The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.
--The Common Good, Noam Chomsky.
Chomsky's talking about the mainstream media, but his words apply even more to Orthodox Judaism. Jews are famous (at least amongst themselves) for disagreement. There's the saying, "Two Jews, three opinions," and the joke about how if you lived on a deserted island, you'd need to build two shuls, the one you go to and the one you don't go to. People constantly disagree about standards of kashrut, what kinds of clothing to wear, and how much you should spend on an etrog. The center of Orthodox study, the Talmud, is a compendium of such arguments.
But where are the meta-questions? Why don't yeshiva students study the arguments for and against God's existence? Why don't they study textual criticism? Why don't they study the great non-Jewish theologians? Why don't they read philosophy? Non-Orthodox religious scholars do all of the above. Why don't yeshiva students?
One answer is that they already agree on the fundamentals. This is true, but it's missing the point. They agree on them not because of previous study and debate, but because they aren't allowed to believe in anything else. It's not as if in elementary school or even high school, they were introduced to a lively debate about the existence of God and the historicity of the Torah.
If you study Talmud, you must believe in the importance of debate. If all that mattered were the conclusions, we wouldn't study that Bet Shamai said this and Bet Hillel said that. We would just read the final rulings of our corner of Judaism. If argumentation is so critical to understanding the narrow issues, why do the Orthodox passively accept answers to the biggest questions around and not debate them with vigor?
I think Chomsky's on to something.
20 comments:
I disagree - many Modern Orthodox institutions allow and encourage debate, investigation, etc. Textual criticism is a seperate argument, asgain based on axioms and parameters. In Ultra-O institutions, there is no value placed on debate or investigation into Ikarey Emunah, it is dangerous and must be shunned.
I love it when people "discover" a way in which judaism (orthodox or otherwise) is a self-perpetuating meme and think of it as some insidious plot to fool everyone instead of recognizing it for what it is; a survival mechanism that has worked spectacularly.
You’re onto something here JA,
I have been under the impression for some time now, that the Talmud is the most fantastic intellectual diversion ever devised. Instead of stewing over the important contradictions inherent in an omnipotent God, the odds of his existence, the frailty of a pure faith belief system, and the clear evidence of lack of supernatural events evident in our lives; we are instead completely preoccupied with wading through the knee deep sludge of a superstitious, ritualistic, dark ages legal structure with no visible end.
All proponents of the Talmud feel they are spending their intellectual capitol, studying about oxen and pits, as wisely as they know how; because they believe the system to be divinely ordained, but that belief itself they choose never to examine with the same acumen they so proudly apply to everything else.
Ah Ben, now you are going too far. First of all Noam Chomsky is an anti- semite. Whatever he has to say I am not interested in. He is contantly railing against the Jewish Homeland, so bringing any article from him is a wasted effort to prove anything. Second, do you really expect Yeshiva students to read books on the existence of God? What if they come to the conclusion that there is no God? Do they keep on learning torah? What if they decide that the Christian God or the Muslim one is correct? What then? One can be a republican and study the ideas of the democratic movemen One can work for IBM and study other computers companies but certainly not to put their own parties or companies down.
However I sure would like to see more Jews mingle with each other. Charedi Jews wont dream of talking to a Modern Orthodox Jew. Modern Orthodox Jews dont usually discuss theology with Conservative Jews. Each group keeps their own ideas to themselves. And of course to the more religious Jews, the idea of studying science is as alien as studying Christianity.They would rather be ignorant then come up with new ideas about the world they live in.
There Are orthodox places that encourage questions and discussions.
see globalyeshiva.com
ohr.edu international branchs
and nevey.org in Israel and America
Just came across your blog for the first time; I do not think atheism is my cup of tea but I still enjoy the rainbow of views and I like reading the self discovery trips of others so keep the art up.
I'm with Jewish Exile on this one. It is a survival technique. I grew up in a chareidi enviroment, and went to chareidi school. Any question that I had about the greater world, or religious questions were welcome to be asked after class. My teachers had no problem discussing them with me, but did not see them appropriate to bring up in class where others did not have these questions. Why welcome questions that just bring more questions, when in truth without a inner knowledge there is no black and white answer.
"Why do the Orthodox passively accept answers to the biggest questions around and not debate them with vigor?"
Because they lost the debate in the 1800s, and now shrink from revisiting it. If anything, their case has gotten even worse.
Avi, I will let a freind of mine answer your question...
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was your friend, WOW. What a small world, he was my friend also
Avi said... What a difficult heading I picked. "Only the truth" Do you realize how difficult it is to dig out the truth from the mountain of lies that the truth is buried underneath. I read the comments on President George Bush. They call him a liar. So what? Bill Clinton was also a liar " I did not have sex with that woman" Does anybody tell the truth anymore. I know a rabbi ( no names mentioned) who does not know what the word truth is. Thats ok, there are plenty of preists who also dont know what truth means. One of the names of God is " Emes" which means truth. That is probably the ultimate truth. That there is a God . The world belongs to someone. The world has an owner.
Avi, what if the world didn't have an owner? Can something not exist unless it is owned by something else? What, in your reason and logic, would fall apart if all that you see in the mirror and all around you simply existed on its own accord, unbeholden to a cosmic deity? Could it be that it's just too scary for you to imagine otherwise? The idea of a deity makes us all feel better about our daily existence and serves to give our lives meaning, but that doesn't prove its existence.
It is very easy to find targets within the Orthodox spectrum, if, lulei demistafina, that's what you're looking for.
If you want clear, insightful debate, there is no better place than the Torah world!
Cloojew, one word: Slifkin.
The yeshivah bocher you mock believes that the questions he's concerned with are the fundamental questions.
First, I did not mock yeshiva bochers, nor did I imply it.
Second, this is exactly my point. The yeshiva bocher has been convinced that such minutae are the fundamental questions. He does not learn philosophy or science or history and so will never come to question the assumptions around which he is basing his entire life.
Your point about Rabbi Soloveitchik and others is good. I think at the highest levels of Orthodox scholarship, the debate (at least within one's own mind) is broader. However, I also believe that the younger generation is moving even farther away from such multi-displinariness. Furthermore, even if some of the best scholars do have a more rounded education and worldview, they often neglect to share it with "the masses," since they think the average yeshiva bochur couldn't handle it. Hench, the "masses" end up believing all sorts of ridiculous stuff and the whole society ends up being founded on what amounts to a lie.
I think the leaders would rather have an ignorant but obedient flock than an educated one which might start to make some of its own decisions.
I don't think you can point to any religious community, Jewish or otherwise, where everybody is schooled in philosophy. It's not a fair standard.
It's not that I want them to get doctorates; I want them to bring the same intellectual rigor to the most important questions in life that they do to the minutia.
Cornell West said, "We must think critically. But it takes courage to think... Intelligence engages in immediate evaluation of various particular contexts in order to gain access to a short term gain. Intellect evaluates the evaluation, looks at the hidden presuppositions, the tacit assumptions, what holds the whole framework, a vision, a paradigm together."
I'm looking for yeshiva bochrim to show West's idea of intellectual courage. A scholar must have the courage to ask the questions that get to the bottom. Otherwise he risks building an elaborate structure on a faulty foundation.
The reason they keep their noses in the gemara is exactly because of the list David posted. R' Soloveitchik fretted that his students thought him an apikores, and many of the others on the list are (Leibowitz is practically a Deist). It's very difficult to approach frumkeit knowing what scholarship has discovered: comparative religion, archaeology, philosophy, textual criticism, higher criticism, etc. Sure, some will continue to be fully observant, but they're the minority by far, and the reasons they give are usually not the Orthodox ones anyway. When most frum people realize that Jacob's sons are eponyms of later developed clans, they stop seeing the point of keeping separate dishes. They did it because they thought it was true, not because they thought it was good, and the transition is too big a break. The rare Orthoprax people who were part of the Orthodox world are the exception that proves the rule: ignorance is the reliable way to stay frum. The Orthodox leadership learned this in the 1800s and put it into full effect after the holocaust. In today's world of copious disconfirming knowledge, those who hold it would have to be frum despite the evidence, and most people are not that foolhardy.
Great comment, mis-nagid.
Ah Ben, now you are going too far. First of all Noam Chomsky is an anti- semite. Whatever he has to say I am not interested in. He is contantly railing against the Jewish Homeland, so bringing any article from him is a wasted effort to prove anything.
makes no sense. So what is Chomsky is anti-semitic, or even just anti-Israel (more likely)? Deal with his argument on its merits, not over the person who made it.
rabbipolar, a lot of what you hear about him is distorted or taken out of context. If you listen to or read him directly, he's not as crazy as he's made out to be, even if I don't agree with everything he says. He's one of the few people out there who makes really interesting and fundamental criticism of how the country and media work.
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