I recently observed, upon hearing about the divorce of yet another AishYeshiva Aish Hatorah, also known as Aish, is a cult educatio... More Rabbi (they are now at the age that they are getting divorced from their second marriages), that “everyone at aishYeshiva Aish Hatorah, also known as Aish, is a cult educatio... More sucks at relationships”.
Not just romantic relationships, but also parent-child relationships as well (I can’t speak to other forms of relationship like friendship).
When contemplating the reason for this, I believe the cause to be psychodynamic: to join a cult you must first negate your own needs. You must put the needs of God, The Book, Noah Weinberg, and Your Mission higher than your own.
To accomplish that you must ignore what you really want, and once you start ignoring yourself, it is impossible for you to see other people.
If you can’t acknowledge that your own unmet needs are getting dragged into every dynamic, because you’ve convinced yourself thoroughly that religion meets every one of your needs, then you will continue to bring your extensively flawed self into every relationship with little hope of actually changing anything.
AishYeshiva Aish Hatorah, also known as Aish, is a cult educatio... More self-selected for people who were willing to sell their own souls; to replace their inner sense of self with an external monolith, rigid and inflexible: with predefined roles for men and women, preset emotions for different times of the year, and predefined thoughts for different times of the day.
It then handed these the crudest of self-development tools in the form of a 2,500 year old book: The Goat Herder’s Guide to the Galaxy. With these tools – stories of men doing manly things and rarely interacting with women, fathers casting out their sons and sacrificing them unto heaven – they were supposed to navigate the complexities of the human condition and the 21st century.
Rabbis should be the last people to give relationship advice.
They do not have much to work with, these victims of aishYeshiva Aish Hatorah, also known as Aish, is a cult educatio... More, either inside or out. But they were given a distraction from this sorry state of affairs: a mission.
Saving Other’s Souls is Much Easier Than Saving Your Own
Let me tell you: it is far easier to save the Jewish people than to show up as a father.
One involves gala dinners and inspiring speeches and helicopter rides with rich donors.
The other involves staring at the abyss of your own soul and grappling with every personal imperfection that is marring your ability to show up, be supportive, and love unconditionally.
It is far easier to lose yourself into a mighty mission than to show up day after day for life’s mundanity.
One involves an epic saga between good and evil, invoking images of wars waged and battles won.
The other involves feeling the crushing weight of your own mortality, the pointlessness of it all, and the mistakes you’ve made along the way.
But you can only hide from yourself for so long. And it is actually your ability to sustain quality connections with those around you that are the biggest indications as to the state of your own internal systems.
Looking around at the state and quality of these people’s romantic and parental relationships tells us everything we need to know.
