See also, Hashgacha Pratis.
Suffering: Understanding the Ununderstandable
Spot the meme.
Also, double negatives are so not not cool.
Love Thy Neighbor and All That Jazz
Remember to love thy neighbor, especially if they are not Jewish/religious and are showing signs of becoming such. It’s a kiddush hashem y’all!
Bliss
It’s been a while. Can you tell I’m angry?
I guess this one has been too painful to even make fun of until now.
I think this claim is probably the most pretentious and disappointing claim I encountered in Judaism.
Let’s leave aside the whole Rav Arush bullshit about women being the robotic result of your spiritual state – whatever they are going through is just a result of your actions. How do they have free will? We won’t bother with such trivial questions.
No. I’m sure many of you will dismiss him as extreme as weird. I’m talking about stuff much closer to home.
Kiruv rabbis. “Relationship experts”. Spending a vast amount of their time promising people ideas for a better future.
Sharing gems that are either repackaged pop psychology or “ancient Jewish wisdom” like the following gems.
- Nidda is like a honeymoon every month.
- Jews have been respecting women for generations
- Don’t spend too much time talking to your wife
- Let’s go from never touching a woman to having sex with her in one evening
- Women are just little girls, don’t take them too seriously
- Men are the spiritual leaders of the home
The irony? These people’s relationships often suck just as much as the next person. And the hypocrisy is overwhelming.
But it Works for Me
I struggled for a long time with the clash between my own values, own way of doing things, and own personality, and the confines of Jewish law.
- What if I don’t like to be surrounded by other men three times a day as we supposedly talk to God?
- What if I’m not comfortable with the role I have been assigned in Judaism based entirely around my gender?
- What if I don’t connect to all the laws and don’t feel like they are making me a better person, and yet they are seemingly the most important part of the religion? (Judging by the amount of times the Torah harps on about them)
I know there will be those that argue that Judaism has a spectrum within you can fall. You can find your own mojo. 70 faces to the Torah and all that.
I disagree. Yes, there is some leeway, but it all falls within a spectrum that has very specific boundaries. Cross those, and you’re definitely breaking some law.
You will definitely breaking the rules, and they’ve got to deal with the guilt, or grapple with the self doubt about whether you’re really working hard enough, or the need to go ask some other dude if you qualify for a pass.
So yeah, do I feel like religion is great for some people? Yes. I think it works really well for Myers-Briggs SJs of the world who love structure and rules. But for the poets, the dreamers, the free spirits, I don’t see how this one-set-of-boundaries–fits-all model works.
Even More Freidom
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Kiruv Oxymorons for the Ages
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