I guess I really was tired....been almost a month since I posted anything.
I read a post somewhere recently from a girl who was in seminary at some point and that she was at a non-jewish party and was much happier there than she was at her "parties" from high school where the girls would kumzits etc. She said that the non jewish world made her feel more accepted and were much more accepting of her differences. Wow, what a sad commentary.
I immediately thought of the "kiss" eisav gave to Yaakov on his neck and how that was actually a bite-come and join us, it's much nicer on this side of life.
Then I actually asked the more important question-why is it that we are so unaccepting?
Here's a question for you. Do any of you have friends who are homosexual? (I have a few by the way and while they know I don't approve of the lifestyle and we've talked about it extensively, they are Jews and I am commanded by Hashem to love them just the same as any other brother). I recall our Rabbi writing a few months ago about homosexuals who work hard to live a Torah lifestyle and that means not having any sex etc. just so they can walk in the Derech Hashem. (don't think he could have spoke about it from the pulpit) Well, I didn't get the article until well after Shul and I bumped into a man who sits a few rows in front of me. I asked him what this was about and he said something to the effect of "he was only on the first page but it was about the gays-we just need to kill all of them-just wipe 'em out-keep 'em away from our kids" Well of course the Rabbis take was a bit different. I was thinking walking home, what happens if you replace his word gays with jews?
I think we have found it in our hearts to accept the man who cheats on his wife, steals from his friends, who lies in business...and I am sure I can find plenty of abominations that we tolerate. But why is it that we are so unaccepting and or judgemental. Misnagdim vs chassidim? Reform and cons. vs orthodox? Men vs woman?
I think the answer in why we are like this is in our yeshivas. Anyone and I mean anyone, who has been to a yeshiva knows all about the racism and judgements of our rabbeim and the culture within the yeshiva itself. To deny that it exists is dishonest at it's very core. I remember writing to someone when I was a teenager-from yeshiva of course-and I wrote something a bit racist and she wrote back that she would have thought that we, the Jews, would be a bit more understanding of others who are less fortunate and or oppressed. Oooppss..Seems that's not the way it is.
I think it's even more than that. Maybe it has something to do with out "rightness". We have the Torah and maybe we think that makes us the arbitor of right and wrong even while our personal moral compass is clouded by our own arrogance. What makes the whole thing ironic to me, is that the very source we use to show us right from wrong and to be used as our moral conscience, is the same "source" that we use to pass judgement on our felow man, which of course leads to unacceptance of all those we decipher as right or wrong. Something to think about.
I have quite a few more reasons why we have failed to embrace our fellow man, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Have a great Shabbos and please say Good Shabbos to everyone you see-male or female.
3 comments:
I think you hit the nail directly on the head - arrogance. The only difference between David Duke and his white supremicists and the cheredi and their supremicist ideology is that while there cheredi concept also includes white people, Duke's certainly does not include Jewish people.
The ideology is incredibly destructive to common everyday morality. If you are supreme and everyone else is barely human or sub-human, then it is easy to justify in your mind that anything that happens to them either a) doesn't matter to you, or b) is ok if it benefits you, or c) is evidence of "their" bigotry if it has a negative effect.
Their own bigotry is never acknowledged to others, but is shouted from the bimas to their own congregations - rather like the Islamic Imams who speak jihad and hatred to their congregations but turn around to the English speaking media and say something nice and moderate sounding - knowing the English speakers will buy it because they want to feel like everything is ok.
The Rabbinate does it slightly differently - instead of crying jihad, they cry that everyone else has a jihad against them. Anything that impinges upon their money, power, and control is "anti-semitic" and "Jew-bashing" regardless of how accurate a criticism may be. How dare those sub-human creatures and apostates criticize us!
It's sickening - and there is no cure except to become apostates ourselves, because the cheredi mindset will never be reformed from within. It is rotten to the core.
Herd mentality?
Now that I think of it, part of it is fear. They can't stand anyone who decides to do something differently because it gives the impression that they are doing it wrong. They have to react with violent rejection to anything that threatens their own sense of "rightness." They have so much emotionally invested in unrealistic goals that they can't give them up, and since they know that they have failed in some thing or another, they pounce on someone else who is doing something differently to make themselves feel better - "see? I'm not as bad as that!" Always there lurks in the back of their minds - what if all this isn't the way that Hashem wants us to be? What if we're doing in wrong? They can't stand that thought, so they push it away and it manifests itself as hatred of any "other."
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