The New Idea Sure Sounds Old?

I wonder what it must be like to be someone who thinks he has all the answers. How does his car run? What is his marriage like? Does he sleep soundly? Do birds acknowledge him? Do the trees bow to his superior intellect?

Suddenly, everywhere I look, the pseudo intellectuals write their whiny diatribes on every blog in every corner of Jewish cyberspace. They call those who they look down upon names, mock their lifestyle, brow beat them with nonsense, until those who are subjected to their incessant, sophomoric, pompousness turn away in disgust and wonder what sort of miserable person lives this way?

If it wasn't so sad it would be funny.

There is a new form of religious intellectualism which goes by the name of Orthoprax Jews. A term they lovingly give themselves. If I understand the theory behind it correctly, they are the Jews who go through the motions of a religious lifestyle with no real belief system to back it up. They don't believe in the Validity of Torah, they don't believe in Revelation at sinai and the exodus from Egypt and they don't believe in a Creator. They hang onto their religious facade because they are too deep into it. They have a wife who believes in G-d much to their dismay and children who do the same. They abhor the teffilin they wear, the shabbat candles they light and the prayers they say. Most of all, they disgust in the illusionary G-d they pray to.

Do they think they are the first Jews to behave this way or just the smartest?

Yet through all of this, I feel for them. I feel the pain in their helplessness, the sorrow in their anguish and the emptiness in their lives. I wish they had what I have. They would call me child-like, naive', uneducated and even lost. I may be all of that. Or I might have what they have never had.

When they think about my Creator, they think of his nonexistence. When I think about Him, I think of his Omnipotence. When they think of my Sustainer, they think he is wicked and evil, when I think of Him, I am overwhelmed by His Goodness. When they think of my Rock, they think of nothing, when I think of Him I think He is everything.

With every peek from around the struggle of the Orthoprax corner, there, laying in wait for him, is the atheist waiting to pounce of his fragility. They regale him with anti semitic german theories about the fabrication of Torah and ask him to join their brilliant assault on the uneducated masses. They attack all that he used to believe in and dress their theories up with higher learning, luring them in with the faux intellectualism that spits on the graves of their forefathers. The new enlightened ones smell fresh blood and ascend on them with a vengeance.

What they can't ever answer in their quest to destroy G-d is how the Jews--the uneducated, archaic 7th century shtettle clinging Jews are still here. How did they survive the most powerful armies known to mankind. How did they survive the treachery of the Romans, the assimilation of the greeks, the savagery of the Cossacks and the ruthlessness of the germans? How did that happen? Interestingly enough, the majority of the perpetrators of such evil, were themselves convinced of their own intellectual superiority and enlightenment. The godless knew better what to do with the G-d fearing. Yet each time, the Jew, him of the backwards old fashioned Torah is true clinging belief, survived while he bore witness to the death of them all.

"I shall bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you."

In the coming days I will address this struggle. To my fellow Jews who grapple with their servitude, do not give up hope. There is an answer to your confusion. I know.

I have been there.

And I have survived.

What can I offer?

I apologize again for not writing 'til now. Family health issues have dominated the landscape. It is a topic related to that issue that I wanted to write about-or at least the helplessness that comes with it.

I won't really go into what exactly the issues are within the family, but my thoughts have been directed towards the proper response in a crisis like this. Being raised FFB, you're taught that your first response should be to daven to Hasham and pray for help and health. Well, that would be everyone else. My first response? How in the world will my prayers help? I KNOW Hashem doesn't want to hear from me.

I cannot even begin to count the massive amounts of ways I have fallen short of the throne each and every day let alone my entire life, and I cannot even fathom how my creator wants to hear anything from me, or on top of that asking him for a favor I clearly do not deserve. Maybe it's easy for some people who know they have sinned and find it no problem to ask Hashem for his help. I find it almost impossible...does Hashem really want to hear praise from me?

How disappointed must he be in me and what I have done with my life? Do I really have any legs to stand on by asking Him for help with my child? Say Tehillim? I think that's better left for those who have far less baggage than I...

I get the fact that Raish Lakish was a stage coach robber and thief by trade and found his way to Torah. I get the fact that Nevezadrun killed hundreds of thousands of Jews and became a convert worthy of having Torah scholars as grandchildren. I've learned all about them all and have learned all about the Glory and Loving Kindness of the Creator, but I STILL cannot find it in myself to address the Holy One as if I have the right to.

Trust me, I'm not looking for a rebbi, an intermediary or a false prophet to pray on my behalf. I'm just looking to get past my vast array of misdeeds that may have been the cause for this family illness in the first place. The helplessness and loneliness I feel is palapable and weighs on me like a thousand pound gorilla. I know that the point of Judaism is that Ad yom mosso tichake lo-until the day of man's death Hashem accepts his Teshuva-I get all of that....I just feel so powerless....

I don't want to lead you to believe I do not daven three times a day-G-d forbid-but I must say that I do so feeling embarrassed that it is through me that praises to Hashem are spoken. How absurd... Surely there must be someone more worthy than I?

As another beautiful Shabbos approaches, I am hoping that the holiness of Shabbos will overcome my shortcomings and serve as a refuah for our child. Nevertheless, I will greet the Shabbos Queen with the same question that haunts me each and every waking moment....

Who am I?