(I originally posted this elsewhere, hence the casual tone.)
So I found a couple of things since I moved to W&M.
First, when I came here I was really into halacha and stuff and I really hated that I had to live with people who were ONLY in to the “cultural aspects” and were literally just secular Jews or whatever who only came to Hillel stuff because they were catered. I hated those people so much. But now I’m finding that I’m not observant hardly at all anymore, no matter how much I try to bring it back it’s not going well. So I’m really (despite myself) seeing what it’s like to be a “cultural Jew” or whatever for the first time ever. It’s odd and I don’t know if this is a good thing or not…
But before I came here I wasn’t into Zionism or Israel or Hebrew or whatever, and now I’m listening to Diwon’s Sabra Sessions mixtape while sitting next to a book on “Contemporary Halakhic Problems” after just learning some Modern Hebrew. I’m so obviously not into the synagogue or reading the parsha these days, but I’m still into Judaism. And I never thought that was possible until I moved here. I don’t know if it’s good or bad (and I WISH I still could figure this out while still being observant but eh) but perhaps it’s a good lesson I guess…because before, I was pretty terrified that if I ever got to be less religious or whatever then Judaism would also fade away.
Even though I hate thinking of things in my life as “lessons.”
Not good to be figuring this out while you’re trying to convert to Orthodoxy, but hopefully it will get better if I move to Brooklyn.
I also learned that I’m getting really annoyed with the halachic process. The Reform rabbi here just gave me two books of responsa “to compare” between the Reform and Orthodox responsa processes, and I’m really annoyed at the Orthodox one. (The Reform one was from the 1920′s, so I mostly thought of that as an educational experience.) But it was stupid because one of the Orthodox questions was whether women can count in the minyan (1985). And the whole thing was about how the Conservative position was wrong, which is OK because the Conservative position has its flaws. BUT the thing I hated was how nonchalantly the author was all like “The precedent for ‘ten men’ can be found in the spies.” No. The precedence for ten PEOPLE was found in the spies. But he just said it like no one was going to question. And probably no one WOULD question, so long as they liked his answer.
Also he argued that women can’t count because they don’t have the obligation to public prayer, but that’s circular. If they did, then they would. And anyway, men DON’T have an OBLIGATION. It’s only “strongly preferred.” The idea of obligation started in the 1500′s, and it didn’t come from Shulhan Aruch, it came from Mordechai Yaffe.
Oy.
The thing that annoys me is that he kept pulling out random impertinent sources like that proved his point or something, like bring up a “big name” will always win. Which so doesn’t fly in philosophy, but apparently it’s OK in halacha. I just got the feeling that I was merely reading the codified opinions of a bunch of old men who at the end of the day are more interested in ego stroking than with emulating the sages.
You know what though? Judaism is more than halacha, because it’s more than a bunch of old men in their ivory tower.
Most of my Jewish experiences have been through a secular/cultural lens. I don’t go to temple much because of my social anxiety, too, so. But I’d still like to think of myself as pretty Jewish, as it’s still a major factor in my everyday life.
In short, you’ll figure everything out regarding that eventually. You may end up at a vastly different place than you thought you’d be.
Oh, I’m sure. It will be interesting to see.
I *never* thought I’d be trying to convert to Orthodoxy, so who knows, maybe I’ll become a Reform rabbi in the end for all I know.
I mostly don’t go to the synagogue because it feels like a country club…you’re not missing a lot, if you ask me..
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head as far as why some people (particularly intellectuals) have a tough time becoming Orthodox if they were raised outside of that community/culture. While there’s no question that there are some wonderful values there (and I admire their integrity and devotion to their beliefs even if I don’t share them all), I think there’s a big difference in accepting the basic tenants of Jewish theology and accepting all the minutiae of rabbinic procedure and precedent that’s evolved over the last several thousand years. Even up to a few generations ago (particularly among the Sefardic communities), there seemed to be a sense of proportion; people understood what the most important aspects were, understood what they should *try* to be working on, and the rest was more or less left up to the individual or community to determine for itself. Today that’s radically different, for a few reasons. Technology has made communication so much easier that today if you want to know what a rabbi thinks about a given issue, you can find out what all the major ones think in a very short amount of time (which can be good but also an information overload). Changes in technology and society also mean that old issues that people couldn’t really worry about too much are now able to be moved up on the priority list. My wife just finished reading Sue Fishkoff’s book on the kashrut industry, and it’s incredible how much it’s been changed by increasing science and technology, but also by the trend among the frum community to always have a conservative reaction to new scientific information. While I think it’s very important to connect ethics to food consumption and production, the idea that God gets mad or my soul will be “poisoned” if I eat a strawberry is something I just can’t wrap my head around. To go back to denominational stereotypes: If Refomies are uneducated and Conservatives are inconsistent, then the Orthodox have a major case of OCD. And yeah, the fact that you have this huge corpus of history and tradition is great, except that you also have the legal baggage of all the major rabbinical decisions that are now binding on you and your community– and that’s without even getting into the new chumrot that keep coming out from the Haredi community (some of which, invariably, wind up trickling into MO as a way to shore up their base and reassure themselves that they really are as Orthodox as those guys in black hats.)
Unless you’ve got a lot of faith in the Orthodox belief system or are extremely inspired by the community aspect, at a certain point all the focus on “little things’ can become a bit of a turn-off. It would be easier to swallow the line that “little things matter” if the list of forbidden things didn’t seem to be exponentially increasing.
Yeah, I could agree with that. There are things, of course, that are turn-offs in each denomination,and it’s just that with Orthodoxy it’s right there in black and white. I also believe that it’s probably only become much worse recently.
all the major rabbinical decisions that are now binding on you and your community
I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with the (modern?) halachic process if it weren’t so openly a product of a very specific and closed group of people who know nothing about me or my concerns. It’s too far removed, I guess, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear it’s a product of technology (i.e. Now that we *know* what the major rabbinical decisions are, community poskim supposedly don’t matter as much anymore).
new chumrot that keep coming out from the Haredi community (some of which, invariably, wind up trickling into MO as a way to shore up their base and reassure themselves that they really are as Orthodox as those guys in black hats
…Yeah. Still holding out for Open Orthodoxy to be a thing.