The kiruv world prides itself in its open-mindedness.
“Ask us anything! We will change our views in a heartbeat if you convince us! Sure you can ask about sex, and no, we don’t use a hole in the sheet, we’re super progressive!”
But ask yourself, have any of the really difficult questions that plague you (and you know what they are), been replied to with one or more of the following bullshit textbook answers?
• God knows what’s best for us
• Mashiach will come and we’ll all have clarity
• There’s a Kabbalistic reason for that
• Don’t judge Judaism by the Jews who practice it
• We have a rich tradition of handing down bullshit verbatim from one generation to the next, so it must all be true
• God is true. God wrote a book. Deal with it.
• “You could never lie about a million people being around a mountain if it didn’t actually happen.”
• “The Rabbis knew what was best for us.”
• “People were way smarter back then.” See also: “Our generation sucks.”
• “That’s a very good question you’ve asked! Many smart people have asked that too!”
• Not to be confused with its condescending inverse: “You’re not the first person to ask that question, you know…”
• “We can’t use fallible human logic to understand such profound ideas.”
• Which is the exact opposite of: “Those are just guidelines, you’ve still got to use your head to figure out what’s right”
• “You can’t use your heart, use your mind!” But also: “You can’t use your mind, use your heart!”
• “The truth is, both opinions are correct! Both are the word of a living God!”
And so your questions have gone unanswered, because those weren’t answers.
Those were justifications.
