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Hashgacha Pratis

If you believe in God from a philosophical point of view, you shouldn’t need any emotional scaffolding to keep things up.

The absurdity of one-off inspirational stories of any kind should be obvious to even the most casual of contemplators, and yet it forms a huge part of religious culture.

I can respect this need in human nature – if there’s something you believe in, you want to immerse yourself in it! You want to relieve all the excruciating details in all their climactic glory!

If there’s a sportsing team you’re fond of, you’ll talk about all their sportsing successes and regale with your comrades in the specific escapades of specific sportsfull members. You might be so committed that it never really seems to bother you that you’ve been rooting for a losing team. Why are you so willing to stand behind such a lousy track record? Is it because you were born in that team’s city?

It’s one thing to root for your loser team (that’s right, I said it), and it’s quite another to root for a losing life philosophy. To emotionally psych yourself up enough that you ignore the painful emotional and intellectual realities that come with the package.

I myself was guilty of this behavior, inversely expressed. It was not any of the myriad of philosophical questions that already plagued me which actually pushed me over. I only left religion when my emotional world grew too dark to sustain it.

And so, the irony of my own personal story is that I’m grateful to God for what He personally did to me, the asshole, because now I am able to not believe in Him in the first place.

It’s Hashgacha, really.

Loopholes

Good news: if you have money, even being A Good Jew in The Eyes of God™ is easier.

Instead of slaving away getting your house clean for Passover, just sell your house to a non-Jew (awesome loophole, Rabbis!) and go to the nearest tropical resort you can find. There, you can enjoy a five star experience that is Approved in The Eyes of God and Man while being entertained by the most inspiring Rabbis money can buy. Wouldn’t want any of that inspiration running dry, would you now.

Because sometimes, Judaism is all about the letter of the law.

Do I own any leavened bread today? No, because somehow one sorry Arab bought all of the city’s bread at the same time.

Is this the live hair of a married woman you are seeing? (the horror!) No, I cut it off and made it into a wig, mothefucker.

Am I carrying outside the zone on Shabbat? Nope, because see those telephone poles?

Did I just make an interest payment on a loan? No, because of that sign on that wall.

And other times, it’s all about the spirit.

Can you have all of your lights and TV and coffee maker automated on Shabbat? Nope, because you’d be missing the point.

Can you fuck a married woman using a condom, since condoms are like, totally spilling seed? Nope, because dude, you’re hitting the point.

Can a woman have a slit in her dress if it doesn’t show any prohibited skin? C’mon! It’s all about whether she’s arousing men, not what part of the body is actually showing.

When does the distinction get made? No one knows for sure. Or, more accurately, “the Rabbis are in disagreement on the subject”. In reality? This is just another expression of social norms – some things just made it in, others are still taboo.

Stop pretending this is part of some higher order and admit you’re just a bunch of fucking people trying to make sense out of life by arbitrarily following a certain set of rules – rules that still evolve, just in a different way than anyone else would call normal.

You claim to be resistant to change, preserving the ways of tradition. In reality you look nothing like Jews, or Judaism, or Israel looked like in the past – you just evolve at your own glacial pace, with your own stupid justifications.

You’re at least as dumb as everybody else.


After a certain Rabbi I knew all too well came out publicly as having had an affair with a married woman, while also reassuring people that there was no “actual transgression” involved due to the absence of penis-in-vagina penetration (can’t remember the exact bullshit language), I reposed this book cover with the following divrey chizuk:

Raboisay. In light of recent events, rachmana litzlan, it’s worth bringing up a recent point I’ve made so eloquently and humbly in the past. As we all know, sometimes it’s the most obvious points that need chizuk, especially if you’re delusional.

Religion is used as a supposed framework for morality:
“Who are we to trust ourselves? To know what’s right?

We need guidance! We need direction! We need clarification!

How many grams of cheese can fall into your cholent before you become a morally repugnant person? How many days old does a fetus need to be for it to be called a murderous abortion? Tell us, oh Torah written when we still thought the sun revolves around us. You know best.

In fact, the opposite is true:

When you look to a book to define what is wrong and right, it’s much easier to engage in the mental acrobatics we all do to justify your behaviors. It’s one thing to rationalize your shit, we all do that. It’s another to have God’s book on your side backing up your hair-splitting insights.

Let’s all take it upon ourselves to be mischazek in speaking as yeshivishly as possible and also not being total fucking idiots about what we KNOW is wrong or right, bullshit religious justifications notwithstanding.

V’hameivin yovin. 

Chumash as an Instagram Post

I think I was still religious when I made these. The writing was on the wall. Facebook wall, that is.

No Bad Questions

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.

My Rabbi is Bigger

If I had a dollar for every time someone told me this, I’d have enough money to start my own religion. Or at least my own congregation. Same difference, really.

Everyone seems to have some magical elusive Judaism that I’m missing out on.
“Your Judaism is not like my Judaism.”
“You should meet Rabbi Feiglebaum. He’s great, and he’s not even judgmental!”
“There’s this great book/shiur/podcast I’m reading, you should check it out.”

Here’s my question. How did I, with all my 14 years of Torah study, miss out on such a core part of this supposed Judaism? If it’s such an important insight/attitude/approach, where the fuck has it been this whole time?

God certainly knew exactly how to make it clear just how fucked you’d be if you crossed him. But somehow he, in his Infinite Wisdom TM, neglected to mention that amazing Kabbalistic insight until it was discovered in the 16th century and can now only be accessed in a dinky weekly class on a side street in nachlaot you’ve been going to?

Furthermore. Not one person has been able to articulate to me what this elusively amazing Judaism actually is. It’s always this exasperated sigh, “Oh dear, if only you’d had my amazing 3rd grade teacher you’d know the truth.”

“Tsk tsk, seems you’re just a bit too late to be open to hearing the amazing seminar that is mostly based off Buddhism but has a bit of some contemporary Rabbi’s ideas thrown in.”

If you’ve got some amazing insight, say it. I’d like to believe I can respectfully hear it. So far all I’ve got is some amorphous references to the Nirvana behind the paywall, some Scientology level I don’t have access to because I haven’t paid enough.

Musings on Religion

Recently, in light of recent events, a friend of mine asked to have a call with me, which was quite awesome, and to record it, which was cool.

We ended up discussing a whole bunch of stuff – why I write this stuff on Facebook and what it’s been like for me. Following your intuition vs. your mind. Self actualization vs. self awareness. My attitude towards self discipline.

The emotional liberation of dropping religion. My relationship with money and frugality – and how I see financial literacy in my family and society. On having children, being a father, and the guilt of parenting.

My views on marriage – in Judaism and in general. On loneliness, happiness, and dropping out of rabbinical school.

Since I was only able to record my side, it came out as an almost hour long monologue. It’s like a podcast with no interviewer and no defined subject. Dream come true, right?

So if you’ve been following my posts but also want to hear my sultry voice (I was fighting a cold, so even sexier than normal), or if your idea of a good time is listening to me talk for an hour, this recording is for you.

Kiruv Oxymorons for the Ages

It took me a long time to realize this, but the kiruv system pulls some really sophisticated mindfucks while trying to convince people about the “truth” of religion.

They will basically play both sides of an idea – contradicting themselves but making some convincing arguments in the process. Until you realize that they just got done using the exact opposite logic to make a different point a few minutes ago.

Here are some of my favorites:

Science is dumb and inaccurate, and is influenced by popular agendas”

Also,

This famous scientist agrees with our point, so it must be true”

Christians and Muslims are dumb and mislead, everything they say is bullshit”

Also,

Even Christians and Muslims agree about the veracity of the Torah, so it must be true

You can’t just follow the mindless masses. A bunch of zeros can’t add up to 1.

Also,

Wanna know what the best-selling book of all time is? The Bible.

Look at how immoral everybody else is. Reading the news makes our eyes cry and our heart ache. It makes you That’s why you need Torah as a moral guide.

Also,

Oh, that terrible law that’s in the Torah? That’s actually moral because God said so.

Look how happy the Torah makes us. You too can be happy if only you’d follow it!

Also,

Oh, that unhappy person keeping the Torah? That law that makes you unhappy? The Torah is not supposed to make you happy. It’s just the truth.

Don’t use emotions to arrive at ‘truth’; use the calculating logic of your mind.

Also,

Now that you’ve arrived at truth, please suspend your own logic and just do what you’re told.

Other nation’s folklore is bullshit, just a bunch fairy tales spun around campfires.

Also,

The epic of Gilgamesh proves Noah’s flood happened, and they actually found hieroglyphics in Egypt that allude to the plagues!

What other religion speaks so openly about the flaws of its leaders?

Also,

Well, actually, the Talmud explains that King David’s sin really wasn’t so bad.

The Torah holds truth for every generation.

Also,

Our generation is very distant from truth and is therefore misguided.

Got your own favorite oxymoron? Post it in the comments. Who knows, maybe you’ll even make someone frum in the process.

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