves in ways other than just patriotism. Jews in the West tended to be wealthier and better-educated than their Eastern brethren, a difference which accounts for the popularity of cholent in Eastern Europe and its absence from the West. This dish, which many frum people today consider their Shabbos incomplete without, was unknown in Germany. While cholent today may be expensive, it was originally a relatively cheap stew made with potatoes, beans, and a bit of meat and bones for flavor. Tasty and filling, it was the perfect Shabbos dish for people without a lot to spend. The richer Jews of the West had chickens and meat for Shabbos. My father first tasted cholent when he went away to yeshiva for bais medrash.
There are also differences in hashkafa and minhagim. In general, most of the kaballah-inspired minhagim prevalent among Eastern European Jews are not part of the German experience. My family doesn’t make upsherins, we don’t wave a chicken over our heads before Yom Kippur, and we don’t wear a kittel at the seder. At my wedding (and my parents’ and my siblings’) I didn’t wear a kittel, I didn’t wear a torn coat, and I didn’t untie my shoes or take off my gold cufflinks. My wife and I stood under the chuppah wearing a tallis over our heads and facing away from the audience.
Most of my classmates were descendants of the Eastern Europeans who have come to dominate American Orthodoxy. (So much so, that one is either a chassid or a litvak. In common usage in the yeshivish and chassidsh worlds, there are no other categories.) I was different from them. Not very different – we were all from middle-to-right-wing Orthodox homes. But I was different in that I didn’t personally identify with stories of Eastern European figures. To my classmates, these characters were their alter zaides. I didn’t even have a zaidy. I called my grandfather “Opa,” German for Grandpa. Underscoring the difference even more, my family did things differently than my friends did, differently than I was taught in school.
Like all yeshivish kids, I learned the Yiddish sing-song about the Seder. “Tatty comes home from shul and puts on his kittel…” Mine didn’t.
I learned to say the Ma Nishtana in Yiddish. My mother’s parents, at whose home we spent Pesach when I was little, spoke fluent German and could understand Yiddish, but no one in my family spoke Yiddish.
Before Yom Kippur I learned in school how we shlug kaporos. At home, I heard how we didn’t shlug kaporos, and could you imagine actually taking a chicken and swinging it over your head?!
Then there’s the best one of all. You must wait six hours between milchig and fleishig (always said that way, even though no one waits between milk and meat, only between meat and milk). This minhag is taught as part of hilchos kashrus. Except my family only waits three.
For me, the illusion of a monolithic mesorah promulgated by the Yeshivish world never had a chance to take hold. Sure, everyone knows that there are people out there who only wait three hours, or who wear taleisim before they’re married. But for most it’s not something they notice. It’s one thing if one or two of your friends do things a little differently than you do. It’s another when nearly everyone does things differently than you do.
I think this may be another small ingredient in my path to religious skepticism. Seeing what I was taught as normative in school disregarded by my family in practice – disregarded because no one in the family had ever done these things - taught me that not everything I learned was a tradition stretching back to God at Har Sinai.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
V’shinantam L’vanecha…
My wife’s fourteen-year-old sister called yesterday.
“Are you coming over today?” She asked
“I’ll be over later this afternoon,” I said. “Why?”
“I’m having a history test tomorrow,” she said. “I need your help studying. I haven’t really been paying attention in class.” She laughed.
“All right. Sure. I’ll see you soon.”
“Thanks. See you. Bye.”
I arrived at my in-laws house later that afternoon. My daughter ran off to be spoiled by her other teenaged aunt, and I sat down at the dining room table with my sister-in-law, her notes, and her textbook. She opened the book to chapter three, “Ancient China.” She read from her notes, and I looked through the book and explained the material to her as best as I could. For a while we discussed ancient China’s geography, political system, and social makeup. Then we came to the section on religious beliefs. Specifically, ancestor worship.
“What does it mean, they ven-er-ated their ancestors?” She asked.
“In ancient China – and some people in China today – believed that their parents, grandparents, and other family members that passed away went to a different realm of existence where they continued to have an interest in and influence over their children’s and grandchildren’s lives.”
She looked at me quizzically.
“They davened to their dead ancestors for things.” I explained.
She grinned.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“They ‘davened.’” She said, making air quotes with her fingers.
“Yes, they davened, without the quotes.” I said. “They believed that their ancestors had influence in the world. The same way we daven that we should be healthy, our kids should be well, we should make money, they davened to their ancestors that they should be healthy, their kids should be well, their crops should grow and be plentiful, their animals should be healthy…”
She laughed. “Yeah, but when we daven its for real. Hashem answers us when we daven, and when He doesn’t, its because He says no because it wouldn’t be good for us.”
I wanted to point out to her that the Chinese were just as sincere in their prayers as she was in hers. I wanted to point out that in their belief system, their prayers were the ones that “real” and it was praying to an incorporeal monotheistic God in the sky that was silly. I wanted to point out the non-falsifiability of the claim that God answers all prayers – except for those He doesn’t. I wanted to point out that the same claim could be reasonably made about a rock, or a chair, or absolutely anything: if what you prayed for happens, attribute it to your prayer to the chair; if it doesn’t happen, its because the chair, in its infinite wisdom, knew that it wouldn’t be good for you, and so said no.
I didn’t point out anything. Instead, I let it go and moved on to the next section in the textbook.
As nice as my in-laws are, as kind, warm, and caring as they are, they would be very upset if I caused their fourteen-year-old daughter to have doubts. As it is, they’re not that happy about how much I’ve changed the way the daughter I married thinks. Nor are they happy about what I might teach their grandchildren.
Which brings me to the real problem, one that many in my position share. Educating my sister-in-law in comparative theology is not really my place. Nor do I think that it would be right at her age for me to deliberately and overtly change her worldview from the one her parents are trying to teach her. But educating my children and shaping their worldview is my place. More accurately, I want to make sure my children have the breadth of knowledge and the intellectual tools to decide for themselves what their worldviews will be. How do I this without making them pariahs in a community with a narrow definition of acceptable worldviews?
The first step is probably getting out of New York and away from the segmented sectarian communities that exist here. Moving to a more Modern community - one in which most ‘secular’ knowledge and an ostensibly rationalist epistemology falls within the bounds of community sanction – is another. As for where to go from there, well, we’ll see.
“Are you coming over today?” She asked
“I’ll be over later this afternoon,” I said. “Why?”
“I’m having a history test tomorrow,” she said. “I need your help studying. I haven’t really been paying attention in class.” She laughed.
“All right. Sure. I’ll see you soon.”
“Thanks. See you. Bye.”
I arrived at my in-laws house later that afternoon. My daughter ran off to be spoiled by her other teenaged aunt, and I sat down at the dining room table with my sister-in-law, her notes, and her textbook. She opened the book to chapter three, “Ancient China.” She read from her notes, and I looked through the book and explained the material to her as best as I could. For a while we discussed ancient China’s geography, political system, and social makeup. Then we came to the section on religious beliefs. Specifically, ancestor worship.
“What does it mean, they ven-er-ated their ancestors?” She asked.
“In ancient China – and some people in China today – believed that their parents, grandparents, and other family members that passed away went to a different realm of existence where they continued to have an interest in and influence over their children’s and grandchildren’s lives.”
She looked at me quizzically.
“They davened to their dead ancestors for things.” I explained.
She grinned.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“They ‘davened.’” She said, making air quotes with her fingers.
“Yes, they davened, without the quotes.” I said. “They believed that their ancestors had influence in the world. The same way we daven that we should be healthy, our kids should be well, we should make money, they davened to their ancestors that they should be healthy, their kids should be well, their crops should grow and be plentiful, their animals should be healthy…”
She laughed. “Yeah, but when we daven its for real. Hashem answers us when we daven, and when He doesn’t, its because He says no because it wouldn’t be good for us.”
I wanted to point out to her that the Chinese were just as sincere in their prayers as she was in hers. I wanted to point out that in their belief system, their prayers were the ones that “real” and it was praying to an incorporeal monotheistic God in the sky that was silly. I wanted to point out the non-falsifiability of the claim that God answers all prayers – except for those He doesn’t. I wanted to point out that the same claim could be reasonably made about a rock, or a chair, or absolutely anything: if what you prayed for happens, attribute it to your prayer to the chair; if it doesn’t happen, its because the chair, in its infinite wisdom, knew that it wouldn’t be good for you, and so said no.
I didn’t point out anything. Instead, I let it go and moved on to the next section in the textbook.
As nice as my in-laws are, as kind, warm, and caring as they are, they would be very upset if I caused their fourteen-year-old daughter to have doubts. As it is, they’re not that happy about how much I’ve changed the way the daughter I married thinks. Nor are they happy about what I might teach their grandchildren.
Which brings me to the real problem, one that many in my position share. Educating my sister-in-law in comparative theology is not really my place. Nor do I think that it would be right at her age for me to deliberately and overtly change her worldview from the one her parents are trying to teach her. But educating my children and shaping their worldview is my place. More accurately, I want to make sure my children have the breadth of knowledge and the intellectual tools to decide for themselves what their worldviews will be. How do I this without making them pariahs in a community with a narrow definition of acceptable worldviews?
The first step is probably getting out of New York and away from the segmented sectarian communities that exist here. Moving to a more Modern community - one in which most ‘secular’ knowledge and an ostensibly rationalist epistemology falls within the bounds of community sanction – is another. As for where to go from there, well, we’ll see.
Monday, November 9, 2009
People Like Me in Entertainment Media
There aren’t any.
All of the characters on TV, in movies, in the books I read, are all different than me. There were never any characters that I could truly identify with, someone that looked and sounded like I did. I suppose that is what it means to be part of a minority.
Except that there are Jewish characters all over the place. It seems like every third TV character is Jewish. Whether this is a result of the American tendency to erroneously hold up Judaism as one of the great (demographically) world religions, or Jewish writers creating characters that are coreligionists, I don’t know. But even these characters weren’t people I could identify with. They are mostly “informed Jews” – they look and act just like everyone else, and only reveal that they’re Jewish in December each year so that Chanukah can be shoehorned into the Christmas episode. If they have any Jewish characteristics, they’ll be highly stereotypical ones, like eating bagels. If they are at all religious, they’ll be on the extreme left wing of the Reform movement – a rabbi will officiate at their wedding, but that’s about it. The few depictions of Orthodox Jews are always of Chassidim. After all, a character in a long black coat, a fur hat, and long curly payos is much more interesting than a guy in a business suit with a fedora or a yarmulke on his head. (The only exception I can remember ever seeing was in “It Could Happen To You” in which a yeshivish-looking guy in a white shirt and yarmulke is seen mailing a letter.)
I identified with none of these characters. As much as TV and movies are a fantasy, for me there was an added layer of distance from reality. None of the people depicted were even close to “real” because none of them resembled anyone I knew.
I think this underlines the cultural isolation of the Orthodox world. While some liberal Chareidim and the Modern Orthodox partake of what the general culture has to offer, we aren’t really a part of it. There is nothing in it with which we can identify. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your point of view.
All of the characters on TV, in movies, in the books I read, are all different than me. There were never any characters that I could truly identify with, someone that looked and sounded like I did. I suppose that is what it means to be part of a minority.
Except that there are Jewish characters all over the place. It seems like every third TV character is Jewish. Whether this is a result of the American tendency to erroneously hold up Judaism as one of the great (demographically) world religions, or Jewish writers creating characters that are coreligionists, I don’t know. But even these characters weren’t people I could identify with. They are mostly “informed Jews” – they look and act just like everyone else, and only reveal that they’re Jewish in December each year so that Chanukah can be shoehorned into the Christmas episode. If they have any Jewish characteristics, they’ll be highly stereotypical ones, like eating bagels. If they are at all religious, they’ll be on the extreme left wing of the Reform movement – a rabbi will officiate at their wedding, but that’s about it. The few depictions of Orthodox Jews are always of Chassidim. After all, a character in a long black coat, a fur hat, and long curly payos is much more interesting than a guy in a business suit with a fedora or a yarmulke on his head. (The only exception I can remember ever seeing was in “It Could Happen To You” in which a yeshivish-looking guy in a white shirt and yarmulke is seen mailing a letter.)
I identified with none of these characters. As much as TV and movies are a fantasy, for me there was an added layer of distance from reality. None of the people depicted were even close to “real” because none of them resembled anyone I knew.
I think this underlines the cultural isolation of the Orthodox world. While some liberal Chareidim and the Modern Orthodox partake of what the general culture has to offer, we aren’t really a part of it. There is nothing in it with which we can identify. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your point of view.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Worth of a Sandwich
Our intrepid heroes, inter-planetary explorers, have landed on the Planet of the Week, a Brave New World where No Man Has Gone Before. Before long they meet the native’s leaders and are having a merry old time - until they begin to discover that things aren’t quite right. The idyllic society has a nasty underbelly, and it is their duty as heroes to Right All Wrongs and expose the evil to the commoners.
Before they can, their once-genial hosts catch them. They are told that they cannot leave the planet, because they might report what they have seen to an outside authority; and they cannot stay, because they might tell the commoners the truth about their utopia. But their captors are not so backwards as to execute them, or toss them in a cell and throw away the key. Instead they are to be hooked up to a virtual reality machine, where they can live out the rest of their lives in a fantasy of their choice, while their bodies are kept alive by IV feeding. Our heroes declare that such a solution is unacceptable, as they could never be happy or find meaning in a life they know to be entirely artificial.
I think most people would agree with our heroes that an artificial existence would be meaningless. We would agree that getting married, having children, a career, being active in the community – in short, all the things we value as indicators of a life well spent – would be meaningless if acted out in a virtual fantasy world. Despite having our every desire catered to, such an artificial existence would quickly lose its novelty and become depressing as we realize that nothing we do really matters.
Why we would feel this way is an interesting question.
An even more interesting question is why we don’t feel this way about the “real” world.
If raising children, being active in the community, etc., are not considered meaningful in the virtual world, then we can conclude that it is not the act itself that has value. The actions and experiences of the individual are the same in the real and virtual world. Rather, the value must be the action’s effect on others. Because there are no “others” in the virtual world, only virtual constructs, the actions are not considered to have value.
The question then is why do we think that the impact of our actions on others give the actions value? Do our actions in fact have objective values, or is it merely that we are wired to believe that acts which help others are meaningful? If so, what if the virtual reality machine could be tweaked to make those hooked up to it believe that making turkey sandwiches has intrinsic value, and they happily spent the next sixty years making turkey sandwiches. Is that bad? They would be happy and would believe they led a meaningful life. How is being programmed to believe altruistic acts have intrinsic value any different than being programmed to believe that making turkey sandwiches has intrinsic value?
If there really is no difference, and person in a virtual world programmed to believe making virtual turkey sandwiches has value can find the same fulfillment that an unaltered human in the real world can find in being altruistic, if in the virtual world tombstones read, “expert turkey sandwich maker,” instead of, “loving father, devoted husband, invaluable member of the community,” then our meaningful, productive, altruistic lives really have no more intrinsic value than the virtual world’s inhabitant’s years of sandwich making.
Havael havalim hakol hevel
Before they can, their once-genial hosts catch them. They are told that they cannot leave the planet, because they might report what they have seen to an outside authority; and they cannot stay, because they might tell the commoners the truth about their utopia. But their captors are not so backwards as to execute them, or toss them in a cell and throw away the key. Instead they are to be hooked up to a virtual reality machine, where they can live out the rest of their lives in a fantasy of their choice, while their bodies are kept alive by IV feeding. Our heroes declare that such a solution is unacceptable, as they could never be happy or find meaning in a life they know to be entirely artificial.
I think most people would agree with our heroes that an artificial existence would be meaningless. We would agree that getting married, having children, a career, being active in the community – in short, all the things we value as indicators of a life well spent – would be meaningless if acted out in a virtual fantasy world. Despite having our every desire catered to, such an artificial existence would quickly lose its novelty and become depressing as we realize that nothing we do really matters.
Why we would feel this way is an interesting question.
An even more interesting question is why we don’t feel this way about the “real” world.
If raising children, being active in the community, etc., are not considered meaningful in the virtual world, then we can conclude that it is not the act itself that has value. The actions and experiences of the individual are the same in the real and virtual world. Rather, the value must be the action’s effect on others. Because there are no “others” in the virtual world, only virtual constructs, the actions are not considered to have value.
The question then is why do we think that the impact of our actions on others give the actions value? Do our actions in fact have objective values, or is it merely that we are wired to believe that acts which help others are meaningful? If so, what if the virtual reality machine could be tweaked to make those hooked up to it believe that making turkey sandwiches has intrinsic value, and they happily spent the next sixty years making turkey sandwiches. Is that bad? They would be happy and would believe they led a meaningful life. How is being programmed to believe altruistic acts have intrinsic value any different than being programmed to believe that making turkey sandwiches has intrinsic value?
If there really is no difference, and person in a virtual world programmed to believe making virtual turkey sandwiches has value can find the same fulfillment that an unaltered human in the real world can find in being altruistic, if in the virtual world tombstones read, “expert turkey sandwich maker,” instead of, “loving father, devoted husband, invaluable member of the community,” then our meaningful, productive, altruistic lives really have no more intrinsic value than the virtual world’s inhabitant’s years of sandwich making.
Havael havalim hakol hevel
Monday, October 12, 2009
Wild Mass Guessing
The title is taken from here, and describes what happens when fans of a fictional work try to “fill in the logic holes and rationalize the weird.”
This was the phrase that sprang to mind when I read a short d’var torah on sukkos. The article started by asking, “Why do we sit in sukkos,” and, “Why is Sukkos in the fall?” To which the obvious answer is, ‘because it’s a harvest festival, and people camped out in huts in their fields while they were bringing in the harvest.’ Of course, this isn’t at all spiritual, merely practical. The holiday, canonized in the chumash, has to have connections both to the miraculous past of the Bnei Yisroel and to glorifying God’s name. So various views were quoted, including a discussion of whether the sukkos are a representation of the ananei hakavod or are a remembrance of actual huts which Klal Yisroel lived in while in the midbar; and whether sukkos is in the fall because that is when the Jews camped or because by living outside when it is getting cold we are showing that we are doing so because God commanded it and not because it is fun to camp out.
If one accepts that Sukkos evolved from a harvest festival, the discussions among the meforshim seem kind of silly. They are an attempt to make sukkos fit into a spiritual framework that probably wasn’t in place when the holiday first started, and into which it was never really molded. [Unlike, say, All Hollows Eve, which was a deliberate attempt by the Church to turn a pagan harvest festival involving spirits into a Christian holiday involving the dead.] These rabbonim, fans of the spiritual framework of Rabbinic Judaism, are engaging in wild mass guessing to fill in the holes.
For a long time now, my initial reaction to any unfamiliar religious concept or practice I come across (and any I’m used to that I really start thinking about) is, “How did that get started?” Unfortunately, the traditional answers are often like the above d’var torah’s discussion of Sukkos. Wild Mass Guessing by various people attempting to construct something that makes sense out of various disparate parts, full of retcons and discontinuities, often bending over backwards to explain something that makes perfect sense when approached without preconceptions into which it needs to be made to fit. When it comes to how well these apologetics work, Your Mileage May Vary.
As the Wild Mass Guessing page says,
Warning: Prolonged exposure to these pages will result in them making sense.
This was the phrase that sprang to mind when I read a short d’var torah on sukkos. The article started by asking, “Why do we sit in sukkos,” and, “Why is Sukkos in the fall?” To which the obvious answer is, ‘because it’s a harvest festival, and people camped out in huts in their fields while they were bringing in the harvest.’ Of course, this isn’t at all spiritual, merely practical. The holiday, canonized in the chumash, has to have connections both to the miraculous past of the Bnei Yisroel and to glorifying God’s name. So various views were quoted, including a discussion of whether the sukkos are a representation of the ananei hakavod or are a remembrance of actual huts which Klal Yisroel lived in while in the midbar; and whether sukkos is in the fall because that is when the Jews camped or because by living outside when it is getting cold we are showing that we are doing so because God commanded it and not because it is fun to camp out.
If one accepts that Sukkos evolved from a harvest festival, the discussions among the meforshim seem kind of silly. They are an attempt to make sukkos fit into a spiritual framework that probably wasn’t in place when the holiday first started, and into which it was never really molded. [Unlike, say, All Hollows Eve, which was a deliberate attempt by the Church to turn a pagan harvest festival involving spirits into a Christian holiday involving the dead.] These rabbonim, fans of the spiritual framework of Rabbinic Judaism, are engaging in wild mass guessing to fill in the holes.
For a long time now, my initial reaction to any unfamiliar religious concept or practice I come across (and any I’m used to that I really start thinking about) is, “How did that get started?” Unfortunately, the traditional answers are often like the above d’var torah’s discussion of Sukkos. Wild Mass Guessing by various people attempting to construct something that makes sense out of various disparate parts, full of retcons and discontinuities, often bending over backwards to explain something that makes perfect sense when approached without preconceptions into which it needs to be made to fit. When it comes to how well these apologetics work, Your Mileage May Vary.
As the Wild Mass Guessing page says,
Warning: Prolonged exposure to these pages will result in them making sense.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Does the Future Matter?
Most of my life I’ve had a “future orientation.” As a kid I always saved things for later. When I got prizes of candy in school I would bring it home instead of eating it right away. I once lost out when I tried to bring home an ices, and it melted in my knapsack. I would carefully ration out the goodies I got on Purim, always worried that if I finished it now, I wouldn’t have any later – never mind that my mother kept a cabinet stocked with cookies and candies. I felt that it was important that I have my own nosh available if I wanted it. I would sometimes put things away for when I got married or had kids. Most of that stuff is still in my parents’ attic.
As I got older planning for the future became more realistic and more important. I had to do well in school so I would get into high school and college. I went to bais medrash because I was told that if I didn’t, I would never find a shidduch. (As it turned out, that wasn’t true.) I went to grad school so I could find a job.
I realized recently that the future I’ve been planning for my whole life is right now. I’m married, I have kids, I’m finished with school and have a job (sort of). And… that’s it.
Sure, I still have plans for the future. Like, I’d like to buy a house someday. But I’m not pushing towards those goals the way I used to. My attitude has changed from sacrificing the present for the sake of the future to enjoying the present and letting the future come when it may.
On a somewhat related note: I was thinking this morning about the conservation movement that’s grown up in the last couple of decades. Save the planet for our children and all that. And I was wondering, why bother?
It seems to be driven by our instinct to preserve our species and based on the premise that it is worthwhile for us to make sacrifices in the present so that future generations will survive and progress. But this presupposes that humanity will be able to survive and progress indefinitely. That’s simply not true. In a few billion years the sun will burn out. Even if we colonize other solar systems, all the stars will eventually burn out, and ultimately humanity will die out. What is the difference, ultimately, if that happens in a hundred years or a trillion? Emotionally, we can’t really process a trillion years, and so tend to dismiss this distant inevitability as unimportant. On the other hand, a hundred years from now is within our grandchildren’s lifetime, maybe even our children’s. Still, emotion aside, humanity is doomed. Does it really matter when?
I’ll leave you now to more cheerful thoughts.
As I got older planning for the future became more realistic and more important. I had to do well in school so I would get into high school and college. I went to bais medrash because I was told that if I didn’t, I would never find a shidduch. (As it turned out, that wasn’t true.) I went to grad school so I could find a job.
I realized recently that the future I’ve been planning for my whole life is right now. I’m married, I have kids, I’m finished with school and have a job (sort of). And… that’s it.
Sure, I still have plans for the future. Like, I’d like to buy a house someday. But I’m not pushing towards those goals the way I used to. My attitude has changed from sacrificing the present for the sake of the future to enjoying the present and letting the future come when it may.
On a somewhat related note: I was thinking this morning about the conservation movement that’s grown up in the last couple of decades. Save the planet for our children and all that. And I was wondering, why bother?
It seems to be driven by our instinct to preserve our species and based on the premise that it is worthwhile for us to make sacrifices in the present so that future generations will survive and progress. But this presupposes that humanity will be able to survive and progress indefinitely. That’s simply not true. In a few billion years the sun will burn out. Even if we colonize other solar systems, all the stars will eventually burn out, and ultimately humanity will die out. What is the difference, ultimately, if that happens in a hundred years or a trillion? Emotionally, we can’t really process a trillion years, and so tend to dismiss this distant inevitability as unimportant. On the other hand, a hundred years from now is within our grandchildren’s lifetime, maybe even our children’s. Still, emotion aside, humanity is doomed. Does it really matter when?
I’ll leave you now to more cheerful thoughts.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Virtue of Faith Despite Adversity
A while ago, I wrote a post, “Why Is Faith a Virtue?” Particularly faith in the face of adversity. Why is the greatest tzaddik in the frum world the person who, despite personal tragedy, holds on to their emunah?
I think I have an answer. From conversations that I have had with various frum people I have gotten the impression that many believe that everyone sees the world the same way they do. One person told me outright that “The goyim don’t really believe in their religions the way a frum person has emunah in Hashem.” In their view, everyone really believes in Hashem. The only reason someone wouldn’t believe is if they are pretending. They’ll even say that sometimes a person will pretend so well that he will fool himself into really thinking that he doesn’t believe, but deep down he knows that Hashem in the Borie Olam and Yiddishkeit is the Truth.
As an aside, this might also answer a question I’ve had in Chumash. The meforshim condemn Pharaoh for his answer to Moshe’s demand in the name of Hashem to free the Bnie Yisroel: “Who is this God you speak of?” From Pharaoh’s point of view, this is a perfectly legitimate question. There is even a medrash that says he looked through a book of gods and didn’t find Hashem’s name there. The Egyptians had a whole pantheon of gods, and knew the pantheons of other nations. Why should Pharaoh, the embodiment of Ra on Earth, take orders from a god of slaves, a god whom he had never heard of?
The answer could be in the belief I cited above that everyone really, deep down, knows that Hashem is the Borei Olam. Everyone, even Pharaoh. (Never mind that he had legitimately never heard of Hashem. He just KNEW.) So Pharaoh not bowing to Hashem’s will, and worse, having the audacity to ask who He is, is evil.
In the same way, a person who experiences a tragic event doesn’t go through a logical process where he decides that an omni-benevolent God wouldn’t do such a thing, and therefore decides God doesn’t exist. At best, he knows that God exists, but he’s angry with God, and so refuses to acknowledge Him out of spite. Contrast this with someone who experiences a tragedy and continues to trust in God.
Remember, legitimate disbelief is not a real option. A person either believes and continues to trust in God, or believes and pretends he doesn’t out of anger/spite. Which of these attitudes is the more virtuous? Clearly, the more socially useful (in a non-democratic society anyway), and therefore virtuous attitude, is continued trust in a leader despite an apparently tragic mistake.
I think I have an answer. From conversations that I have had with various frum people I have gotten the impression that many believe that everyone sees the world the same way they do. One person told me outright that “The goyim don’t really believe in their religions the way a frum person has emunah in Hashem.” In their view, everyone really believes in Hashem. The only reason someone wouldn’t believe is if they are pretending. They’ll even say that sometimes a person will pretend so well that he will fool himself into really thinking that he doesn’t believe, but deep down he knows that Hashem in the Borie Olam and Yiddishkeit is the Truth.
As an aside, this might also answer a question I’ve had in Chumash. The meforshim condemn Pharaoh for his answer to Moshe’s demand in the name of Hashem to free the Bnie Yisroel: “Who is this God you speak of?” From Pharaoh’s point of view, this is a perfectly legitimate question. There is even a medrash that says he looked through a book of gods and didn’t find Hashem’s name there. The Egyptians had a whole pantheon of gods, and knew the pantheons of other nations. Why should Pharaoh, the embodiment of Ra on Earth, take orders from a god of slaves, a god whom he had never heard of?
The answer could be in the belief I cited above that everyone really, deep down, knows that Hashem is the Borei Olam. Everyone, even Pharaoh. (Never mind that he had legitimately never heard of Hashem. He just KNEW.) So Pharaoh not bowing to Hashem’s will, and worse, having the audacity to ask who He is, is evil.
In the same way, a person who experiences a tragic event doesn’t go through a logical process where he decides that an omni-benevolent God wouldn’t do such a thing, and therefore decides God doesn’t exist. At best, he knows that God exists, but he’s angry with God, and so refuses to acknowledge Him out of spite. Contrast this with someone who experiences a tragedy and continues to trust in God.
Remember, legitimate disbelief is not a real option. A person either believes and continues to trust in God, or believes and pretends he doesn’t out of anger/spite. Which of these attitudes is the more virtuous? Clearly, the more socially useful (in a non-democratic society anyway), and therefore virtuous attitude, is continued trust in a leader despite an apparently tragic mistake.
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