Category — BT

If you listen to any lecture about honoring ones father and mother, the kiruvniks will insist that they encourage a BT to respect his secular/liberal parents. It’s quite debatable if they do actually encourage this…but FFBs themselves often do not respect our parents. In fact, they actively disrespect them right in front of us.

As Annie noted,

“The straw that broke the camel’s back though, was the disrespect shown to my parents. All of this “it must be so hard for you to go home� and similar statements disparaging their choices. I love my parents, they have been nothing but supportive of me, and they are much better Jews than some of these frummies. They don’t judge people by their observance, are open-minded, give tzedakah, they CERTAINLY don’t cheat on their taxes, are good patriots (as opposed to voting in the US based on a foreign state)… I could go on and on.�

Look, we could all go on and on about the problem with frummies. And we will. Oh, yes.

But for now let’s stick to the point about FFBs who think it “must have been hard� to have grown up in a traditional secular environment, where we often look to Judaism for morality but not halacha. Where we have an intense respect for secular knowledge, and often a love of the fine arts. Where we have a “don’t ask, don’t tell� policy in the occasional Chinese restaurant. Where we celebrate most of the holidays, but never have the *joy* of a three day yontiff. And where we are constantly reading and debating, though not fighting about things like what makes a lemon-like fruit beautiful. Where we are taught to be sexually responsible, but not shomer negiah.

All I can say to my FFB readers who pity us and feel so bad for us is…I guess it sounds more horrible than it actually is. So if you want to cry for the BT who (nebach) grew up in such a horrible environment that is “hard� for us, don’t you cry in front of us. Jerk.

And to all BTs reading this…do not take that FFB-er than thou trip. Stay away from such people. Do not go to their homes for shabbos. Do not eat their food. Do what Annie did — lay into a tirade about why your parents are actually better than most frummies, and let them know that it is preciesely the contemptuous attitudes like theirs that make you rethink your choice to “live Orthodoxâ€? (as opposed to “becoming frum,â€? don’t say it like that, gives that lifestyle choice too much credit) in the first place.

Unlike Rabbi Shafran, who absurdly attempted to minimize the concerns of ben niddahism I raised without identifying it explicitly (of course), and unlike a lot of the frum commentators who denied this was even a real concern, and unlike Steve Brizel and some others from Beyondbt who insist that “The Gedolim� have mostly nullified the impact of ben niddahism, Rabbi Josh Waxman, a YU rabbi, has addressed the issue of ben niddahism, which he concedes “is problematic for allowing baalei teshuva to marry.�

Unfortunately, when someone in the Orthodox world like Rabbi Waxman emerges who deals with such an issue honestly and openly, it is such a rare occasion that I think we should all stop whatever we are doing, stand up, and give a loud cheer of support.

Really, a foundation should be established to support and honor those few Orthodox rabbis who publicly treat such issues with intellectual honesty and candor, without the apologetics that insults our intelligence, or cynically exploiting the reality that many secular and liberal Jews are not educated in these matters. Perhaps a nominal cash incentive of $50 could be given away in such instances. It would probably cost no more than $500 annually, at least at the beginning, and if it were started under an existing foundation, the administrative costs would be nominal.

I received the following email from a woman concerned about her boyfriend’s attendance at Ohr Somayach. Well…she should be concerned. She should be very concerned.

I’m writing with regards to your post “Checklist for Steve Brizel” on Ohr Somayach.

Please do not use my real name. While I can’t answer all of your questions, I can give you a few answers and share my impressions with you.

My boyfriend arrived at Ohr Somayach [time frame deleted]. His life has already been turned into a living hell. He actually enjoys the classes, finds them interesting, and is very impressed with the quality of the rabbis. It’s what goes on outside of class that bothers him and me. From what he’s told me, it comes very close to a brainwashing cult. There is no Internet access on campus, except for two computers that are broken and only allow access to web-based email accounts. I can understand them wanting to block porn downloading, but do not see the logic in blocking access to newspapers or sports scores or things like Facebook. They are clearly trying to isolate the students from the rest of the world as much as possible. Students are discouraged from reading newspapers, except for local Charedi ones.
He also feels that he was misled as to what the school would be like. They told him there were lots of activities outside of class, there was a gym, they had sports teams. They have none of that. They are in yeshiva from 7 in the morning until 11 at night and have no time for anything else, even jogging.

The students beyond first year all wear the standard yeshivish garb and long beards. Many went to top universities and had good jobs that they have since abandoned. Expressing a desire to return to the workforce or law school/med school is seen as a weakness. Another goal is to get the students married off as soon as possible. They’ve already told my boyfriend to break up with me, because I am not frum enough[...]His parents are really worried. He had a good job, was well-educated. We’re all worried he’s going to turn into some sort of zombie!

Despite NCSY finally adding Modern Orthodox religious study options for public school Jews after a mere three decades (wtf?!?) of haredi options only, the haredi relationships are intact, and with their own expansion, growing. Please tell parents that NCSY is absolutely sending public school teens to Ohr Somayach/Neve, and other places like them, and they are recruiting public school students to various programs directly from the public schools themselves, through the JSU. Look at the problems the haredi ones create even for fully grown adults. Then imagine what it does to naive eighteen year olds coming straight from public high schools…

You imagine. I don’t have to imagine.

Hillary Leila Krieger reports in the Jerusalem Post,

Rather than bolstering the likelihood of students marrying within their race, attending once-a-week Sunday school programs actually slightly increases the chance of intermarriage, according to a newly published study[…]The study also found that attending congregational school two or more times a week hardly decreases students’ chances of intermarrying.

Cohen, who conducted the research for this study, offers some reasons that are speculative, but Failed Messiah offers a more interesting idea.
Failed Messiah writes,

I think a far more plausible explanation is that Judaism really has very little to offer normal people in this day and age. Certainly, whatever Judaism brings to the table is not enough to stop the average Jew from out-marrying.

I think because they have only a very vague idea of what Judaism the religion is. If they are happy in their homes and family lives, they associate Judaism with that. Their affiliation is cultural, not religious. As such, they choose to marry people who share their cultural and social outlook.

In other words, an argument can – and should – be made that secularism is a better force for Jewish continuity than religion.

This is only evident for Liberal Judaism. Liberal Judaism is a bad joke that keeps striving to outdo itself. For instance, the Reform Movement now “offers several prayers for sanctifying the sex-change process,“ including “two blessings authored by Rabbi Elliot Kukla for transitioning genders.�

This shit is off the wall, and no one needs Liberal (so-called) Judaism pretending to ritualize that which should not be ritualized in the name of Judaism at all by a movement suspiciously prone to adding new “blessings” for those who can’t be bothered to say the old ones.

But that’s Liberal Judaism. Of course most kids don’t take it seriously.

But I suspect that if secular Jews were taught Modern Orthodoxy, even while remaining secular, they would take Judaism much more seriously than if taught Reform Judaism. If the Jewish community were at all serious about promoting endogamy, they would offer a Modern Orthodox education to their youth. Right now, there is no such option for most non-Orthodox families. The closest thing they have is NCSY. And as we know, NCSY isn’t really Modern Orthodox. It’s co-ed Haredism, and while Haredism successfully promotes endogamy as well, the cost to the BTs (baal teshuvahs) and their families is high.

The haredi kiruvniks must not be given a blank check of concerns over intermarriage. There are many worse things than intermarriage. Like say, BT haredism. If the Orthodox world offers Modern Orthodox education and alternatives to our youth, and does so without deception, they should be supported, or at least, tolerated. But if the Orthodox world continues to prefer offering haredi outreach instead of Modern Orthodox education, we must do our best to strengthen the secular Jewish community’s resolve to disappear. The “spiritual Holocaust� is no Holocaust at all. It might be the best option usually on the table. And that’s the reason NCSY, Aish, and all the other mostly haredi organization hide inside ecumenical clothing. They know the liberal/secular Jewish community prefers intermarriage over ultra-Orthodoxy.

The only thing that will turn around the intermarriage rate is Orthodox outreach and education. But if that education is haredi, we are better sticking with a continuously rising intermarriage rate. Because if the only thing that can save Judaism is Haredism, then Judaism is not worth saving. Let the liberal and secular Jews escape with their lives, vocations, educations, and their families intact.

No Judaism at all is still better than too much Judaism.

A baal teshuvah friend of mine called me recently for help on business venture. “It’s funny,â€? he said, “I trust you more than my more religious friends.â€? The thing was, this didn’t surprise me at all, and I wasn’t even flattered a little bit. Should I have been? Is that a compliment? Would you be flattered if someone told you, “I trust you in business even more than I trust ultra-Orthodox Jews,” or is that maybe not such a big compliment?

Of course, there are plenty of possible explanations for this, but I have to wonder…do people generally trust secular Jews more than Orthodox Jews when it comes to money matters? And is this fair? Should, say, a gentile be as trusting of a Chassidic person from Monsey as a Reform Jew from Westchester? And why do even some BTs not feel protected in business among their own? Are the communal pressures to at least treat your fellow frumme yid fairly not as strong somehow when it comes to dealing with baalei teshuvahs?

If I said that (all else being equal) that I would prefer to work for a secular Jewish company than a black hat company, would that sound like “Ortho-bashing,� or would that sound like sound street smarts?

Can we admit that ultra-Orthodox Jews do not have the same reputation for stringency when it comes to business dealings as when it comes to why they can’t eat a bagel with butter because the hechsher isn’t good enough?

Dov Bear exposes the absurdity of Dark Light’s Ask the Rabbi column on payos care and hair treatment for the newly fahfrumt, chassidic style.

Payos hair care, okay? I don’t want to hear any more rubbish about how Dark Light is of “Lithuanianâ€? persuasion, not even a fundamentalist Litvish approach. Advising baal teshuvahs on how to manage long payos instead of discouraging such chassidic expressions of identity is absolutely outside the most expansive definition of a “Litvishe derech” possible.

Dov Bear asks, “What’s worse? That someone thought to trouble a Rabbi with a fashion question, or that the Rabbi saw fit to put his answer online?â€?

The latter, Dov Bear. The latter.

As I wrote on Dov Bear’s post, Ohr Somayach has never met an aspect of quiescent Jewish fundamentalism that it didn’t like.

Earlier: Dark Light and Classical Music

An anonymous contributor on Beyondt BT has written another essay, “Financial Realities II,” decrying the cost of living a frum life. “Sam Smithâ€? writes,

We managed to pay partial tuition in years past by going into outrageous credit card debt, which is now an unacceptable and untenable alternative.

In any event, the brutal truth is that, especially now that I have older kids, I am simply overwhelmed by all the expenses, unable to carry all my accumulated debt, and even the partial tuitions I am paying have pushed me to and over the edge of financial ruin. There is no retirement plan in my life, no hidden stocks, no wealthy parents, in-laws or uncles ready to leave me their fortune and rescue me.

After many years and many tuitions I simply didn’t make it financially, at least in contemporary, North American Orthodox-community terms. I didn’t become a doctor or lawyer or businessman. I didn’t marry into wealth.

In my darkest moments, it’s all a great communal hypocrisy. Some people simply can’t pay… even a portion of the partial tuition. Yet some yeshivos, while teaching kids wonderful, beautiful ideals like living austerely for Torah as did the Chofetz Chaim (including large pictures throughout the halls), make their parents feel like shmattas for not earning more than $100-150,000!

This is the brutal irony of the haredi BT world. They discourage all forms of ambition except Talmud study. They despise a quality secular education. But at the end of the day, the cost of living as an Orthodox Jew is exceptionally high, and there is no way out of the bills. Just day school tuition alone…

Haredism has no qualms burning the Havdalah candle at both ends. And you – the BT — are that candle.

Failed Messiah has a great post on single BT sexuality.

Shmarya writes,

What they did instead is suffer, because they believed their commitment to halakha and to God demanded that. This often led to other problems (at least from the perspective of Orthodoxy), from nocturnal emissions to, as halakha puts it, “willful spilling of seed.” And, in case you missed it, there is a strong strain of thought in Orthodoxy that equates that with murder – a pretty tough Catch-22 to be in. You’re born with a sex drive that you cannot use without “destroying” your soul. (This is exactly the dilemma gays face, with one major difference. – we can get married and have a “kosher” outlet. Gays only can do that if they are able to direct their desires in that way, something that rarely is possible.)

There was a time when Judaism recognized concubinage and other relationships that circumvented these problems. Rabbis removed these from Jewish life. The reasons why are beyond the scope of this post. But in modern times, their removal has certainly damaged many lives and caused much defection from Judaism.

It is interesting to me how contempt for male sexuality in charedi circles is given a pass. Guess everyone is too busy worrying about why women don’t have a birth party, or why when menstruating, they are considered unclean, or of course, why women are not considered fit for public leadership positions or are accepted as full communal members in some time-bound ways.

But while other cultures and religions certainly have larger issues with female sexuality, the charedi Jewish view on male sexuality, particularly a BT’s (never mind a goy’s), is all too frequently the grimmest, most contemptuous, and most repressive outside of a few small cults relying on spaceships for total dehumanization.

As the fundamentalist Aish.com writes, between waxing hysterical over a Holocaust movie (y’all respect Hollywood, right?) and a subsequent undocumented Holocaust maiseh that sounds like a Y.L Peretz satire, “Nowhere does a person have more potential for expressing “barbaric” behavior than in the sex drive.â€?

And don’t point to priests in the Catholic Church. That lifestyle isn’t advocated for the masses. For the masses, the charedi outlook is much more repressive.

So we win! (Except for cults, but they don’t count.)