Sure enough, Jewish fundamentalists use Wal-Mart stampede as proof of the problems with secularism
December 3, 2008 Aish, Economics
EV and others protested and denounced me when I said it was important to note who was a part of the stampede at Wal-Mart. But didn’t I tell you the frummies might use this as a straw-man against non-Orthodox Jewry? But no, you gave me no credit at all for knowing the tactics of the fundamentalists.
Fine. Have it your way. Clearly it doesn’t matter that the stampede was committed by lower-income blacks. Clearly, this was a failure of our own community. Our own society.
So now that I have withdrawn any right to identify the race/creed/religion of the culprits, let us learn from Big Aish about how we “the shoppers” have failed in our “focus.”
Bassi Gruen writes on Big Aish,
The shoppers were united in one aspect — each had a single-minded focus on getting the items he wanted. As the hours passed by and the chill deepened that desire grew until it crowded out other thoughts and feelings. By the time the shoppers stampeded into the store, they were willing to get their deals at any cost. That cost ending up being human life.
Focus is a powerful tool. When we are focused on only one thing, we can usually obtain it. The question that will shape the type of life we lead and the people we become is: What is our primary focus in life?
Oh, and Big Aish has some great advice for all you secularist shoppers. Something for you secular Jews to think about the next time you stampede at your local Wal-Mart.
The shoppers at Wal-Mart were so focused on their bargains that they trampled someone to death. When we focus as intently on eternal goals, we trample ego and laziness, destroy excuses and perceived limitations. And then we can soar.
I so called it. They actually went for it. They can’t resist.
Big Aish and all the other ultra-Orthodox kiruv types often intentionally and consistently use liberal color blinders in order to push their fundamentalist agenda through deceptive and dishonest means.
So anyway, all you secular and liberal Jews — you should really become frum so you won’t be so obsessed with materialism that you kill people when you go shopping. Please try harder next time. Focus on the important things. Stop your excuses. And soar like a flaming baal teshuvah!
11 comments
The really sick thing is that they don’t give a fig about the sanctity of gentile life, except for when it suits their purposes. None of these people would be kiruv targets, so they’d barely be worth noticing, until they become useful to illustrate a point. Then, all of a sudden they’re created in God’s image. Please.
That woman’s blog annoyed me too, DK. I left a comment. You know, of all the material I’ve seen come out of that world in recent years, about why people of “off the derech” (even the term is insufferably condescending), I haven’t come across one person who was willing even to consider the possibility that there may be other paths in life equally valid to their own.
Did you read Faranak Margolese’s“Off the Derech? In considering why people leave, she suggests they examine why people become frum in the first place (I don’t have it in front of me, but I think this is pretty much verbatim): – “From our perspective, the answer is obvious – we have the truth”.
Frummies. Can’t live with ‘em… . That’s it, actually.
Please. Anybody who’s attempted to board a bus at the Kotel on a crowded day knows that these people can be just as aggressive, selfish, and ruthless as anyone else.
Yeah, but their motives are spiritual – so it’s different!
Sorry, not sure how to just contact you directly. What is JLI?
Zac, do you have a link?
Why no new post today?
Their use of this story will be used at kiruv tables for years to come. They are extremely predictable in their tactics.
Looking at the latest beautiful glossy magazine for the Chinese Auction raising money for some Haredi group will provide hours of spiritual entertainment for after that story is told. The prizes such as custom sheitels , custom kitchens, borsolino hats and gorgeous china sets , bookcases and dining room tables are so much more holy and uplifting than looking at the latest Wal-mart flyer.
Materialism in the frum world…couldn’t be! It’s just to beautify the mitzvah, not to outdo the neighbors.
Actually, the holiness of the individual is indicated by the cost ot the headdress.
Eyges–Regarding Ms. Margoles’ book, it’s not exactly William James’s “Varieties of Religious Experience”, is it. Also annoying is the cookbook assumption of individual spiritual development: Put in certain specific ingredients in the correct amounts, stir, cook under moderate heat, and if you follow these directions correctly, the recipe will turn out like in the picture. People just don’t work that way, don’t think that way. The real story with this book is that the author gets away with criticizing some aspects of the “production line”.
The idea that any one person or group might be too limited to grasp the “whole” truth is too complex and ambiguous for many minds to handle. One is reminded of the story of the blind men and the elephant.
Regarding Ms. Margoles’ book, it’s not exactly William James’s “Varieties of Religious Experience”, is it.
No, that it isn’t. But we aren’t her target demographic. She wasn’t writing to convince frei Jews to become frum, or even to explain the situation to us, but to exhort authority figures in the frum world to behave in such a way that young people who look to them as role models will want to remain frum. According to Margolese, most of her respondents told her they left because of the hypocritical behavior of teachers, rabbis, etc.
Still damned annoying, though. It would never occur to her that there might actually be something wrong with the belief system, something that is fundamentally incompatible with reality.
Could we push this discussion beyond “The frummies are out to get us”? Hell, everybody’s out to get us: the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the evangelicals, the scientologists, the list is long, long, long. Check out Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer”, a brief and lucid anaysis of the personality type which, lacking any real anchor of individuality, latches on to an ideology and looks for others to recruit and convince.
Regarding Margolese, she also falls hook, line. and sinker for the “nurture vs. nature” shtik. (Judith Rich Harris, “The Nurture Assumption”) Harris tears a big chunk out of the prevalent obsesssion that IF parents and teachers only behave in a “flawless” way, their children will turn out exactly as they wanted. A convenient way to be profoundly intolerant of others and blame your parents at the same time.
Thinking for yourself and respecting others for doingthe same is still a dangerous and radical idea.
[...] a theory, etc.) 6) Selective retrieval (e.g.: when blacks rioted on Black Friday in Long Island, Big Aish used this as proof of depravity with secular society) 7) Holocaust as a kiruv tool The corruption beneath the severity 9) Insistence that anything [...]
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