The Pluralist Front
The biggest problem with Big Aish is not that it is the most radical kiruv institution. Clearly the Dark Light and Neve Yerushalayim are even worse.
Rather, Big Aish is consistently dishonest. For the sake of drawing people in and saving their souls, Big Aish lies. We will never convince Big Aish that it is wrong to lie to secular and liberal Jews. But what we can show is that their lies will, over time, cost them.
For their Tisha B’ Av message, Big Aish, always drawing dubious parallels from the secular world, drew from the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team.
Our Sages of the Talmud teach us that we are in exile because of the hatred of one Jew to another. The only way to correct that flaw is to repair ourselves in that realm.
Perhaps the answer to our suffering and long exile is to see other Jews as members of the same team and family.
Perhaps each time God puts us through another round of suffering, His proclamation of “Again,” He is waiting for us to stop identifying ourselves as an individual Jew coming from his separate background and upbringing. “I’m modern Orthodox.” “I’m Reform.” “I’m a Hasid.” “I’m secular.” “I’m Conservative.” “I’m yeshivishe.”
Those characterizations polarize the nation and make it impossible for us to function together as one team. As individual groups, we cannot accomplish what we can accomplish as one team. We are held back by that same baseless hatred which creeps in when we are not one unit.
Perhaps God is waiting for all of us to proclaim in unison, “I am a Jew.” Plain and simple.
Even more importantly, perhaps God is waiting for us to stop seeing others as “He’s modern Orthodox.” “He’s Reform.” “He’s a Hasid.” “He’s secular.” “He’s Conservative.” “He’s yeshivishe.”
Perhaps the answer to our suffering and long exile is reaching the point where we see other Jews as members of the same team and family. Jews and nothing else.
This is a complete and utter lie. Big Aish seeks to make people become as close to ultra-Orthodox as they can get them to become. Additionally, once there, do you think Big Aish would allow you to attend a liberal Jewish wedding with mixed dancing? Would Big Aish’s rabbis would allow you to have a non-Orthodox rabbi perform your ceremony?
Big Aish is less tolerant than any of the non-Orthodox groups Lipman is citing as examples of groups that need to be more tolerant.
Now, I understand that Big Aish is bound by the halachic system, and more intrusively, by an ultra-Orthodox interpretation of it.
However, to then also pretend that Big Aish respects the Judaism of others outside of that paradigm is a blatant and deceptive lie.
Seeking to convert other Jews to your way of thinking is not respectful of their Jewishness nor is it inclusive, tolerant, or unified.
In fact, it is a great example of Sinat Chinum according to this very essay that Big Aish published.
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Perhaps the answer to our suffering and long exile is reaching the point where we see other Jews as members of the same team and family. Jews and nothing else.
What they mean by this, is that if you are not halakhic and you do not surrender to the gedoylim, you’re not Jewish.
See, just like that, we’ve eliminated the delineations between Jews.
Now, you’re either a Jew (ergo, halakhic and deferential) or a goy (Reform, Reconstructionist, etc.).
Will they also introduce Newspeak?
Sinat Chinam does not exist. There is no hatred that is baseless. From the POV of those hating, they have a basis. It may not seem right, rational, or even sane to you, but from their POV it is. It is the failing of mankind in the lack of ability to stipulate to the POV of others and the unwillingness to legitimize their views in any way for fear of losing the argument for your own, that causes such an idea to continue.
How does one stop a stampede? You mount a horse, and you charge up from behind, until you reach the front. You know that the stampede is as simple minded as can be. It follows the rules of run in one direction, follow those ahead of you, do not crash into the others. You take advantage of that by becoming the lead in the stampede, and then deviating.
The stampede follows you. You run a little slower, they obey the rule not to run into you, they slow down.
It is not a lot different with people. The more fiery they become, the more intense, the more passionate, the easier to take advantage of their simple mindedness, which comes from emotion ahead of intellect, and that opens them like the cows to subversion.
The temptation to subvert your own stampede is always there. In Catholicism, the Vatican and their upper crust often lived one way and told their congregations to live another. Today, we see UO rabbis acting as though there are ten thousand reasonable excuses for everything they get caught doing. Politicians get caught philandering, well meaning environmentalists end up making the oil companies rich. Every movement is a mass phenomenon, no matter if it is decentralized or hierarchical. They are all stampedes, they all can be misled.
So if you want to redirect it, you need to understand their POV, analyze where it can be right from a certain POV, and substitute an alternative that plays to the same motivations that brought about acceptance and acclaim for the previous one, but works towards changing their mindset to the new paradigm you would have them embrace.
Instead, we discount and deride the opponent, judging their POV based on our worldview, and we do nothing but remain in opposition till something gives and one side loses badly and years later they come back with a vengeance and we repeat the battles over and over.
Someone has to be the first to open their hand and offer a truce. It works that way in politics and it works that way in religion.
I think the gedolim can be trusted as the unelected leaders to look out for the best interest of the commoner as long as that interest coincides with whatever is in the interest of the community, as interpreted by the gedolim. This is usually shortened to simply ‘the best interest of the gedolim’. But, it says in the Talmud the job of a rabbi is to look out for the comunity and who is more important than the dictator?
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